View from the cop

By Shooter

September 21, 2006 6:25 PM | Link to this

There is nothing good about illegal immigration,Some employers take advantage of the illegals for thier own benefit as you would expect.YOU’ll never find them passing the savings along.Anyone hiring illegals should be arrested along with the illegals,ship them both back to country of origin when they get out of jail.We need to secure our borders and stop the flow, then worry about the ones already here.

By JustMe

September 21, 2006 6:38 PM | Link to this

I am so tired of “W” spewing forth more hooey that he never intends to move forward on just to pander to his constituents & make himself look like he’s doing something worthwhile besides spend, spend, spend and playing GI Joe. He’s called on Congress like I call on my dog not to pee on my car tire.

Yet, even more tired am I of being INVADED -and yes, my fellow Americans that’s EXACTLY what it is, an invasion - by people who claim they do the jobs “we” don’t want to do - HA! All they want is to come and ROB us of the opportunity to have those jobs, bleed our communities dry of resources that should be only for those who live here legally and legitimately! They don’t give a rat’s rear end about being assimilated - they are here only to make as much money and get as much out of America through schools, welfare, health care, and on and on as they can while they send as much money back to Mexico as they can before they leave to return to their home country.

I live in a country where the established language is still ENGLISH, and I should never have to press ANYTHING on the phone to speak to someone in my native language. They want to protest about what rights are being violated???? YOU’RE HERE ILLEGALLY, YOU HAVE NO STINKING RIGHTS!!!

How about this analogy - let’s say you live in a multimillion dollar estate. It’s much larger, nicer, better furnished, and in a better location than my $200K home. So one day, I break in. I eat your food, watch your TV, lounge in your hot tub. You find me there and tell me to get out. “But”, I say, “I cleaned your bathrooms, took out the trash and mowed your lawn - all that stuff you don’t want to do. If you kick me out, I’ll have picket in your front yard and yell and scream about how unfair you are, what a cruel & heartless monster you are.”

So, would YOU let me stay?

By Jell-O Mom

September 21, 2006 6:55 PM | Link to this

In the meantime, what can the public do until there is some type of legislation?

Up until recently, the homeowner across the street, who happens to be hispanic, ran a home improvement business from his home. That was okay, so long as it did not negatively impact the n’hood at large. However, it did. He had workers were coming into our community, congregating for work, reason #1 for getting Code Enforcement involved.

Then, one day, his wife and kids moved out. That’s when things went dowhhill fast. There were several hispanic men hanging around all of the time. There were so many cars that the driveway looked like a parking lot. As a matter of fact, all of the cars could not fit into the double driveway, two cars had to be parked in the street.

One Sunday evening, I could not even enjoy watering my flowers because it irritated me that there were so many men, about six to eight, hanging around, and the parking lot/driveway had been full all weekend. And, worse yet, the work van, with the ususal 6-10 ladders on top, was parked on the grass. I snapped. Before my husband realized it, I was across the street. It was either going to be his house or ours. I wasn’t losing my home, so, I “spoke” up.

During the tirade, I asked him how many people lived in the house b/c this was a residential single-family neighborhood. I think he was shocked that I actually the nerve to say anything, nevermind the hands waving and the high octave pitch of my voice. I was mad. I told the guy to get rid of the van with the logo…it was absolutely not permitted to advertise a business in our n’hood.

The next day, as promised, everything was cleared out. However, the work van, with several workers, and the 8-10 ladders on top, appeared again, a day or two later. I was “really, really mad” at that point, and immediately called Fulco. Code Enforcement (no, we’re not in SS). Along with two other neighbors, we complained about increased business traffic into the n’hood, unmowed yards and the fact that there were so many people living in a single family residence.

I have no idea if it is coincidence or not, but on the following Saturday, four sheriff cars were at the house. (BTW, why would the sheriff’s dept. be there…I thought they had something to do with the jails?) There has been no activity since, except for the lawn getting mowed regularly. . It’s been several weeks and it appears that no one lives there now.

Everyone else is happy again.

By Ben

September 21, 2006 7:10 PM | Link to this

They need us. We need them. Give them a two-year amnesty but require them to register for work and pay social security. After two years, if their record is clean, give them another two years. Anyone convicted of any crime whatsoever goes to jail or back home. Anyone found without documentation goes home immediately. Tighten up the borders. Have random I.D. checks (even though the libs will yell “Profiling”). Be a little more lenient about citizenship application. It might work.

