By Tom Fitton
Chances are a short drive around your town will bring you face to face with one of the more visible signs of a defunct border security system: illegal alien day laborers loitering on street corners, seeking illegal work. Most of them are here illegally from Mexico. They likely crossed the border hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from your home. And yet, here they are. In your town, on your street corners.
Communities across America are wrestling with the local consequences of the illegal immigration crisis. Drugs, violent crime, overcrowded schools, and an overburdened healthcare system are just a few of the social problems caused by rampant illegal immigration.
As the federal government continues to fail in one of its most basic functions, to protect our borders, local officials are increasingly being left to clean up the mess. And, as you might imagine, they are pursuing a variety of different strategies to deal with the grim realities they face. Some rely on the rule of law and place a priority on the rights of American citizens. Others, unfortunately, flout the law and place a priority on the needs of illegal aliens.
First, let’s emphasize the positive.
In Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Mayor Louis Barletta pushed through the Illegal Immigration Relief Act last summer to hold accountable landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. The ordinance also makes English the official language of Hazleton.
“Illegal immigration is a drain on city resources,” Mayor Barletta explained at the time. “Every domestic incident, every traffic accident, every noise complaint, each time we send our police department, fire department or code enforcement officer to respond, it costs taxpayer dollars.”
Mayor Barletta’s reasoning is simple: Illegal immigration is expensive and wrong, and one way to stop it is to punish, to the degree the law allows, those responsible. Predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union has intervened on behalf of illegal immigrants, filing a lawsuit to prevent the ordinance from taking effect. Hazleton is now tied up in court battle with a trial date set for March. No matter what happens in Hazleton, however, Mayor Barletta’s actions have already had a positive impact as other local communities, such as Beaufort County, South Carolina, have followed Hazleton’s lead.
About 200 miles southwest of Hazleton, in Herndon, Virginia, local officials chose a different path. Rather than punishing employers who hire illegals, the Town decided to use taxpayer funds to help illegal aliens find jobs! Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on behalf of Herndon taxpayers, and, in response, the Herndon Town Council recently voted 6-1 to require the day laborer site to screen applicants for legal status. Nonetheless, Herndon’s day laborer site continues to function without proper screening, while Herndon taxpayers are asked to foot the bill for defending the site in court. Meanwhile, other taxpayer-funded day laborer sites exist in cities nationwide in violation of federal immigration law.
And then there are the cities that not only provide aid and comfort to illegal aliens, but are also complicit in helping them violate the law and avoid deportation.
In Cook County, Illinois, for example, the Board of Commissioners plans to implement a “sanctuary policy” that would prevent county employees, including police officers, from assisting with immigration enforcement and/or reporting suspected illegal immigrants to the federal authorities. Similar policies are in place in many cities across America, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and, believe or not, in Washington, DC.
Local officials who coddle illegal aliens and help them violate the law say that protecting the border is a federal problem and none of their business. Tell that to the family of 21-year-old Marine Corporal Brian Mathews, who was killed just before Christmas by an illegal alien driving with four times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood. Maryland police had cited the killer before for drunk driving, but, as is par for the course, evidently did not check his legal status. As a result, Mathews was killed this past Thanksgiving while waiting at a stoplight with his date, 24-year-old Jennifer Bower, in Montgomery County, Maryland, nowhere near the southern border. (Montgomery County uses taxpayer funds to support two illegal day labor sites and plans a third.)
There is a saying in political circles that “all politics is local.” The same can now be said of the devastating impact of illegal immigration. And if we’re going to deal with it effectively, local communities need to join the fight.
Tom Fitton is President of Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan educational foundation that fights government corruption. Click here for more information on Judicial Watch's fight against illegal immigration.
