Across the Borderline

Here is a video of the late Willy deVille singing Ry Cooder's song "Across the Borderline." (You may have heard other covers of the song by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Freddy Fender or others.)

Listening to the lyrics makes me realize how deeply American it is for someone to cross the Rio Grande seeking a better life. ... How wierd that some of us, rather than identifying with the immigrants, see them as "the other" and a threat.

Turning local police into immigration enforcers

An editorial in today's New York Times opposes the policies announced by the Department of Homeland Security last week "expanding its 287(g) program, which enlists local law-enforcement agencies to hunt illegal immigrants.

...many responsible police chiefs and sheriffs have stoutly opposed having immigration duties outsourced to them. The Police Foundation, a nonprofit research group, declared in a study in April that the costs of 287(g) outweigh the benefits, not just because it strains budgets, but also because it undermines community policing, which relies heavily on building trust among those the officers serve and protect.

Turning local cops into immigration enforcers makes racial profiling more likely while sending a chill through immigrant neighborhoods, where victims fear and avoid the police and crimes go unsolved for lack of witnesses. As a police chief in the report said: “How can you police a community that will not talk to you?”

Read the entire editorial.

This is a concern that some immigrant advocacy groups in the Illinois Quad Cities have been expressing in informal dialog with city officials and police. There has been an apparent upsurge of local cases in which immigrants have been arrested and taken to jail for traffic offenses, such as driving without a license, which in the past would have resulted in only a ticket and court summons. Then instead of being released after serving their time they have been held indefinitely for I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as felons because of technicalities such as 3 misdomenors (even minor traffic offenses committed while driving to and from work) are a felony or using a false papers to get a job is felony identity theft even though the person whose identity has been "stolen" has not been negatively impacted whatsoever.

The New York Times is absolutely right about this. Turning local police into immigration agents is a bad idea.

Are illegal immigrants the biggest threat we face?

There is an interesting op-ed in this morning's New York Times:

Here’s a thought. What if illegal immigrants really aren’t America’s worst nightmare? A lot of energy has been spent insisting that they are, but are they really as dangerous as, say, zombie banks? Or as evil as retention bonuses?

In truth, our biggest domestic menace never was waiting outside Home Depot, hoping to clean your basement. Unauthorized immigrants are not about to destroy anything, not even when they get angry and loud and march in large groups. On the contrary, they are inspiring. Their ethic of self-reliance and hard work is one that Americans should recognize and celebrate.

Read the entire article

Young Moline Mother Returns to Mexico

photograph by Kuni Takahashi of the Chicago Tribune. Click on the picture to see it full sized.

The woman in the bed in the picture is 28 year old Mariana de la Torre, a Moline resident for two years, until her recent return to her native Mexico. You can still tell, if you use your imagination at little, how pretty and vivacious she was before the cancer and the radiation and the chemotherapy took her hair and her strength.

A little over a month ago one of the oncology nurses at Trinty Hospital in Rock Island told my wife, who was there as a friend and translator for Mariana, that she did not understand why the doctor was treating her so aggressively. "There is nothing more to be done. Why doesn't he just discharge her?" But Mariana had told the doctor that she wanted to go home to Mexico to see her children and family. The doctor ordered one more round of chemo to get her well enough to travel. That got her just strong enough that she could fly home, although she needed someone to go with her to handle the ostomy bags and tubes and ambulances were needed to take her to and from the airplane. The above picture was taken a few weeks ago in Mexico at the hospital Mariana was taken to by ambulance from the airport. The three children are Mariana's. They had not seen each other since December 2006, when she left them with an aunt and crossed the border illegally and came to the Quad Cities looking to earn money that she could send back to Mexico to support her children. She had just left an abusive husband and had no way of earning enough money by herself in Mexico.

The day after this picture was taken the Mexican hospital asked Mariana where she wanted to die and then released her in her brother's care. There was nothing more they could do for her.

There is an article in today's Chicago Tribune about Mariana's situation.

How Republicans really feel about illegal immigrants

If John McCain becomes the Republican nominee for President what does that say about how the voters really feel (as opposed to what they say) about how the United States should deal with illegal immigrants? Both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, presumably in response to their perceptions of how the voters feel on the issue, have over the last few months hardened their positions against illegal immigrants. As governor neither of them instructed their state’s employees to spend very many state resources to ferret out and deport illegal immigrants. Quite the contrary in fact. But on the campaign trail, presumably in response to voter outrage over the issue, both men seemed to be competing with each other over who could sound tougher on the issue.

