Mexican Consulate tries to outgun Sheriff Dan Beck... and loses

When you think of small town sheriffs you have to feel sort of comfortable with the notion that in each and every small town that dots the landscape of America there is a law enforcement officer is standing between you and the law breakers. You should feel a sense of security that these officers of the law are patrolling your city and country streets looking out for any and all law breakers, but...that may be changing if the Mexican Consulate in Detroit has its way. You see, the official in the Mexican Consulate believes that Sheriff Beck should look the other way when it comes to identifying and arresting illegal aliens that happen to be passing through his town.

What the official is pushing Sheriff Beck to do is ignore the fact that when anyone is pulled over by a law enforcement officer, he or she must produce identification. If someone is here illegally, the document he produces will identify him as such. Our law enforcement officials have been increasingly put at risk as well with the adoption of Sanctuary City status in cities across America whereby law enforcement officials cannot stop and detain illegal immigrant suspects whom they strongly believe may be illegal alien criminal suspects in these so-called Sanctuary cities.

The fact that this official from the Mexican Consulate sees fit to interfere in local, state, or federal law enforcement actions clearly demonstrates that the Mexican arm of government believes it has the legal right to step in and openly interfere with our legal system of justice.

The Mexican Consulate letter warned him about profiling Mexican immigrants and insinuating that he is targeting Mexican nationals because his officers stretch the legal boundaries in openly requesting Mexicans for their immigration documents as they wait to be picked up by their prospective employers. The letter said Sheriff Beck's officers' actions are borderline racially motivated — probably because he has had some degree to success in apprehending illegal aliens who are sometimes called "undocumented workers." Please. Same thing! If it's illegal to be in this country without proper permission, which is obtained through proper documentation, then crossing the border and living anywhere in the United States without proper documentation is illegal.

So it appears that the consulate officials did not quite understand the type of law enforcement official Sheriff Beck truly is. In speaking with Sheriff Beck, He reminded me that this type of irreverent disregard for the sanctity of our nation's laws and law enforcement officials just rubbed him the wrong way. Sheriff Beck is being asked to look the other way but he felt that perhaps there was a great deal more to this than met the eye.

"I decided to make this not only a higher priority, but to also make certain that my officers understood that the oath we have taken was to protect and serve the residents who are under our protection," declared Sheriff Beck.

There are certain liberals and open border advocates in Lima, Ohio who are more than a little dismayed with the fact that Sheriff Beck had begun training his deputies in being able to more effectively recognize fraudulent forms of identification.

Now is it somehow incorrect for a sworn officer of the law to want to enforce the laws of his jurisdiction? Antonio Meza, the consul for the Mexican Consulate in the Motor City which is where the letter to Sheriff Beck received, seems to disagree. Instead he felt that the community groups that are supporting the rights of immigrant workers who do not carry legal documentation are politically correct and Sheriff Beck is politically incorrect. See? It's clear as mud.

The question I have is just where do you draw the line? Should Sheriff Beck and his deputies just wait until a series of crimes or the drain on local resources becomes so horrendous that the citizenry of Lima, Ohio are motivated to action and demand that something be done about the illegal alien problem — after, of course, they demand Sheriff Beck's badge for doing nothing about the problem before hand...i.e.. not having the foresight to anticipate that there really was a predicable problem.

A question one has to ask is upon what authority does the Mexican Consulate even begin to think it should be able to openly chastise an official branch of a city or county government based upon the hubris of two neighborhood groups? That sounds like not only over stepping one's bounds, but this consulate is a guest in our country? Can you image the reaction that our American Consulate would have in Mexico if a Mexican community organization were to contact our American Consulate office and ask for us to interfere in the official governmental actions of Mexican city law enforcement officials' duties? It would not happen.

But these two unnamed community groups in Lima, Ohio say to heck with official government protocol, we'll just appoint ourselves official secretaries of state of the city of Lima and attempt an end run on our own system of laws.

