Chief Barnes, Are You Listening?

A story in Friday’s New York Times has an interesting headline, "Path to Deportation Can Start With a Traffic Stop."

Here’s the URL for the story, so I won’t have to repeat all of it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/nyregion/14jails.html?hp&ex=1145073600&en=16ab5da5a53003f4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

What it says is, basically, that local police are taking it upon themselves to do the job of the Immigration Service, which admits it’s undermanned and overworked (and what federal agency isn’t?, just ask ‘em.)

The point here is that local cops really are the point men and women when it comes to putting people in jail. John Ashcroft never arrested anyone.

The other point is that the ‘illegal’ in ‘illegal alien’ is just as much an illegal act as any other illegal act, like, say, burglary, fraud or trespass, and the job of a cop is to enforce all the laws, not just some of ‘em.

As it stands now, whenever Chief Barnes, or one of his men stops anyone for anything they ask the dispatcher to check for wants and warrants. How hard, with a little cooperation from the Feds, would it be to check immigration status as well?

The reason the immigration laws worked for so many years was because of fear on the part of New Americans that the knock on the door wouldn’t be the preacher, but the immigration man instead. That fear has gone away mostly because we haven’t enforced the laws and because the present wave of immigration stems from an illegal act itself – scaling a fence that says "Keep Out."

I’m normally a big proponent of curbing police powers, especially when enforced by bumpkins and yahoos who should be behind a plow, but when things get so out of hand that the illegals can and do take to the streets demanding their ‘rights,’ then it’s time to give Billy Bob the hammer.

Arjay