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Immigration remains hot-button political issue

   Gov. Spitzer’s fixation on permanent driver’s licenses for all foreign nationals, documented or not, created a national issue that will favor Republicans next November. The recent local elections revealed the electorate’s overwhelming support for candidates, regardless of party, who rallied against his license plan.
   This issue is a lose-lose situation for Democratic candidates. They lose the far left if they oppose licenses for illegal immigrants. They lose the center if they don’t. It is no small wonder that most candidates have skirted the issue or “danced” around it, as did Hillary Clinton.
   The license issue is a springboard that brings up the whole immigration fi asco that I suspect has played a major role in the low presidential and congressional poll ratings. When immigration is discussed, Democrats will alienate a significant portion of their party no matter which side of the issue they take on amnesty, border control, sanctuary cities or enforcing existing immigration law.
Democrats who want to win an election next year would be well-advised to take “dancing” lessons.
WALLACE J. HUGHES
Charlton  

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Immigrant crime
unit created in NYC

    NEW YORK — Immigrants who live in Manhattan and have been victimized by violence, fraud or other crimes or who are aware of illegal activity can now report the incidents without fearing arrest and deportation if they are in the country illegally.
    The borough’s district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, announced Tuesday that he has created a unit to address issues that confront immigrants who live there, whether they are there legally or not, and to prosecute people who prey on them.
    “Their immigration status will not be reported if they are victims of crimes or are cooperating witnesses,” Morgenthau said.
    Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer praised the creation of the unit, the only one in the city’s five boroughs, saying, “The lowlifes who prey on immigrants because they think immigrants have no legal way of fighting back — I think that changes today.”
    Morgenthau’s position on immigrants’ legal status is consistent with stances taken by New York and several other cities, including San Francisco and Miami, that have adopted sanctuary policies for immigrants, but not with recent federal law.
    In 1989, Democratic Mayor Edward Koch issued an order barring city employees from reporting immigrants’ legal status to federal officials. That rule continued under Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and he has had to defend it in the current race for his party’s presidential nomination.
    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of Giuliani’s Republican rivals, said sanctuary cities encourage illegal immigration and those cities should be denied federal money. He called New York “the poster child for sanctuary cities.”
    The federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 voided cities’ rules against their workers reporting a person’s immigration status to federal authorities. Giuliani challenged the law and lost.
    New York has since adopted what amounts to a don’t-ask-don’ttell policy.
    Morgenthau said his office handles 110,000 cases a year and one-third of them involve people who don’t speak English. He cited cases involving undocumented day laborers, hired by contractors and paid one-fourth to one-half as much as unionized workers.

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December 20, 2007
Feliz Navidad: Are Illegal Aliens Working Next To & Inside ICE Headquarters?


By Debbie Schlussel

While cowardly Senators were quick to confirm Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chieftess Julie L. Myers a/k/a "The ICE Princess," it appears she's not too quick to do anything . . . even outside her office window. I received this e-mail from one of her many demoralized ICE agents:

There is a large construction site next door to the ICE headquarters building in DC.
There are hundreds of employees doing construction at this site, many of whom are
believed to be undocumented aliens from Central America. You can literally throw a
stone and hit the site from the headquarters side of the street. Are we doing anything
about it? Of course not. An illegal alien is always safest right outside the building it wood
seem. It is believed there are even quite a few working inside HQ as food servers, etc.  
Who knows, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me. Most amazing as of late is that during
the ICE Christmas party she said "ICE is the envy of other federal agencies." Which ones
would that be? Perhaps those obscure federal agencies in developing countries? Certainly
we aren't the envy of any agencies here in the United States. Luckily, no one showed up
at the party as Santa in "Black face." . . . The abscence of leadership here is grotesque!
Here is to another year of more of the same.

Do you really think that The ICE Princess would allow illegal aliens to work as foodservers even in her own building? Don't rule it out. While she'd probably try to avoid that embarrassment, she was, after all, the person who gave an award to a "Blackface" costume. And, as I reported after Hurrican Katrina struck, agents told me that ICE employed illegal alien foodservers in New Orleans to feed agents who were workin in relief efforts. So, nothing is beyond the pale when a clownette is running the show.

P.T. Barnum and Ringling had nothing on this circus. Feliz Navidad!

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Foreigners should assimilate, or quit U.S.

    Re Dec. 16 AP article by Jeff Karoub, “More Muslim girls play sports wearing head scarves”: Reading Mr. Karoub’s article gave me heartburn.
    I thought we were a country of separation of church and state. What has religion to do with playing sports? It is time to dismiss political correctness and send the immigrants who will not accept our customs back to their country of origin.
    What happened to assimilation? My grandfather came to central New York approximately 100 years ago at age 12. He definitely assimilated; for he not only became a successful businessman, but early in his career, he moved from the Italian section to the Anglo-Saxon section of town. Why should the current immigrants be treated with special deference? He certainly was not!
    This lack of present-day assimilation definitely weakens the original intentions of our immigration policy.
    NICHOLAS D. PROCINO
    Schenectady

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Can find 1 obscure cow, but not 11 million illegals

    Is it just me, or does anyone else fi nd it amazing that during the Mad Cow epidemic, our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept, in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each illegal alien a cow.
    JERRY BOEHM
    Albany

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Change immigration policy so that all are welcome in America

    Amy Chua, Yale Law School professor, wrote a most interesting view of immigration in our country [Dec. 16 Washington Post, “The right road to America”].
    Let us not forget the following, which is part of a message on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty, and written by American poet Emma Lazarus in 1883:
    “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempesttost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
    I feel there should be no quotas, no “illegals.” Immigrants came here in unbelievable numbers in the late 1890s and early 1900s. They contributed to our nation’s health and wealth. Today’s immigrants are doing that also. Part of the illegal situation is that there are not enough employees to process the paperwork to make “illegals” legal. The criteria for immigrants only need be that those with communicable diseases, and those who are criminals, would not be welcome.
    Furthermore, our nation should continue to help developing nations fl ourish so that people do not have to leave their homes. This is a far better use of our money than building a $9 billion wall and using expensive devices to keep people out.
    RITA REDLICH
    Guilderland