August 28, 2007
What cities can do to fight illegal immigration

Op-ed piece submitted to RCSD by Escondido City Councilwoman Marie Waldron

What cities can do to fight illegal immigration
by Marie Waldron, City Councilmember, City of Escondido, CA

While the Sanctuary City movement appears to be growing nationwide, spurred by weak-kneed politicians interested only in their re-elections, there is an alternative movement gaining strength in cities all across the land. When local governments come to the realization that the federal government has failed to do its job of enforcing immigration law, they must step in for their own protection.

The effect of illegal immigration is 100% local. Therefore the effect of the federal government's failing to enforce its immigration laws is also 100% local. From long waits in emergency rooms, to hospitals closing their doors, to impacts on schools, social services, jails, code enforcement, police, and neighborhoods, we are under siege in our cities from a federal government that refuses to beef up internal enforcement and secure our borders.

From a local government perspective, cities are an important piece in the battle for our national sovereignty. By bringing these issues to the forefront, as Hazeltine, PA, Farmers Branch, Texas and the City of Escondido, CA have done, forces action on the debate.

In 2004, the Escondido city council supported a resolution backing the creation of a state border police, championed by Senator Ray Haynes, to enforce immigration law within California. We were the first city in the state to take that stand and others followed our lead. While that initiative failed to gather enough signatures statewide, it brought the
issue into the forefront. In 2005, we fought and won the fight to prevent the Mexican Consular General's office from setting up a mobile storefront to dole out foreign ID cards to illegals in our city. And in 2006, we raised the ire of the ACLU and liberals everywhere by supporting on a 3-2 vote an ordinance that bans renting property to illegal immigrants. While that ordinance was struck down by a single Federal judge here with the 9th circuit as the only avenue of appeal, we await the appeal of Hazaltine's ordinance to make our next move. Costa Mesa, CA has trained 40 deputies as immigration officers under the MOU 287(g) program. Cities can work in tandem to set the pace and effect change - all over the country. Sometimes our attempts are struck down, but other efforts are successful.

There are other things cities can and should do to fight the impacts of illegal immigration within their borders. First and foremost, cities must take a stand against sanctuary status. For example, in January of this year, I placed a resolution on the council agenda to affirm our commitment to continue the fight against the illegal immigration invasion. This
resolution passed 3-2 and clearly stated that Escondido is NOT a sanctuary city and will work to enforce all laws of the United States and formally petition the federal government to come to the aid of cities in the immigration battle, including stepping up internal enforcement.

The city council has also supported a police policy to aggressively deport criminal aliens. The updated policy puts Escondido on the forefront of local law enforcement through using a cutting edge approach to work closely and consistently with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in dealing with both felony and misdemeanor offenders. Anyone caught driving without a license, no insurance and no valid form of ID will be transferred to the city's ICE agent housed at the Escondido Police Department. Escondido is unique in having an on-site ICE agent assigned to our police department and is able to deal with various scenarios, including local gang enforcement and other criminal acts. We are holding two driver's license check points each month, towing vehicles of unlicensed drivers and sending the drivers to our ICE agent for identification and the formal deportation process.

In April, our police chief stated Escondido had approximately 650+ hit & run vehicle accidents per year, and many, many unlicensed drivers are found through the use of bi-monthly license checkpoints. Now we are reporting a 24% decrease in hit and runs just in five months of effort! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand our citizens are at a safety risk and we need to do what we can to correct the problem.

Police chiefs and city councils should research how the MOU 287(g) could work for them. I fully support working toward training several police officers as immigration officers to have even further aggressive, comprehensive enforcement.

Next month, Escondido will vote on overnight parking restrictions aimed at reducing overcrowding in neighborhoods. This will have a huge positive effect on the health and safety conditions and while not directly related to illegal immigration, the illegal activists are loudly protesting this ordinance and we are looking forward to a lively council meeting.

Cities are charged with ensuring the health and safety of our citizens. Traffic enforcement, enforcing the health and safety codes and transferring all misdemeanor and felony arrestees to ICE for verification are legal steps in the right direction for cities to address criminal violators in our cities while we wait for the feds to act.

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