Immigration Tragedies

U.S. District Judge James Munley recently ruled that a landmark municipal law cracking down on illegal immigrants is unconstitutional and I’m both angered and afraid that this will set a precedent banning similar ordinances proposed around the country.

Advocates for illegal immigrants hailed the ruling against a law in Hazleton, Pa., as a victory and powerful reminder that immigration is a federal issue Congress must ultimately deal with by passing comprehensive reform. But supporters of stricter immigration enforcement said the local ordinances have not been defeated and will eventually make their way to the Supreme Court.

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In a strongly worded ruling, U.S. District Judge James Munley said the ordinance was pre-empted by federal law and violated due process protections in the Constitution.

Munley wrote in his opinion that “in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable,” Hazleton violated the rights of those people and others.

“Whatever frustrations … the city of Hazleton may feel about the current state of federal immigration enforcement, the nature of the political system in the United States prohibits the city from enacting ordinances that disrupt a carefully drawn federal statutory scheme.

Carefully drawn federal statuatory scheme? Hah! The scheme, it seems, is to do absolutely nothing to control illegal immigration.

Judges like Munley are an embarrassment to their office. One might think that enforcing existing laws would be a priority for federal judges. Obviously not. It’s far more important to men like Munly to pander to the criminals than to do the will of the citizens they are sworn to represent.

Not surprisingly:

“I think this ruling is a win for common sense,” said Jose Luis Jimenez Jr., Houston district director for the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Hopefully, other elected officials and other city councils and boards heed the warning not to try to do something that is not their responsibility.”

Actually, the Hazelton law is an appropriate supplement to existing federal law and would have provided a much-needed and well-deserved remedy to a local jurisdiction that the federales have neglected. It’s a tragedy that a federal judge would deny a city the right to police itself.

An Even Worse Tragedy

Illegal immigrants are occasionally in the news because of the crimes they commit and another heartbreaking event took place in Tacoma earlier this month when a 12 year old girl was kidnapped and killed, probably by an illegal alien who was a known pedophile.

Probably? Nathan Tabor writes:

Any suspect is innocent until proven guilty, and Adhahn is entitled to a fair hearing, if he is ultimately charged with Zina’s death. He has, in fact, denied having anything to do with the girl’s abduction.

Yet, Fox News is reporting that his conviction for incest should have prompted deportation. Let’s be clear—court records indicate he is a diagnosed pedophile. In addition, a search warrant indicates that girl’s undergarments–—a particularly damning piece of evidence–were taken from Adhahn’s apartment.

Probably. It’s yet to be proven in a court of law, so it would not be right to convict this particular individual in print at this time. But Tabor continues:

This is a tragedy which will cause unspeakable grief for all those who knew and loved her. The fact that an illegal immigrant may have been responsible makes the tragic death all the more difficult to bear.

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Unfortunately, there are some foreigners who are violent criminals who have no business being on our shores. We may not even realize they’re here—until tragedy strikes. Why is it that some public officials are willing to ignore our immigration problem until some horrific event occurs

Every crime of this sort is sickening, but Tabor is exactly right when he says that fact that it was apparently committed by an illegal who is a sex criminal – a man who would have been deported by any competent law enforcement agency – makes it that much harder to bear.

Tabor then concludes by broadly painting illegal aliens as foreign thugs and child haters, two characterizations that I do not believe are generally applicable.

Sadly I am without statistics about this but I strongly suspect that illegal immigrants are actually better “citizens” than their legal American counterparts in similar socio-economic strata, in part because of the very fact of their immigration status and in part because the vast majority of illegals simply want to work hard and make money.

Zina Linnik should not have been abducted and killed. Our system failed her as it has failed so many others. Yet it is still not justifiable to blame 10 million illegals for one pervert’s actions.

No, the common thread between Judge Munley’s misguided, legalistic ruling and Zina’s murder is our government’s pathetic inability to enforce its own laws.

As gut wrenching as little Zina’s case is, her death should still not be a driver for immigration reform.  How can it be when America produces so many sex criminals all by herself?

The issue really is very simple.  It’s a matter of principle and of economics.  We must deny future potential illegal aliens the ability to enter our country without permission. Forget about the ones we invited here – that”s over and done with. But focus, people, on stopping the next wave from flooding us.