The Immigration Invasion And The Deer Disaster Meet Opposition (Finally!) In Liberal Maryland
The congruence of two recent
Washington Post front page stories can hardly be over looked. You
can`t avoid contrasting the actions taken to solve
these problems by so-very-tippy-toe elected
officials with sensible initiatives taken mostly by
private, thinking citizens who have forced changes.
-
The first story:
to my delight and surprise, I found
a front page, Sunday, January 11th news column in the
Washington Post
entitled
Attitudes Shift on Illegal ResidentsSome|Link
Crime In Montgomery To Immigration [By Dan Morse
and Ann E. Marimow].
It
actually uses the
term "illegal"
and finally reports in considerable detail on something
which most of that county`s residents have felt for
years.
Of course the reporters had to make
it appear like a
sudden change in citizens` attitudes:
"For years, mainstream
Montgomery
accepting of illegal immigrants, and county leaders
followed suit, pledging not to
enforce immigration laws even as
police agencies elsewhere in the region began to do
so.
“But public sentiment appears to be shifting in
alarm over rising crime and the recent slayings of a
14-year-old honor student on a county transit bus and a
63-year-old woman in her
"`People who are very, very tolerant want to see some changes,` said
County Council member
Marc Elrich [Email
him] (D-At Large), one of five council members who
said in interviews that public opinion has shifted in
recent months.”
Sorry,
Mr. Elrich, I don`t buy your lame excuse that the whole
county just woke up, when
poll after national poll shows over 70% of all
citizens are concerned about the immigration invasion.
Even
in
"The
People`s Republic of Takoma Park,"
where
"since 1985
[the city] has
officially
refused to identify or report undocumented immigrants".
The Post
reports that Mr. Elrich
"said crime has
`really hit home` even in his neighborhood of
Takoma Park
Especially when
"Mariana
Cordier, who grew up in the county and is a past
president of the
Maryland
Hispanic Bar Association, said residents are
increasingly linking crime to illegal immigration."
This is national, folks, so get with the facts.
-
The second
Post
story:
On Monday, January 12th,
I find another
Post front pager:
Once Scorned, Deer Hunters Find Welcome in Suburban Md.,
[By Steve Hendrix
,
"A year ago, this would have been illegal: Mark Eakin, a federal
oceanographer and avid deer hunter, sat in a portable
tree stand with his bow at the ready, overlooking a
small creek and two Rockville back yards on a cold
January morning. As the camo-clad Eakin peered down, the
weekday routine rolled down the street behind him,
school buses, trash trucks and commuters heading
toward Wootton Parkway…Eakin, who has
bagged eight deer since bow season began in
September…[is]
one of several hunters, game officials and residents to
hail Montgomery County`s surprising emergence as …a
deer hunting haven."
As
a resident living near the border of this county.
overlooking a view of the 2,000 acre
Creek
deer population is expanding without restriction. They
have no predators and they eat everything you can plant
except daisies and–please, horticulturists, give us some
ideas–we long ago gave up tulips which the little dears
eat like bon bons.
I was raised in a small
Western Pennsylvania town, where the first day of
deer hunting season was reason to give
kids a day off school. I have often wondered when
the huge number of these creatures would trigger a
reasonable citizen reaction. Were we too effete or too
feckless to care?
Now
we have seen one sensible reaction. Is this the start of
something bigger?
The story continues:
"Last season, Eakin`s
been prohibited as too close to a road. But now he is
able to set up his stand with the permission of
surrounding homeowners. `It`s not that people embrace
the hunting,` said Eakin, who belongs to a group of
volunteer archers who hunt at the request of
neighborhoods with large deer populations, `but they
know something needs to be done.` Behind
Montgomery
hunting, officials said, is public frustration with the
whitetail population boom. Crumpled fenders, ruined
gardens and the risk of Lyme disease have made residents
much more receptive to hunters."
"They`ve gone from `How dare you propose shooting the deer` to `When are
you coming to my neighborhood?` " said Rob Gibbs, head
of Montgomery`s Deer Management Working Group".
John Yakaitis, 62, has watched increasing numbers of deer destroy his
shrubs and the surrounding forest understory. His wife
hit a deer two years ago, doing more than $1,000 in
damage to their car. `There are just so many of them,
they`re eating everything in sight and they`re still
starving,` Yakaitis said. `A lot of folks who were
opposed to it are signing up` to allow hunters, he said.
"
In fact, I suppose when it happens
to an elected official, as it did when a council member,
George
Leventhal (D-At Large) was
injured in a deer collision on the Capital Beltway,
suffering serious facial damage that required
reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, action to make
sensible laws quickly follows.
Hey, are we getting to see the
parallels yet with dear deers and the immigrant invasion
yet? Perhaps some of these elite Congressional members
will need to be attacked by illegal aliens, or
improperly vetted legal ones, before they see the light.
Sensible laws on deer thinning can
be constructed to make sure citizens are not endangered
by firearms or even bows and arrows. The hunters should
be vetted carefully, so they are in effect like our
Border Patrol, fully professional and licensed. Why not?
But to do nothing is exactly what
our Federal elected officials did about human
immigration policy since 1965 until finally it got
so out of whack. Even now the new Congress doesn`t seem
to get it. It seems, even amidst this deep recession,
that proper measures taken now will be deemed by the
bleeding hearts, ethnic and
ideological lobbyists,
and by their
corporate puppet masters as examples of
"nativism"
or "racism".
Back to the illegal (and please
also the overdone legal) immigration situation. We can
be glad
Montgomery
finally found it expedient to edge into their version of
the truth, which they must have known for years. Their
citizens had surely understood the situation for years,
but now, with crime as just one element of the problem,
these leaders say they begin to
"get it".
