Those Kids Brought Here Illegally by Their Parents Are Law-Breakers!
I’m so tired of hearing these sob stories involving people who broke the law (Guest Commentary, Aug. 12). For every law on the books, there’s a corresponding penalty. The penalty for entering the United States illegally is deportation. It’s one of the more simple laws to understand. This goes under the heading, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” If you don’t want to live in fear of being deported, go back to your home. You created the fear by breaking the law.
The lesson here isn’t to stop deporting illegal immigrants because it’s hurting families. It’s to stop people from breaking into the U.S. illegally. There are millions of people in Mexico who chose not to, because they didn’t want to be separated from their families. That’s the choice: Break into America and have more material wealth, but risk being separated from your family; or stay in Mexico and be poorer, but have no risk of separation from your family.
If no law was ever enforced because it caused hardships on families, then no law would ever be enforced. Every person who is in jail in America right now has a family that’s hurting emotionally from the separation. Keeping your family together should be a big incentive not to break the law.
How about doing a story on the emotional pain caused by illegal immigrants?
Bryan Smith
Want to Build Community? Put a Walmart Downtown!
Regarding your article on Second Saturdays Downtown (Serraglio, Aug. 5), I recognize it’s arts and culture’s civic duty to once again shoulder the burden of hope for the inner city, but we had a hard time last time around bucking commercial interests during Downtown Saturday Nights. Not that you need art and culture, according to Bruce Ash and the rest of the conservative-radio crowd, but can you really build community with just bread and circuses? Real community-building requires establishments people visit on a daily basis, like Walmarts, McDonald’s, strip clubs and casinos. Now you’re talking.
Dennis Williams
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.
I wonder if Mr. Smith can testify truthfully that HE has never broken any law. I suspect that following the law applies to everyone except he and his ilk. (And I’m always amazed by the dichotomy of libertarians and conservatives who preach “rule of law” and “we’re a nation of laws!” while simultaneously whining about how there are “too many laws…”).
I have personally witnessed countless numbers of local drivers (often in huge, gas-guzzling behemoths bearing leftover Bush bumper stickers) exercising their automotive privileges with little regard for the clearly delineated rules of the road. They drive as if the roadways were racetracks, frequently employ obscene gestures, follow too closely, cut you off mercilessly and generally behave as if they are juiced-up teenagers on their way to a keg party.
Illegal aliens risk their OWN lives crossing the border looking for menial jobs. Illegal Arizona motorists risk YOUR LIFE by driving like morons.
The most effective means of curbing illegal immigrants is the prosecution of the employers who hire them. Why is that so difficult to understand?
It’s not about whether or not you’ve ever broken a law. It’s a matter of being willing to accept the consequences of breaking a law if you’re caught. If someone is breaking a traffic law, there’s consquences for that. If someone gets caught speeding, they get a ticket. Their auto insurance rates go up. If they get multiple tickets or one or two severe tickets, they can have their licenses revoked. The possibilty of getting caught giving obscene gestures, tailgating, or driving wrecklessly cuts down on the number of occurances. That’s how the law works. If speed limits were never enforced, there would be 5 times as many people speeding.
It’s the same thing with illegal immigration. If law enforcement had aggressively enforced our immigration laws starting in 2003 and 2004, we wouldn’t have many of the problems we’re having today. It’s BECAUSE our laws weren’t enforced that so many more illegals come here. Successful illegals get word back home that laws aren’t enforced and more people come (just like more speeding drivers when speed limits aren’t enforced).
The most effect means of curbing illegal immigrants from coming the US is to prosecute illegal employers AND to deport illegal immigrants. You have to do both to discourage illegals from coming here. Why is THAT so difficult to understand? Illegal immigrants need an incentive not to come here or else they’re going to come here. You can’t just go after employers.
Mr Smith, papers please. I want to be sure your ancestors came into the US legally, because, as a staunch supporter of rule of LAW, I think we shouldn’t stop with these innocent babies, but deport all who cannot prove their great grandparents didn’t slip in under false names, leave behind criminal records in another country, or slip over the Canadian border. So unless you’re Native American and your ancestors walked across the Bering Strait land bridge, Mr. Smith, please get out the country, now, you certified yahoo.
Mr Williams, Bruce Ash is not running 2nd Saturdays, and the dedicated volunteres who are, are mostly far at the other end of the political spectrum. But it can’t be chaos, so one need to go through a procedure to be part of the activities. I’ve seen no one stopped from circulating petitions or handing out literature. But you can’t expect to not help underwrite the significant costs of this effort and still set up some booth to profit from it. That’s part of what ruined Downtown Saturday Night. People who felt it is their right to profit from the efforts of others and share none of the costs.
Mike Johnson makes a valid point regarding the consequences of breaking the law. However, all this talk about the feds not enforcing immigration law is just so much political posturing and a slap in the face to all the dedicated officers of the Border Patrol, Customs Service, etc., who go out there every day and DO their jobs, in the face of impossible odds and the frequent ridicule of hot-headed right-wingers, who think illegals should be shot on sight. There has been a lot of hysteria stirred up over the last several months about border issues, at a time when the number of aliens crossing over has actually diminished. And the murder of Robert Krentz is unsolved, with merely suspicion that he was killed by a drug-runner. And drug smuggling is a totally separate criminal problem, best addressed by a reevaluation of the breathtaking folly of our national “drug war.”
No one can convince me that Russell Pearce’s SB 1070 was anything but a crass political ploy designed to intimidate LEGAL Latinos from participation in the exercise of their rights as Arizona citizens. It IS an election year, and the right-wing mischief, as usual, seems to be working.