February 5th, 2009

Illegal Immigrants - GO HOME

by lyle e davis

Welcome!

If you are a legal immigrant to the United States of America, we extend our hand in welcome. If you are illegal, you have broken the law and you need to go back to wherever you came from. You are not welcome here.

Simple: Come here legally, you are welcome. Come here illegally, you’re not.

We are very puzzled at the inability of otherwise intelligent people to grasp this common sense statement of facts. Largely because San Diego County is so close to the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal immigration has long been a controversial topic here. Thousands of migrants illegally cross the border through the region each year, although it's one of the most heavily fortified areas in the country, with double fencing along much of the county's border with Mexico.

There are no hard figures, but a 2006 study estimated that about 272,000 illegal immigrants were living in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties. The Latino population in North County has skyrocketed since the 1990s, reaching more than 40 percent in Escondido and San Marcos. Of that number, we don’t really know how many are illegal immigrants because of what many think are goofy rules that prohibit inquiring as to the citizenship status of a student, a patient, or anyone receiving taxpayer funded services. Logic would suggest that we, as taxpayers, have every right to know whether a recipient of taxpayer money is a legal resident or a citizen. If they are, more power to them. Let’s help them out. If they are illegal . . . sorry, go back home, where you belong.

Many of the immigrants settle in our area to work in the hospitality, agriculture and construction industries. Those were among the industries most affected by the slumping economy, leaving many illegal immigrants out of steady employment in 2008.

Many who once held steady jobs in construction and other industries found themselves competing for fewer and fewer jobs as day laborers. Many have either returned home or are thinking seriously about it. With little or no work, there’s very little reason to stay here.

Efforts to fight the illegal immigration problem were dealt a setback in the Nov. 4 election, when Escondido voters ousted Ed Gallo, one of the council's most outspoken anti-illegal immigration voices.

Gallo lost his seat to Olga Diaz, a Latina Democrat who opposed many of the earlier proposals aimed at illegal immigrants. Her win breaks the narrow majority held by those who were responsible for those efforts, council members Gallo, Marie Waldron and Sam Abed. The city was handed a legal victory in September when a federal judge allowed the city to continue impounding cars for 30 days if drivers are caught without a license.

The Escondido Police Department has seized nearly 10,000 vehicles in the last three years from unlicensed drivers, many of them at checkpoints, according to records provided by the city. In the same time period, Oceanside impounded 4,422 vehicles and Carlsbad impounded 705 vehicles.

In what some observers, including this one, think is more goofy logic, civil rights groups and many Latino activists say the checkpoints unfairly target illegal immigrants, who are ineligible for driver's licenses and are forced to drive illegally to work, to visit doctors, and on other necessary trips.

Huh? They are forced to drive illegally? They are here illegally? They are ineligible for driver’s licenses? Because they are illegals? Hello? Is anyone home?

We hear about the “violation of the rights of illegal aliens.â€