By catlady

September 21, 2006 7:54 PM | Link to this

90% of the (illegal) Latino folks in our community are hard-working family folks. Their crimes are generally: DUI, no license/insurance, occasional family violance, and being here illegally. We have a large employer in our county that accounts for at least 50% of the jobs held by illegals. They have a person hired to be sure the paperwork is in good order, which means she makes sure it looks like these folks are here legally. The company even brags about how few turn out to be illegal when run through that federal ID check. It is a huge joke among us teachers, who see the children 5 days a week. Many of the folks have babies every year, encouraged by their pastors. These babies are US residents, and eligible for everything you and I are.

I admire the work ethic shown by the men (and some of the women) who are here illegally. Most put us all to shame. What I have a problem with is this large employer (and others) paying poorly and shifting the medical care, education, etc., onto the rest of us. A cost-benefit analysis might show that for every dollar we “save” by not paying more to citizens to do the job, the taxpayers lose $3 in other ways. In other words we subsidize the business owners, who surely do not make LESS profit using illegal workers. The unfairness of this galls me.

We have not had much illegal on illgal crime, YET, but we know it is coming.

If Washington ever gets serious about this, without kowtowing to business owners and their screams for pity, it will be a big benefit to most of us.

I personally think we should detain illegal aliens, send them back, and charge their governments, by withholding aid, for their expenses. Then some of the sending countries might get serious about stemming the flow.

By Meg

September 22, 2006 5:17 AM | Link to this

Immigration laws aren’t enforced, when you make it OK to ignore one law, you weaken the entire legal system. It’s OK to break the law and sneak in, it’s OK to break the law and drive without a license or insurance, then it must be OK to break the law in other ways and then go sneak back to your home country if you get caught. There’s no solution because democrats want the Hispanic vote, and the republicans want the slave labor. Laws should be enforced or changed. People should not lose respect for the law. When our car insurance is due, or ad valorem, or our property taxes, I sometimes jokingly remark to my husband “don’t you wish we were illegal immigrants so WE wouldn’t have to pay this?” It just isn’t right to have a slave class that is “kept” by the taxpayers for the benefit of certain corporations. Give them equal rights and pay and responsibilty and accountability or send them home. If the illegals were documented, people would probably be shocked and appalled to find out how many are actually here, since they live in the shadows it’s easy for the government to underestimate the true numbers and true cost.

By Tracie

September 22, 2006 7:24 AM | Link to this

Crime has increased three fold in Snellville. You cant walk down the street now without looking over your shoulder. Snellville used to be a nice place to live. Not anymore. The good people are moving on and the illegals are moving in three families to a house. The drinking, the trash, the police calls. I see it daily in my neighborhood. Do not go to the backyard without locking your front door first. Its gotten way out of hand.

Its a joke and the government wants us to believe that its not that bad. I am here to tell you that when the American is a minority in a town, then its not a joke. Its only a matter of time when the American will be the minority in America, paying taxes for the illegals to live off the welfare and government handouts. Lets stop it now before the takeover begins.

By Jeffrey

September 22, 2006 8:23 AM | Link to this

You really opened a can of worms here Steve. Actually making your readers think :)! I for one am very much against illegal immigrants. This country has a great system in which to become a naturalized citizen of this wonderful U S of A. I say round up the lot of the illegals and send them back to where they came from. Give them the legal immigration package and have them fill that out so they can come back to our country and stay for a while. Even if they are only here to send money back home then the temporary pass will do them okay as well. That’s my two cents. You are right it does affect us all.

By Eddie

September 22, 2006 10:28 AM | Link to this

Good article. I wish our Congress and Gov’t would enforce the laws we already have, and do something about this problem.

By a former Sandy Springs resident

September 22, 2006 11:22 AM | Link to this

Steve, I lived in the so-called modest apartments with many of these folks on Roswell Rd for nearly a year and a half. Being new to the area, we did not have a lot of time to stake out the area before we moved, and the closure of other modest apartments at Roswell & Spalding I think increased the numbers of illegals living in the complex where we lived. All I can say is thank goodness we got out of there. Gang activity, noise at all hours of the day and night…not a place to raise my kids.

I heard a rumor that multi-family apartment dwellings can no longer change hands in Sandy Springs - they need to switch to condo or purchased property. I have to think that if this is true and the trend continues, eventually there will be no more modest apartments in which to live in Sandy Springs. Perhaps change the zoning to eliminate the check cashing stores - a solution probably easier said than done, I know. If there is no place for illegals to live or do their business, they will move on.

I do think that continued vigilance on the part of the police and community leaders might help to get the message across that there is zero tolerance for this type of behavior. It’ll take a while, but just as you advocate to your readers regarding community watch activities, eventually the bad yeggs will get the message and move on. Sure, they’ll still be driving through Sandy Springs without licenses and insurance, but I’m not sure how to fix that aside from practicing defensive driving techniques.

