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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Illegals threat to young Americans?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a possible presidential candidate, unloaded on President Bush and Congress Tuesday for taking an August vacation “while young Americans in our cities are massacred” by illegal immigrants.
The “war here at home” against illegals is “even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Gingrich in a newsletter. “The federal government’s incompetence, timidity and uncoordinated efforts to identify and deport criminal illegal aliens have had devastating consequences for innocent Americans.”
He was referring specifically to the execution-style murders of three college students on a school playground in Newark, N.J. One suspect in the killings, Jose Lachira Cartanza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail on charges of raping a child when the killings occurred. Gingrich said another suspect, an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua with a lengthy arrest record, had been ordered deported in 1993, but never left. The Newark newspaper reported, though, that the suspect had been granted permanent legal resident status in 2001.
A declared presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, promised again Tuesday to stop illegal immigration by beefing up border security and by tracking visitors. “We can end illegal immigration: he said. “I promise you, we can end illegal immigration.”
Giuliani would require a tamperproof ID card with fingerprints for foreign workers and students linked a central database that could track arrivals and departures. Guiliani said, too, he would allow a pathway to citizenship only for illegals who report their status, who learn English and who go to the back of the line to apply.
He was responding to criticism from Mitt Romney that as mayor of New York City Giuliani “instructed city workers not to provide information to the federal government that would allow them to enforce the law. New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country.”
Gingrich called for withdrawing federal assistance to any city, county or state that refuses to participate in checking the status of those who are arrested for committing a felony. Furthermore, he said, “after they finish time for their crime, they will be retained until deported.”
Gingrich wants Bush to call Congress back into special session for three days to pass a bill honoring the three students that would include the federal aid provision, along with an order to the FBI and Homeland Security to outsource development of a system for verifying the status of those arrested for felonies that could be up and running by Jan. 1.
While Gingrich exaggerates the murder-and-mayhem danger posed by illegals, Congress does need to punish “sanctuary cities” by denying federal aid to local governments that refuse to cooperate in the enforcement of federal laws and regulations.
Even before returning to the notion of comprehensive immigration overhaul, there are a number of things that can be done to enforce border security, deport those who commit crimes and those found to have overstayed visas, even before an arrive-and-leave tracking system is perfected.
Gingrich has a good political ear. The tone of his comments tell us a great deal about the country’s frustration in finding ways to come to grips with lackadaisical enforcement of border security and immigration law.
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