And yet they have been losing the primaries to John McCain, who still supports providing a path to eventual citizenship to otherwise law-abiding, hard-working illegal immigrants who have established roots in our communities. Obviously not very many voters in the Republican primaries are making getting tough against illegal immigrants their top priority – despite what they may have been telling Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

We have been hearing talk in the media about a supposed effect noted in previous elections in which white voters were more likely to tell pollsters they supported a black candidate than actually voted for that candidate. Apparently that has not been happening very much this year. Perhaps we need a name for the dynamic in which voters convince the media and candidates that they support getting tough and deporting illegal immigrants and then don’t vote for the candidates who espouse that position.

What the Mad Hatter said

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

The above exchange came to mind when I was thinking about the likely effects of the new immigration law in Arizona, slated to take effect in January. See a description of the law here.
See how the Arizona business community is reacting to the law here. Read today's New York Times editorial about it here.

Insofar as the law is enforced (laws that negatively impact business often are not) I have no doubt that it will reduce illegal immigration and cause illegal immigrants already in Arizona to leave. But will the lives of the people of Arizona be better as a result?

Since Arizona’s current unemployment rate is at a rock bottom rate of 3% (the level at which every employable person who wants work is already employed, other than people temporarily between jobs) the law is hardly likely to reduce the unemployment rate.

Since no terrorist that we know of has entered the country by crossing the US border with Mexico illegally that number is unlikely to be reduced either. As the Mad Hatter said, you cannot have less than zero.

Since people who come to this country as adults (legally and illegally) commit about one fourth as many crimes as people of the same ethnicity and social-economic level who were born here reducing the number of illegal immigrants is unlikely to have a positive effect on the crime rate either.

There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants currently in Arizona's labor force. If this law is vigorously enforced it will create a labor shortage that will take years of increased legal immigration to alleviate. The short term effects on Arizona's economy are going to be devastating.

If the law is not broadly enforced, if it is only selectively enforced against only certain industries and as occasional publicity stunts for political purposes, then the likely effect is an increase in corruption and a continuing decrease in respect for the law.

In six months or so it will be interesting to ask Arizonians how that law is working out for them.

Are driver's licenses incentives to illegal behavior?

Eight out of fifty states currently issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Does this fact encourage people in other countries to come here illegally?

There are an estimated more than 12 million illegal immigrants in this country and as far as I can tell they are all working or are the spouse or children of someone who is working. When you talk to them about why they came to this country and why they came to this particular state and city they invariably say that they came because they heard that they could find work here. I have never heard any of them say or indicate in any way that there was any other factor in their decision than their prospects of finding work. (If a baby is on the way they may also factor into the decision that it would probably be better for the child if she/he was born in America.)

So do the people who are arguing against driver’s license for illegal immigrants have any facts or hard evidence that issuing driver’s licenses is in fact an incentive to illegal behavior? My guess is that there are no such facts because no one decided to enter this country illegally based on any incentive other than the fact they could work here.

Notice the lack of facts in newspaper columnist Kathleen Parker’s column in this morning’s paper:

The illegal immigrant problem is huge, obviously, and there's no single solution. But there is one word that would get the ball rolling in the right direction and win a lot of voters' hearts: disincentivize. Stop making it so attractive to slip through, over and under the border.

As long as we offer jobs, medical treatment, drivers licenses and in-state tuition to those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we're at it?
….
Certainly, no serious person thinks we can round up 12 million people and deport them. But it would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker.

read entire article

Why can’t we round up 12 million people and deport them? The few times I have ever heard anyone address this issue they talked about the logistical problems of moving that many people and how many buses and airplanes it would take. But that is not the main issue. Although it is the 800 lb. gorilla sitting in the living room that no one talks about the main reason we cannot send them home is that there are whole industries dependent on their labor. It would have devastating effects on our economy if they were to suddenly disappear. We cannot deport them all in exactly the same way that we cannot shut down all the coal-fired power plants and we cannot stop cutting down trees in the national forests.

So, they are here and are going to remain here. The only thing to decide is how to treat them.
When Kathleen Parker admits we cannot deport them all and then talks in the next breath about “what it means to be a citizen” she is talking about a two-tiered class system in which we exploit the labor of the non-documented while denying them the benefits citizens and legal residents enjoy. This would have all the standard advantages for us that the upper classes enjoy in any class-based society – and all the disadvantages also. Does a permanent under-class of exploited workers with fewer rights and benefits than the rest of us fit your picture of what America is about?

Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Immigrants

In the recent Democratic presidential candidates debate Chris Dodd jumped all over Hillary Clinton for saying that there were good reasons for issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. “Driving is a privilege, not a right,” Chris Dodd thundered. Apparently Chris Dodd thinks that a driver’s license is a reward we hand out for good behavior, similar perhaps to a "Medal of Freedom" or a "Key to the City." Is that the purpose of a driver’s license?

