Posted on 08/27/2005 10:41:10 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Nearly four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government still lacks the commitment and the political will to enforce its immigration laws on a day-to-day basis, immigration specialists and politicians said Friday.
"Not only do the complexities and gray areas of immigration law make it difficult to enforce, but there's been a severe lack of resources and policies over the last decade to deal with them effectively," said Janice Kephart, a former counsel to the 9/11 Commission at a conference titled "Illegal Immigration: Its Impact on America" at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.
The one-day conference was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Coalition for Immigration Reform of California, all of which support tightening restrictions on immigration.
Critical intelligence on terrorist travel indicators is still not being declassified or distributed to front-line officers, Kephart said. Few in the ranks of immigration enforcement have the security clearances necessary to collect information now available on terrorist travel.
While there are only about 2,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to handle interior immigration law enforcement, there are about 700,000 state and local police officers that can help them do that job, said Kris Kobach, a professor at the University of Missouri -- Kansas City School of Law.
Local police officers should be made aware of their inherent legal authority to make immigration arrests if they have probable cause that an individual standing in front of them is present in the country illegally, he said.
Second, local law enforcement agencies should take advantage of a 1996 provision of the law to negotiate agreements with federal officials to be trained to receive the enforcement powers that federal officials have.
Kobach said he was recently dismayed to learn that ICE was intending to scale back the authority so local governments could only apply these enforcement powers in jails.
Third, it would implement departure controls to track who was overstaying their visas and list violators in a national criminal database that any law enforcement officer could access.
"There are many good policy ideas sitting in in-boxes all over the Department of Homeland Security today, but what is missing in many cases, is political will," he said.
But Keynote Speaker Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who has flirted with the idea of running for president, said he believes that the nation is winning the war on illegal immigration.
"We have to be aware that this war on the border was started inside this country by the same radicals who are sabotaging the war in Iraq," he said. "They are communists. They are Anti-American."
He called two recent events "seismic shifts" in the immigration debate, the passage of Prop. 200 in Arizona, which denies social service benefits and the ability to vote to illegal immigrants, and the the creation of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border watch group that called attention to the flow of illegal immigration.
Outside the event, about 20 protesters from the "La Tierra es de Todos" coalition, or the Land is for Everyone, chanted, "Minutemen, KKK, Nazi scum, go away."
Protester William Figueroa of Pasadena said he was there to protest Tancredo and Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, who also spoke at the event.
Figueroa said the anti-illegal immigrant movement wants to blame the country's economic problems on immigrants, when the government is spending billions in Iraq.
"The money is disappearing," he said. "It's going straight there."
fyi
Ping!
"Kobach said he was recently dismayed to learn that ICE was intending to scale back the authority so local governments could only apply these enforcement powers in jails."
Truly unreal. For anyone who believed Chertoff's dog and pony show a few days ago, that's a wakeup call.
Truly unreal. For anyone who believed Chertoff's dog and pony show a few days ago, that's a wakeup call.
I noticed that too. Pathetic, ain't it.
ping
We have a Commander in Chief "on the books" but Bush is not enforcing the defense of our sovereignty and borders.
We have 50 Senators "on the books" but these Senators are not enforcing the defense of our sovereignty and borders.
ping
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
"The money is disappearing," he said. "It's going straight there."
Classic case of issue shift and lies to stain the opposition. First, it's not about the economy, it's about national security. Second, we taxpayers already heavily fund illegal immigrants being housed, clothed, fed and educated.
President Bush faces a major rebellion within his own party if he follows through on a promise to push legislation that would offer millions of illegal immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship. Almost no issue divides Republicans as deeply.
That's to be expected. California's Border Patrol police might be too effective at finding illegals so now ICE will have to make sure that idea is killed before it gets off the ground.
"Truly unreal. For anyone who believed Chertoff's dog and pony show a few days ago, that's a wakeup call."
The discussion about Chertoff's announcements here on FR the other day was mostly "thank goodness someone is finally doing something". My response was that Chertoff isn't going to do anything Bush and his advisors don't want him to.
Kinda makes you really wonder sometimes who are these people really working for doesn't it? Are they for "the people" or the corporate giants outside the fedgov working the system through bribes......er, lobbying.....or blackmail.....er, political gamesmanship.......or plain stupidity.......er, Dem. party and Rep not far behind.
Exactly. We need no new laws, we need the existing laws enforced.
*All illegal aliens are criminals, and it is illegal for the government to aid and support criminal acts.
*It is relatively easy to get rid of the great majority of them by measures such as refusal to cater to them with interpreters, reduced college tuition, welfare, free medical care, etc.; a crackdown on employers who hire them.
*Our borders have to be protected.
*Children of noncitizens should not become automatically citizens. It's easy to change this law if the our elected officials would agree.
There is not one single legitimate reason why this country should harbor these criminals. And there is nothing so adorable about them that we just have to have them overrun this country. In the long run, their presence has the potential to destroy this country.
It has become obvious that the Republicans do not want to fight anymore. They have surrendered to the media. They see the universities controlled by communists. They see the public schools controlled by radical liberals. They see the media anti-American. They see the majority of Americans self-centered and apathetic toward the future of this nation.
Should they fight for a founding principle or for limited government, they see themselves a lonely man on an island arguing against the mass of humanity (much like Tom Tancredo on border control). They refuse the fight.
Our nation has been lost. The politicians will never win it back. Only the people through the people (the decent people) can take this nation back.
Major, major demonstrations showing the Republicans that they have let us down (too kind--that they have TRASHED our national sovereignty) would be a start to taking this nation back.
And yet...they vote for the party that had the Exalted Cyclops KKK Bobby Byrd as their "Conscience of the Senate"...
Gee, how DO they explain that the DemonRATs have an ACTUAL KLAN RIDER in their exhalted body for 40 years? And he was RESPONSIBLE for blocking anti-lynching legislation, and the Civil Rights Act, along with AlGore Senior?
What color is the sky in La Raza/MeCHa land? Maybe bayou or Dane can tell us....it's probably Rose colored...and is full of toilet scrubbers and cheap lettuce!
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