Guess these elected folks in
their reelection may be on the line. A small step was
recently taken by County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger
who, the story reports, is
"developing a proposal to have county police officers check the
immigration status of suspects arrested for violent
crimes and weapons offenses."
When I was an
officer in the Navy, one of my Chief Petty Officers
would often opine that standard military refrain,
"There`s always
that 2% who don`t get the word." Enter Bethesda
resident Judy Campbell,
"I wouldn`t have gone for it a year ago," when interviewed recently,
leaving a natural food co-op in Takoma Park with soy
milk and a slice of vegan double-chocolate fudge cake.
"Until this
series of violent crimes, it wasn`t on my radar screen."
Admittedly
so-called
"liberals" such as Campbell, a 50-year-old nurse,
have been among those slow to
"get it". And in fact the article reports that
"She thinks
illegal immigrants deserve
publicly
funded health care."
However,
Campbell
now "supports the
chief`s efforts, in part because the emerging proposal
is not as far-reaching as policies that have been
enacted in Prince William and Frederick counties."
Do something but not enough to really get the job
done…great thinking, Ms. Campbell.
Ms.
Campbell unfortunately is joined by a typical deaf to
the facts–or afraid of the facts–official,
County Executive Isiah Leggett (D), [email
him] who claims he has detected no major shift in
public sentiment. Leggett, who in the past has said
in the business of enforcing immigration laws, would
have to approve the Chief`s proposal before it could
take effect. Sounds like one guy to dis-elect.
Naturally, the
Post reports
"Opponents hope
to persuade him to reject the idea, which they say would
result in racial or ethnic profiling that could ensnare
innocent people.
State
Ana Sol Gutierrez [email
her] (D-Montgomery) and other opponents said residents would reject the
proposal if they understood its consequences more
fully."
You mean they would reject you when
they hear you are against reasonable law enforcement,
don`t you, Ms. Gutierrez?
The
irrationality of past practice is underlined by this
quote: "The
proposal is a departure from past practice for a police
agency that has cultivated relations with immigrant
communities. The department has long
taken the position that delving into immigration
matters could jeopardize cooperation from crime victims
and witnesses, undermining public safety."
But then that is the political
flavor of
would have found if they hadn`t concentrated their
research there?
Their
acid test of need for change must be that you first need
to run you car into an errant deer or get
shot by an illegal alien?
This
kind of thinking denotes that it is better to harbor
dangerous illegal aliens among
those who are here legally, rather than find out who
is legal and who is not. This of course follows the
common refrain of local officials who always avoid the
unfunded by proper Federal funding, the cost of policing
the illegal alien problem. As more and more complain,
the noise level will perhaps reach the office holders,
who as noted above, don`t want to be turned out of
office.
Apparently
the issue turned hotter most recently
with the murders by illegal immigrants, who were
charged in the two killings,
"one of which
police linked to a series of
home invasions"..
Indeed,
"Serious crime is
up 7.7 percent in
Montgomery
increases in home and car break-ins across the county."
Typical
Post
reportorial comment:
" Police
acknowledge that they do not know how much of that
increase, if any, is attributable to illegal
immigrants." Oh, please!!!!
Especially after the article tells
us that "As of a
week ago, eight of 16 people held in the county jail on
murder charges had immigration detainers placed on them,
meaning federal authorities might move to deport them
after their criminal cases have run their course."
A
big deal with illegal alien advocates is concern about
racial profiling. Give me a break. If people are
arrested for a crime, they should be asked for
identification. A
driver`s license, a home address, a
Social
Security number. What is so hard about getting
information on that?
The
plain truth is that the way we have allowed this
immigration situation to deteriorate caused the problem.
Lax enforcement over decades at every level of
government, but particularly at the Federal level, has
brought us to this fix, just like the
mortgage crisis and the various
scams perpetrated on Wall Street.
Round`em up and ship`em out should
have been our action all along with illegal aliens.
These people are either here legally or illegally. Find
out. Two of the
Montgomery
murder suspects
"are illegal immigrants whose status went undetected
during previous arrests in the county."
One
non-Takoman council member,
Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty) [email
him] notes that mainstream people are now asking why
this wasn`t handled better.
County
with a decision on this proposal by month`s end, but
says he wants to
"use all reasonable tools to get criminals off the
street but is concerned about the potential for
profiling. `You don`t want to punish or stereotype
people in a way that is unfair and illegal.`"
Talk about trying to escape
fulfilling the responsibility for which he was elected.
The
Post reports
that "Police officials have not said how officers would determine whom to
press on the question of status, or what kind of
training they would need to carry out the policy
effectively." Cripes, you have a felon and you can`t
ID him? Where are
Mickey
Spillane or Sam Spade when we need them? Just like
the deer infestation, we know when we have too many and
now is the time to fix this.
Many citizens, including one local
activist group called
Help Save
Maryland, are demanding action on this plan. And
while you are at it, Mr. Leggett, how about insuring
that all illegal aliens
are denied public services?
Unfortunately, nearby
Prince George`s County is
"governed by a
2003 County Council resolution directing them to refrain
from enforcing immigration laws". Hard to believe.
How
about cutting off Federal funding for any jurisdiction
which fails to obey Federal laws?? You know, just like
the
55 MPH law was enforced on states, by withholding
gotten tougher, and, as the
Post story
notes, "requires
that officers ask about the status of everyone they
place under arrest.” In
“as part of a
partnership with federal immigration authorities,
all people booked into the county jail are questioned
about their citizenship. The answers can trigger more
questions and a call to federal agents."
Deer me—have we learned anything
after all these years of immivasion experience? Not
enough, but some, apparently.
Donald A. Collins [email
him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.