Illegal immigrants have come here to work. In most places in the country, including where I live in the Quad Cities, the only way to get to most jobs, is to drive. As long as we have illegal immigrants here working they are going to be driving and if they are not allowed to get driver’s licenses they are going to be driving unlicensed. Although illegal immigrants are routinely stopped and ticketed by the police for driving without a license they just pay the fine and continue driving. What else can they do? They need to work. (If you are unaware how many immigrants the police ticket every day for driving without a license you might want to go down to your local traffic court and hang out for a few hours.) Since they have to pay a fine (starting at $75-$100 for the first offense and going up) every time they are caught driving without a license most of them would get a driver’s license if they were permitted to do so. If having liability insurance was a requirement to get a license they would get that also. It would still be cheaper than the fines they are currently paying.

Also notice that the only options on the table are continuing the present situation of forcing illegal immigrants to drive unlicensed or granting them driver’s licenses. There is no third option. We have an estimated more than 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. Whole industries are dependent on their labor and it would have serious negative effects on our economy if they were to somehow suddenly disappear. Since most of them have Social Security taxes withheld from their pay but will never collect any benefits some people think having large numbers of illegal immigrants working in the United States is vital for the continued viability of the Social Security program, especially with all the baby boomers set to retire. There is no option in the reality-based world for immediately deporting illegal immigrants the moment they come to a policeman’s or other government official’s attention. That is not any more likely to happen than, say, closing down all coal-fired power plants because of the green-house gases they emit.

So which of those two options would benefit you the most? Is punishing illegal immigrants more important than having fewer unlicensed, uninsured, unidentified drivers sharing the road with you?

What part of illegal don’t you understand?

I came across an interesting article by Tim Wu at Slate.com:

This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead.

Why are there dead zones in U.S. law? The answer goes beyond the simple expense of enforcement but betrays a deeper, underlying logic. Tolerated lawbreaking is almost always a response to a political failure—the inability of our political institutions to adapt to social change or reach a rational compromise that reflects the interests of the nation and all concerned parties. That's why the American statutes are full of laws that no one wants to see fully enforced—or even enforced at all.

You know when people say “it’s not about the money, it’s the principle involved” you know that it’s really about the money? In a similar manner when someone says “I’m not against all immigrants, I just cannot stand to see our laws being flaunted” you should know that they don’t like immigrants.

The economic consequences of xenophobia

From an article in today's New York Times:

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. ....

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

Read entire article

Boarded up businesses in a previously thriving downtown are among the consequences of measures that make immigrants feel unwelcome and drive them away on the local level. Farmers moving their operations to Mexico or having to contract with the government for convict labor in order to harvest their crops are among the consequences we are starting to see on the national level as a result of making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to enter the country.

What would be the economic consequences if we could, as some people claim to want to do, deport all the illegal immigrants form the United States? People who understand how important illegal immigrants have been to the nation's economic growth of the last 20 years or so talk about economic stagnation and recession -- the national equivalent to Riverside's boarded up downtown. The impact on the Social Security system would be huge -- the illegal immigrants have been paying in while getting nothing back.

As the baby boom generation starts to retire who would serve them in restaurants or make their beds in hotels and nursing homes?

Actions taken based on negative emotions such as fear and xenophobia often turn out to have been mistakes.

What part of illegal doesn’t Rudy Giuliani understand?

According to an Associated Press story Rudy Giuliani has thrown cold water on the widely believed idea that the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States are criminals and that when cities instruct their employees to not inquire about immigration status they are turning a blind eye to criminal behavior.

"[Illegal immigration is] not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."

How can that be Rudy? What does the illegal in illegal immigrant mean?

"I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York," he said. "So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding."

Oh.

Homeland Security is going to be the workplace police

According to the New York Times the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to their duties protecting us from terrorists, are going to start policing the workplace.

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.

Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.

The scuttlebutt I hear is that most “good” jobs (lasting longer than a few months and paying more than minimum wage) already require valid social security numbers. This means that many illegal immigrants are using the social security numbers of someone else. It appears that in most cases these are purchased rather than stolen identities and the buyers are careful not use the name for anything other than obtaining work – the buyer knows that if he/she runs up debts or committed crimes using the purchased identity the seller would blow the whistle on them.

Knowing this you can tell if they are really serious about cracking down on illegal immigrants in the workplace by whether or not they do anything to track down Social Security numbers being used by more than one person. If all they do is make announcements that employers (who are already not hiring anyone without a valid SSN) must fire all workers without valid numbers and stage a few well publicized raids then it is all for show.