The question that I have at the end of all of this, is how do we as average citizens, attempt to “take back” our neighborhoods from these sorts of undocumented and illegal settlements?

By undocumented

September 22, 2006 12:14 PM | Link to this

Hi, Well as “undocumented” immigrant, i believe that that’s why we should be permitted to have atleast a license. But i also know that’s were the police dept. gets alot of money from. Everytime that an undocumented person gets stopped they get arrested and they have to pay around 700 or more to get out. Just go down Buford Highway on a saturday night and you will count atleast more than 10 ppl. being pulled over. Now do the math to figure out how much money the dept. gets from these ppl every day? People are very disinformed about alot of issues going on. I am in college “undocumented” but i have to pay three times more than a regular student. I am not a criminal, i want to be successful. I was brought here when i was young, i grew up learning the abc’s along with other children. It was not my choice to come here, but my dad did it so we wouldn’t starve in Mexico. What would you do in that situation? Another thing that people don’t know is that we do pay taxes. While we are not allowed to have a ssn or a license we are allowed to get a TaxID number to pay our taxes. My family has been paying taxes in hopes that something can be done about people like us that have been here for a long time and have been doing good things for the community. We are not criminals. My brother has been in the football team at school, i have been in clubs at school. We go to church and do things like any other family, except we don’t have a ssn. I believe the media has alot to do with it. All you see is the things some ppl do wrong, but what about the horrible things done to us? For ex. working more than 12 hours a day, getting paid six dollars an hour? no overtime? That’s inhumane, and i can’t believe there are people that take advantage of us like that. Everytime you see a Latino on the news the first thing they ask is he’s a resident? But you fail to see the side in which we get robbed especially people that live in apartments, they come home from a long day at work to find out they have been robbed. A whole year’s earnings gone just like that and some of them are afraid to call the cops thinking they will be deported. I know alot of people think we take advantage but if some don’t speak English what makes you think they even know they have certain rights? I know not everyone thinks bad of undocumented people, but for the ones that do please inform yourself before you come to a conclusion.

By JohnF

September 22, 2006 12:32 PM | Link to this

My peaceful little street in Brookhaven became a major crime scene a few weeks ago. Seems a group of four black guys had been robbing the hispanics over near Buford and Clairmont, but made the mistake of doing it near a Dekalb County officer who was patrolling hte area. They took off in their car up Dresden Drive and set out on foot scattering in all directions, unfortunately one of them scattered right up on my next door neighbors back porch…she had woken up from the sirens and locked the door just as the guy jumped near her door. The police were right there though…five squad cars, a k9 unit and a search-light helicopter. Two were caught and the other two were ratted out…but it will happen again.

I heard later that the victime..a mexican had been pistol whipped and had a cracked skull…poor guy. Those immigrants are walking ATMs on pay day.

By Sue

September 22, 2006 12:50 PM | Link to this

Thanks for your perspective on this.

Regarding a specific crime: The suspect in the dragging death of a woman in Colorado is an illegal immigrant who had earlier been the subject of a traffic stop. The officer suspected his driver’s license was fake, but didn’t pursue it, the officer said, because immigration crime is not his province. If the man had been taken into custody and deported, the woman would be alive today.

Does anyone think that if that same officer has stopped an Anglo American with a suspicious driver’s license he would have let that citizen go and NOT pursued it? No way. So now, being a prospective illegal immigrant is reason for an officer to IGNORE a traffic violation. That’s just crazy.

By undocumented

September 22, 2006 1:58 PM | Link to this

Hi, Well as “undocumented” immigrant, i believe that that’s why we should be permitted to have atleast a license. But i also know that’s were the police dept. gets alot of money from. Everytime that an undocumented person gets stopped they get arrested and they have to pay around 700 or more to get out. Just go down Buford Highway on a saturday night and you will count atleast more than 10 ppl. being pulled over. Now do the math to figure out how much money the dept. gets from these ppl every day? People are very disinformed about alot of issues going on. I am in college “undocumented” but i have to pay three times more than a regular student. I am not a criminal, i want to be successful. I was brought here when i was young, i grew up learning the abc’s along with other children. It was not my choice to come here, but my dad did it so we wouldn’t starve in Mexico. What would you do in that situation? Another thing that people don’t know is that we do pay taxes. While we are not allowed to have a ssn or a license we are allowed to get a TaxID number to pay our taxes. My family has been paying taxes in hopes that something can be done about people like us that have been here for a long time and have been doing good things for the community. We are not criminals. My brother has been in the football team at school, i have been in clubs at school. We go to church and do things like any other family, except we don’t have a ssn. I believe the media has alot to do with it. All you see is the things some ppl do wrong, but what about the horrible things done to us? For ex. working more than 12 hours a day, getting paid six dollars an hour? no overtime? That’s inhumane, and i can’t believe there are people that take advantage of us like that. Everytime you see a Latino on the news the first thing they ask is he’s a resident? But you fail to see the side in which we get robbed especially people that live in apartments, they come home from a long day at work to find out they have been robbed. A whole year’s earnings gone just like that and some of them are afraid to call the cops thinking they will be deported. I know alot of people think we take advantage but if some don’t speak English what makes you think they even know they have certain rights? I know not everyone thinks bad of undocumented people, but for the ones that do please inform yourself before you come to a conclusion.

