What took so long? The House has finally moved against the Obama administration’s shameless immigration policy with the Judiciary Committee’s approval of a subpoena for Homeland Security. With all the talk from the White House and DHS about their new criminals-only approach to enforcement, will we finally get some legally binding numbers on what the administration has chosen to do with illegal immigrants who are taken into custody?
What we usually get is nonsense from a Homeland Security secretary more concerned with backing her boss’s demands for amnesty than doing her job. Recent comments from Janet Napolitano in response to the administration’s lawsuit against South Carolina suggest that there may be a difference between the “most serious” criminal illegals viewed worthy of deportation, and others considered not so serious:
This kind of legislation diverts critical law enforcement resources from the most serious threats to public safety and undermines the vital trust between local jurisdictions and the communities they serve, while failing to address the underlying problem: the need for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level.¹
We have heard the line about resources before. The questions we want answered are what happens to illegal immigrants we do have the resources to apprehend, and what Napolitano means by “most serious.”
The president and Homeland Security have made immigration enforcement far too complicated. The whole process would be a lot easier if we were not forced to pick and choose between who leaves and who gets to stay, and just agree that illegal immigrants need to go. This is what makes state immigration measures so neat and tidy. The state immigration laws the Justice Department finds so offensive are a lot less discriminatory than the new federal approach because they do not choose between good illegal immigrants and bad illegal immigrants. Illegals are here in violation of the law, they sap taxpayer resources both the president and Napolitano agree are in short supply, and they should be removed as expeditiously as possible.
The Justice Department’s press release announcing the South Carolina lawsuit at least had honesty on its side:
South Carolina’s law clearly conflicts with the policies and priorities adopted by the federal government and therefore cannot stand.²
“Adopted” is the important word. The laws on our books are being ignored, and hazy new policies were imposed to keep immigrant special interests happy. The press release went on to say that:
South Carolina’s law is designed to further criminalize unauthorized immigrants and, like the Arizona and Alabama laws, expands the opportunity for police to push unauthorized immigrants towards incarceration for various new immigration crimes by enforcing an immigration status verification system.³
Not all Americans have a problem with this approach. More offensive are dim-witted Obama administration fabrications about Hispanics being the future of our country (see: Obama Gives His Chosen a Slogan), and about brilliant immigrant entrepreneurs who will put Americans back to work if we fix our immigration system. If there are immigrants with the savvy and smarts to rescue us from the ruin visited on the economy by this administration, they will find a way to come here legally, and will not demand a free education for their kids the moment they arrive.
Pleas from Washington to pay for more teachers and first responders should fall on deaf ears, and arouse anger when we hear that states like Alabama are banned from checking the immigration status of those enrolling in our schools. Now that the GOP is finding its voice on immigration, the removal status of criminal immigrants is also at issue. Given the slogans, doublespeak, and hyperbole we are used to hearing from Janet Napolitano, do not expect a lot to come from this first subpoena. Just be happy that someone got the ball rolling. If nothing else, we might get a few laughable sound bites from our Homeland Security secretary.
1..The United States Department of Justice. Office of Public Affairs. Department of Justice Challenges South Carolina’s Immigration Law. October 31, 2011. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/October/11-ag-1429.html, retrieved November 3, 2011.
2..Ibid.
3..Ibid.
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