How do Americans feel about illegal immigrants?

I just received the following message as part of an email from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC):

We have some timely news to share with you. For the past few weeks, AFSC has been conducting the a large, independent study on the U.S. public’s views on immigration issues, and now the results are in. Here are a few key findings:

* The U.S. public strongly supports the idea that “keeping families together should be a priority in our immigration policies”

* The public believes that the broken, outdated immigration system needs fixing, but that more border fences and scapegoating are not the answers.

* Two-thirds of the public supports a legal path to permanent residency and eventual citizenship for all undocumented immigrants who have built a life in this country.

AFSC’s National Immigration Opinion Survey shows that the majority of the public supports more humane and less punitive measures than currently appear in the Senate bill.

Two out of every three Americans think that immigrants who have been working and putting down roots in our communities should not have to live in fear of at any moment being arrested and summarily deported. Two out of every three Americans think it is wrong to have 12 million people among us working and paying taxes but without any rights, vulnerable to exploitation.

Why is the less than one third of Americans who oppose giving legal status to illegal immigrants so much more vocal than the two thirds who support it? If you believe in a compassionate, caring America, rather than a punitive, vindictive one, you need to speak up.

Teaching English as a Second Language

It is somewhat amazing when you think about it that in the United States of America we provide free public education to all the children in our community, no questions asked. Although providing that education consumes a sizeable percentage of all the tax money collected on the local level I have never heard anyone suggest that we stop doing it. No one talks about how much lower their taxes would be if free public education were eliminated.

We don’t think of the money we spend on education as charity. We are sold on the concept that it benefits us all to provide education to all. We do not even balk at spending more for educating “special needs” children. On what basis could we object to the costs required for any particular child once we have accepted the general concept of educating all the children? If someone were to claim that so much was being spent on Special Education that it was impacting the quality of education provided to the other students we would probably say, “well, we just need to come up with more money, then.”

But something about illegal immigrants upsets some people so much that they resent the money spent to educate “those” children, Here are some of the comments posted online to a Moline Dispatch/Rock Island Argus article about East Moline schools hiring bilingual staff to better meet the needs of students for whom English is not spoken at home:

This is an English speaking nation and I resent my tax dollar being spent on instructing anyone who don`t bother trying to learn the language of my country. Press one for English--press two for instruction on leaving the country until you do.

I have to say that I strongly resent the expansion of the ESL program, not because I hate children or can't stand immigrants, but because in an increasingly competitive world, our children are being left in a cloud of dust by an uncontrolled stampede of illegal immigration.

I don't believe my taxes should be paid just to educate my child, I do, however, believe that when it comes time for my child to receive their education I should be able to expect a sound, solid base. This cannot happen with limited resources (tax dollars) being stretched beyond capacity.

The bright children are left without challenge. More and more "gifted" programs are cut, while we spend our tax dollars on teaching basics like speaking English, and often to those who are here illegally or not paying taxes.
It is simply a matter of equity and sound governance, not a matter of racism. As we shift our resources from teaching science, math, arts, and music to programs teaching simple communication, we lower the level of education for all.

Of course, illegal immigrants do pay taxes. When it comes to the property and sales taxes that pay for education they pay just as much as anyone else. But that is beside the point. Our commitment to educating all the children is not based on how much the student’s parents have paid in taxes.

Why do these people resent the cost of educating these “special needs” children while not objecting to other “special needs” students? I think the people making these comments see illegal immigrants as “the other”, not like us, not part of our community. It is not inevitable that this would be so. Almost all the illegal immigrants came here for the kinds of reasons Americans normally approve of and identify with. They came here looking for work so that they could provide for their families. They heard there were jobs here and they came looking for work, not a handout. They do not qualify for food stamps, Medicaid or Section 8 housing.

Judging from the comments it seems the main reason they are seen as “the other” is because they do not speak English. It is not obvious why that should put them beyond the pale. My paternal grandmother’s parents and grandparents came as immigrants to this country from Schleswig-Holstein, in what is now Germany. My great-great-grandparents came to this country as adults and although they picked up some English they always spoke German at home. My great-grandparents learned English as a second language in school. I suspect that many of those posting those intolerant comments also have immigrant ancestors who learned English in school as a second language.

Does Illegal Immigration Hurt America?

The very low poll numbers Tom Tancredo’s campaign for president is generating shows there is not much support for his idea that the sheer number of non-English speaking immigrants, both legal and illegal, is damaging our society and changing it in undesirable ways. These ideas are apparently more racist and xenophobic than are the vast majority of Americans. This is certainly encouraging news.

