Hiring undocumented workers is a crime.
Now they want to criminalize the immigration laws and suck local law enforcement into the process.
We need to take our borders seriously, and passing laws doesn’t do that, spending money to secure them does. Too many people die sneaking into the country, and something needs to be done about it. Physical barriers aren’t going to get it, as the undocumented workers that the contractors will hire to build the barrier will put in gates. The coyotes and drug cartels will be sure of that.
Everyone in this country has the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, no matter how they got here. That’s why the immigration laws aren’t part of the criminal code. If you make them crimes you have to supply attorneys, hold bail hearings, have jury trials, etc. the whole Federal criminal court process. I don’t think the idiots in Congress understand that.
]]>Of course laws can be made which control our borders (and as Bryan has pointed out, they could also be enforced); of course people can be deported if they enter illegally. But while they are here, legally or otherwise, they have most of the same constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens.
The fact that Mr. Bush has often behaved, allegedly in pursuit of his war on a noun, as if illegal immigrants lack these basic constitutional rights has polluted the immigration discussion. Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on immigration policy… who should come here and under what circumstances, whether people should be admitted without any possibility of a “citizenship track,” etc. etc. But as long as fundamental human and civil rights in the Constitution are being blatantly violated… and they are… the discussion is bound to generate more heat than light. Stop jailing people without charge. Stop denying people an attorney. Stop torturing or physically abusing people who are imprisoned or otherwise in custody in the U.S. or territories it controls. Then we can talk reasonably about immigration.
]]>Hmm. Paging Nino “Vaffanculo” Scalia….
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