By Lee

September 22, 2006 8:10 PM | Link to this

“In Sandy Springs, we have an area exclusively inhabited by the Hispanic community. Most are illegal….”

Absolutely incredible. Here we have a police officer acknowledge that he knows where a crime is being committed but refuses to do anything about it. Some Neighborhood Watch Liason (or whatever the hell you are).

Oh wait, I forgot. If the police arrest an illegal alien, it costs the county/city money to arrest, book, detain, and process. Much simpler to sit on the side of the road like a common thief and write you and I a ticket for rolling through a stop sign at 3mph. Yep, that’s about $100 in the bank.

And the police wonder why the general public has no respect for them anymore….

I’m beginning to wonder whose side the police are on, it certainly doesn’t seem to be the law abiding citizens of this country anymore ….

By A concerned CITIZEN

September 22, 2006 11:53 PM | Link to this

A pretty simple solution to getting illegals out of the US is to stop giving them welfare, housing, schooling, etc. that we, the taxpayers, are paying for. The biggest way to cut down on illegals staying would be to make all babies born to illegals in the US also receive illegal status, and when these babies are born, if they are found to be the children of illegals, all should be deported asap. Illegals are having babies here to use that as a reason to stay here. Not only will disallowing them legal status cut down on the number of illegals trying to remain here, but it will also cut down on the population. My neighborhood in Gwinnett (the largest growing county regarding illegals) went from a nice, middle-class area to a Hispanic SLUM almost overnight. Make check-cashing places ask for ID, and proof of legal status before cashing any checks, and any place that wires money should do the same with any monies wired out of the country. A HUGE tax on any out-of-country wired money should help make up for the taxes they obviously aren’t paying.

Why aren’t police patrolling areas where they KNOW illegals hang out, waiting for work? The QT near me has become a loitering area for day-laborers, and they wait right under the signs that say “No Loitering” in English AND Spanish. The Publix (now gone) has become another Hispanic business, and the nearby laundromat constantly has day-laborers sitting in lawn chairs in the parking lot waiting for someone to come by and give them work.

I’m sick of my area becoming more and more like Mexico. If you want to speak Spanish, fly the Mexican flag, and demand that your culture be accepted, then you should have stayed in Mexico. Stop trying to change US to satisfy YOU. It should be vice-versa.

You can see that I’m more than a little irate…but it saddens me to see our country changing before my eyes.

If we adopted the same strict immigration laws as Vincente Fox/Mexico, we wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in…and it’s not going to get any better until we get people in office that aren’t afraid of “offending” others. I’m sorry…but if your home country was so wonderful that you want to change the USA to be more like it, why did you leave in the first place?

By Sick Of It

September 22, 2006 11:55 PM | Link to this

My ex went to court in DeKalb county (traffic court), and he said the courtroom was FILLED will Hispanics and that every single one of them got off scott-free. Now where’s the justice in THAT?

By Coopie

September 22, 2006 11:57 PM | Link to this

As we sit here in our subdivision in Norcross, we constantly hear loud hispanic music being played by cars driving down the streets day and night. As we walk our dogs, we see and hear all the noise from houses that have so many hispanics sitting outside that we know that this is a another illegal boarding house. While our quality of life is going down hill fast along with our property values, it is darn hard to show compassion toward people who break our laws in front our faces. SEND THEM HOME!! PEOPLE WHO DO NOT RESPECT OUR COUNTRY AND DISREGARD OUR LAWS ARE NOT ASSETS!

By Sick Of It

September 23, 2006 5:23 PM | Link to this

I’m sick of my decent, middle-middle-class neighborhood in Norcross. It has turned into little Mexico with illegals sitting around everywhere, waiting for someone to pick them up for a day’s work, tax free, of course. Everything around here is either in Spanish or Spanish sub-titles.