So Sheriff Beck on his own volition decided it was the citizens of Lima, Ohio that gave him the entire legal jurisdiction he needed to stand firm on their rights to be protected. Sheriff Beck told me that Meza needs to "...understand he's a guest of the United States." He commented that he has absolutely no problem with anyone who has the proper identification, but those who do not are violating the law." And it is as simple as that.

Every once in a while we hear about a public official who reminds all of us of the same qualities that our founding fathers built this great nation upon. That as a nation of laws interwoven in this great body of law is the spirit and heart of patriots who will refuse to be bullied into submission by aggressors who appear tame behind a shield framed out of our own laws but turned somehow against us.

The line against the invasion of our nation's borders is being drawn by Americans like Sheriff Dan Beck. If Meza had bothered to investigate a little further, he would have found a reasonable man full of integrity not some ogre who possessed a single purpose to identify legal immigrants and day laborers and profile them and intimidate them.

Meza would have found out that Sheriff Beck fully understands the difference between a legal Mexican national and an illegal immigrant — one is in compliance with the law and one is openly breaking the law. It is something that would not be tolerated in his native country and, with President Bush's announcement this week to expel all illegal aliens it will not be tolerated here either.

As a real law man, Beck is concerned about doing his real duty and that is to cut down on an increase in crimes being committed by illegal aliens. Sheriff Beck's real duty is to deal with the facts concerning a triple fatal car crash July 24th involving illegal immigrants who were not authorized to be here in the first place and then were involved in an incident that took three innocent lives. Finally Sheriff Beck's real duty is to deal with an illegal alien who is an accused child molester from Hamilton and fled to Lima to avoid prosecution.

So the Mexican Consulate is advised to stay out of our internal law enforcement matters and for the two community groups in Lima, Ohio...try concentrating on dealing with the rights of Americans who are adhering to the law instead of finding unique and creative ways to allow illegal aliens to continue to maneuver around our nation's and your town's laws.

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385)

...This CFR document, called "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bush's ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details....

WHY hasn't this been discussed with the American people? WHY wouldn't a nation-changing insane idea such as this be discussed with the American people? WHY, in George W. Bush's America, don't our votes count anymore? Have we elected a dictator?

Does anyone here realize what this means?

Thanks for the confirmation. Frankly I was shocked so I wanted it confirmed.

Will wait for the proof of the pudding, as you say.

How does Mexico treat illegals? This is what Sheriff Beck, and all others, should ask when Mexicans start this bull. You can bet Mexico doesn't give them free; education, health care and let them send most of their money back home.

him--"Good that the Sheriff told the wetback"

I agree with you, but leave the racial stuff out. This is about illegal immigration.

You can bet Mexico doesn't give them free; education, health care and let them send most of their money back home.

Don't they stop people at their borders?

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Support our Minutemen Patriots!

Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!

Don't they stop people at their borders?

yes - President Fox can't have OTMs competing with his countrymen for American jobs. Central American illegals consider crossing Mexico to be the toughest part of the journey to the US - once they've arrived at the border, they think they have it made because the difficult part (dodging Mexican immigration, police, and bandidos) is behind them. The Border Patrol and Minutemen are far easier to deal with in their book.

yes - President Fox can't have OTMs competing with his countrymen for American jobs.

LOL

Imagine if he made a big stink about that.

I've heard that if you're found in Mexico illegally they confiscate any property on you and you are jailed and fined. This is something I'd like Mexico's political leaders to be asked at public meetings. Mexicans should be made to feel ashamed for the differential treatment that they demand.

I went to a Mexican immigration web site and found out that in order to go to college or retire in Mexico you must prove that you have funds to support yourself. A few months ago an American college student was attacked by a shark off Mexico and the Mexican doctors would not operate until his father paid them. We should NOT treat immigrants, especially illegals, better than their countries treat our people.

I went to a Mexican immigration web site and found out that in order to go to college or retire in Mexico you must prove that you have funds to support yourself. A few months ago an American college student was attacked by a shark off Mexico and the Mexican doctors would not operate until his father paid them. We should NOT treat immigrants, especially illegals, better than their countries treat our people.

We actually do that with some legal immigrants having seen many go through the process. I don't disagree with you at all.

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