— This is not a story about a trespasser. It’s about the Feds refusal to do its job.
Boston.com / News / Local / N.H. / Police charge illegal immigrant with criminal trespassing
New Ipswich Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain charged Ramirez with criminal trespassing — a violation comparable to a traffic ticket — on April 15 after immigration officials refused to take him into custody. Ramirez, who also pleaded guilty to operating without a valid license, has until Friday afternoon to report to immigration authorities in Manchester.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to say what the agency would do if he doesn’t show up.
The kicker in here is the driving without a license charge. See what happens to you if you do this. And even this charge would be dropped if all the illegals were given licenses, whcih is what Washington and states like California want to do. Cuts down on the paperwork I guess.
Overall this is a disgusting story.
contributed by I. Fish who adds:
I love how the spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division nonchalantly admitted they’ll only arrest illegal aliens who “pose a threat.” I’m assuming the threat has nothing to do with a threat to our jobs.
It’s also interesting because it’s more proof that Mexicans are not here to take jobs people don’t want. Construction jobs are highly desirable because they’re high pay, plus the workers get paid unemployment benefits for any downtime.
The chief is correct, once any illegal makes it across the border, they’re not going back ever. Unless of course they’re underage sisters who live in Las Vegas!
In case anyone is confused by my “sisters who live in Las Vegas” comment, here’s the background.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=1225
I just read an interesting editorial from Thomas Sowell about this topic.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050503.shtml
He completely nails the issue. First, the reason the federal government does nothing is because neither party wants to piss off voters of the largest minority group in the country.
Second, he has this great quote:
“Virtually every job in the country is work that Americans will not do, if the pay is below a certain level. And the pay will not rise to that level so long as illegal immigrants — “undocumented workers” — are available to work for less. Even those who write editorials about how we need Mexicans to do work that Americans will not do would not be willing to write editorials for a fraction of what they are being paid. If Mexican editorial writers were coming across the border illegally and taking their jobs, maybe the issue would become clearer.”
Definitely a great read.
They let ’em go and tell them to show up at a later date. I have never understood this mentality in our immigration laws/procedures. If the person(s) are illegal either let them go back home immediately if they have not broken any law or place them in jail.
We had an illegal (hispanic) immigrant charged with driving without a license and drunken driving for a second time in Charlotte, NC. The second time he killed a young woman. I don’t see how this didn’t make this blog before this one, let alone national headlines. But like this instance he will still be in the states. I haven’t even heard MADD or the press make a fuss over this one. I guess it is too sensitive.
It is strange I can’t bring a Cuban cigar in this country but it is sure okay for these people to come in illegally, rape our public services, kill our people, and bring in Cuban cigars.
There was a law passed in 1988 that you have to prove your citizenship or proof of your legal status to work. This law subjects businesses to be fined for any violations. I have had to bring in my original birth certificate/passport my last 3 jobs since this law came into effect. For some reason a lot of businesses use these illegals blantantly right out in the open, even Fortune 100 companies and it is not just for work in the kitchen or cutting grass. These businesses are not getting fined! Hey policticians…here’s some free money and you don’t have to raise taxes!
The state of North Carolina is going to give illegal aliens college scholarships even though there are students who grew up here legally (in-state or out of state) and whose parents have been paying taxes for years that deserve to get these funds! They have already given them instate tuition fees…but the out of state students must pay through their rear.
I don’t see this going away especially with a President who will defend our nation overseas but not at our borders not to mention all of the other politicians and law enforement officials who also just ignore it.
rus
How about the other side of that quote, also from Sowell’s editorial:
“You might also want to consider the attitudes being promoted by the intelligentsia and the activists that people should do only “meaningful work” and not accept “chump change” but should insist on some arbitrarily defined “living wage,” even if that is more than their labor is worth.”
From my reading, Sowell’s solution is not to raise wages, but to reconsider government benefits that coddle the entrenched unemployed into not taking jobs they can obviously perform.
[ Most(?) unemployed are between jobs, and benefits to tide them over until they find a job where their skills can be put to best use actually increases economic efficiency. Considering that our unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the OECD (Japan’s is underreported), I think we’re doing pretty good. (And if you want to quote _reliable_ statistics for “total employment”, and make up for the deficiencies in unemployment rate calculations, I’ll reconsider that statement.]
Consider the other side of “every job in the country is work that Americans will not do”:
How much are people willing to pay for lettuce, grapes, restaurant meals, and hotel rooms (to guess at some products with a high content of illegal labor)?
Most every job adds value to create a product or service that is purchased in the market. Working backward from the price a product can fetch, and taking into account other factors of production, you end up with the amount the labor in a product has to cost. That puts a ceiling on the wage of a particular job, just like people’s pride, sense of fairness, and opportunity cost (most important) of taking a different job (or gov’t benefits) puts a floor on the wage.
If the ceiling on a wage is lower than the floor, that means it doesn’t make sense to make the product, and the job is not created. Instead the product is imported from a place where the costs work out, or the product is not made available at all. Or the price rises, increasing inflation and eroding our standard of living. (popular anger about rising prices is also quite common.)
I just wanted to point out that Immigration, the cost of our food, the Trade deficit, the unemployment rate, inflation, and probably a whole host of other factors are all interrelated, and balancing them is really hard to do.
Especially when enforcing the law is depicted as racism. Or people think they are entitled to ANYTHING, besides the rights in the Constitution, simply because they were born in this country. (Where the current most popular examples of ANYTHING are healthcare, jobs, and self-esteem.)
So instead of kicking out all illegals, putting businesses that rely on them to make ends meet out of business, and then importing those products or raising prices (and reducing competition by keeping out exports) and hence inflation,
Perhaps we should introduce some mild reforms to make our labor market more efficient and encourage people to work, keep the aforementioned businesses open, employed, and productive (e.g. or all grapes will come from Chile), and provide fair solutions for making up the labor shortfall with imported labor, if required.
Come to think of it (I swear on my father’s grave, this thought just entered my mind), that’s kind of what Bush is proposing to do.
And I don’t care for Bush. (Enforcing the law would be nice, too.)