If we adopted Mexico’s strict immigration laws, we could drastically reduce the illegal population.

Another suggestion to not only curtail the illegals in our country, but to remove many of them is to not allow babies born to illegals here to become “automatic citizens”. They should receive the same illegal status as their parents, and hospitals should be made to report these children and parents to INS, before they leave the hospital, so they can be waiting for them at the front door when they leave. Not only would it cut down on the illegals here, but it would seriously reduce the population in Georgia. (Gwinnett is the fastest growing county in illegals…in Georgia, the fastest growing state in illegals.)

Something needs to be done…NOW.

By Cassie

September 26, 2006 9:34 AM | Link to this

Man, such vitriol! It makes me embarassed to be an American!

Can I possibly point out two things?

1) Really, while we’re on this kick maybe we should all go back to our countries of origin and give the land back to the Native Americans?

2) I agree with whomever above who said to grant a “probationary” period. I fully believe that if all illegals had this probationary period, where they paid taxes, social security, medicare…like everyone else, the economic status of the entire country would rise.

3) Ok, I said two…could we have a little cultural tolerance here? People who have been here for several generations have a real muckety muck snot on them as far as immigrants are concerned. Yet, you are the same people who contribute to poverty in the third world by purchasing products from…WalMart. People from Central and South America live one of two ways - several familes to a house, or several families to a scratch farm they call home. Single family living is a Euro American concept. My neighbors are hispanic and have a multi generational family living in their house. I have no problem with them; they are quite nice. The white dudes that live on the corner - they can kiss my butt if I have to call in one more noise complaint.

By SchoolMom

September 28, 2006 1:54 PM | Link to this

Cassie, while I’m glad you have such an open-minded view of things, the rest of us have to live here in the real world. Where there is a double standard for American citizens and illegals. We have to pay for our own health care, they don’t (we do), we are required to report to court if we are written a citation, they don’t because no one bothers to find out who they really are. Do you honestly think if an American (English speaking person) were pulled over and found to be driving without a license that they would simply be given a ticket and told to report to court? No Way In Hades! There would be handcuffs, bail, and paperwork out the ying-yang to prove who that person was before they would be released. Not to mention the fact that if they don’t show up for court, they would be hauled off and jailed again. They expect us to learn Spanish to accommodate them, but don’t bother learning English. What about sneaking across a border entitles some one to exemption from our laws? Just because they were willing to knowingly break our laws doesn’t mean they are worthy of any consideration other than being allowed to pack up their belongings before they are deported. What makes you think that they will abide by any of our laws? The first thing they have done by coming here illegally is thumb their nose at our legal system – something they do on a regular basis. Whether you want to believe it or not, a lot of crime comes with these illegals. This is not a racist standpoint. I have nothing against Hispanics or those of any other ethnicity. America is a melting pot. We all blend together and live as Americans. Those that come here illegally have no intentions of blending in. They wish to simply move their country here. That is evident by the housing choices they make as well as the Mexican flags they fly while they protest the enforcement of our laws that they knew they were breaking when they snuck in. How about the rest of us being allowed to be Americans without fear of being labeled xenophobic? What is wrong with wanting to keep this country what it is, America! This is not Northern Mexico!

By Jell-O Mom

September 28, 2006 4:41 PM | Link to this

Single family living is a Euro American concept. So what? Need you be reminded that we’re in America? My mother and her siblings were first generation here. Yes, her parents lived with relatives, in a multi-family (a legal, specifically built four-family)house. Guess what? Only four families resided in that house. Go figure. Eventually, each one of those families wound up purchasing a single family home. And, guess what? Only one family resided in each of those homes. Amazing. I will not be tolerant of a single family home used as a boarding house…ever.

By Cassie

October 1, 2006 5:15 PM | Link to this

I don’t think the blanket statements folks are making are going to work. As every one of you knows, the only way to have an effective solution is to compromise.

You can’t kick them all out. You can’t build a fence. You can’t have a federally mandated border patrol. You can partner with Latin American companies to provide jobs, improve living conditions, etc. You can amend the Constituion to make english the national language, and make it mandatory for job holding and citizenships (precedent there - France).

The RIGHT thing to do is offer amnesty - and deport those who don’t register. No one can apply with criminal convictions. Perhaps we should also, if we’re going down this path, change the birth law - what is it about being born on our dirt that confers citizenship? I don’t think most infants are capable of appreciating the distinction.

If you look at how other people live, and how we live….you have to have perspective. We have houses, cars, jobs, insurance, families and the protection of our laws. Last time I checked, Latin America was largely corrupt and desperately poor. Does it hurt anyone to have some tolerance, indeed some pity?