Briefly looked for the Bybee memorandum today, and came up with a bunch of earlier stuff about DOJ "leaks" saying the same thing. The references I hit, all older, consistently repeated the notion that local LEO's jobs would be hampered by enforcing federal immigration law and sovereignty. "Law-abiding" illegals wouldn't trust them ... blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, Americans will come to distrust them (if they don't already) should they do otherwise.
Locally, our city police chief was in the paper a month or so back spouting the fear and intimidation line that if they are required to set up stings at car washes, the general public safety will suffer.
I don't like the idea of "sting" operations and I think your local police chief is being disingenuous about this.
What they SHOULD do is respond to situations where you see gangs of foreign laborers hanging around street corners or other areas to be picked as day workers.
They should be checking people they arrest or stop for motor vehicle operations if they obviously appear not be native born by their accents, etc and if they can't provide proof of citizenship, detained for INS people.
Employers who are consistently found hiring illegal invaders should be hit with progressively hirer FEDERAL fines until the cost of the same becomes so onerous they either stop the practise or are forced out of business.
I peresonally think it has reached the point where we should require a citizenship card with a photo I.D. In some states motor vehicle licenses have effectively become this anyway as they require a photo id and proof of citizenship. When people are stopped for routine road checks or moving violations and they lack these cards, a check should be made to see if they are illegal invaders.
In the recent past, this has not been an issue. Today it has reached a critical mass. A significant number of criminals arrested, people appearing for meedical treatment at hospitals without medical coverage, etc. are illegal invaders and the American public is bearing the cost.
This issue, along with Bush's defection on his promised selection of qualified, strict constructionist Federal Justices, will provide a legacy of a poor Presidency.
This entire issue is a most serious one, but the Bush administratoin has chosen to ignore it or shove it under the rug in order to placate certain activist ethnic organisations and employers who exploit cheap labor.
We have become an international laughing stock for tolerating a border situation that even our corrupt neighbors to the south would never tolerate.