There is much broader support, however, for the idea that the large number of illegal immigrants willing to work hard for low wages are depressing the wages for legal Americans, presumably most especially for unskilled and under-educated Americans, mostly minorities, who are only qualified for the most menial and lowest wage jobs. The most extreme version of this idea is the often-heard complaint that illegal immigrants are filling jobs that legal Americans would hold if the illegal immigrants were not here. This, of course, is nonsense. Illegal immigrants are at a great disadvantage in the job market compared to Americans who speak English and have valid documents and Social Security numbers. Almost every job currently held by an illegal immigrant would have been given instead to an English-speaking American with a valid Social Security number if any legal Americans willing and able to do the job had shown up to apply for it.

It is a little harder to refute the variant of this idea which says that if the illegal immigrants were not here the wages offered for the jobs that illegal immigrants now hold would have to be increased until they were high enough that legal Americans would be willing to do those jobs. It is also believed by many that this would create a cascade effect that would also raise the wages for all jobs in America. Of course, in the face of labor shortages, wages can not rise without limit. For every job there is a limit to how high wages can rise before the job disappears. Above that limit either a cheaper alternative exists such as automation or moving the job off-shore or the higher wage would force the price for the produced product above the limit the market would bear and demand for the product would disappear along with the job of producing that product. For the jobs now held by illegal immigrants in America how much higher is this limit than the current wage? How much would wages rise if we created a labor shortage by removing the illegal immigrants? How many of the jobs would just disappear if there was no one willing to fill them at the currently offered wage? Would low wage workers be better or worse off? Would most Americans be better or worse off? There is no way anyone can know that with any degree of certainty.

There is a possibility that removing the illegal immigrants would create a labor shortage that would contract the economy, creating a recession and wages would go down. Is that more or less likely than wages rising? Who knows! At the very least the price of a hotel stay, the price of a meal in a restaurant, the prices of fruits and vegetables picked by migrant workers and other things Americans buy would go up if the wages for the jobs now held by illegal immigrants went up. Even if removing the illegal immigrants caused wages to rise (not a sure thing) would the rise in wages more than offset the higher prices that would result so that most Americans would be better off? Who knows!

What do we do in the face of such uncertainty? The AFL-CIO says that one thing we can know for sure is that all workers should stick together for their mutual benefit. Christianity teaches us that God requires us to offer hospitality to strangers and aid to the less fortunate. American History teaches us that we are an immigrant nation that has benefited and grown with each wave of immigration. During the great wave of Irish Immigration from 1860 – 1890 many thought the large numbers of new Irish immigrants were hurting America. Today no one (that I know of) claims that those Irish immigrants changed America for the worse or made any Americans worse off in any way.

When poor people, willing to work hard and wanting to help their families show up in our communities looking for work will we regret allowing them to stay? Being hospitable and welcoming and showing human kindness can never be the wrong thing to do.

Pretty Boy Floyd never deported anyone

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, when people made powerless by poverty were being thrown out of their homes when banks repossessed them, Woody Guthrie wrote a song about Pretty Boy Floyd, the bank robber, that ended:

As through this world you wander
You'll see plenty of funny men.
Some will rob you with a six-gun
Others with a fountain pen.

But as through this world I've wandered
And through this world I've roamed
I've never seen an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Outlaws have never driven people from their homes by repossessing their houses nor have they ever broken up families by conducting workplace raids and deporting fathers and mothers. When undocumented workers are deported as part of a ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) raid children and spouses are left behind, some of them citizens, wondering when and if their families will ever be reunited. There raids are not being conducted by outlaws or terrorists, but by our government, acting in our names.

Recent polls show that the vast majority of Americans (78%) believe that illegal immigrants who are already here and working should be given a chance to become citizens rather than being threatened with deportation. We need comprehensive immigration reform to bring our laws and policies on immigration more into line with how the majority feel the undocumented should be treated.

A minority of 22% can sure make a lot of noise

According to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend and released yesterday 78% of the American people feel immigrants now in the country illegally should be given a chance at citizenship.

Wow! If you read the comments posted online to any news article or blog entry that mentions illegal immigrants you would get the feeling that there are an awful lot of Americans who think that all the undocumented should be immediately deported the moment anyone in law enforcement becomes aware of them, no matter how long the immigrants have been here and how many roots they have put down in our communities. Apparently those who feel that way are much more vocal and much more likely to publicly state their opinion than the 78% majority who feel otherwise.

Maybe the release of this poll will embolden people to be more assertive in defending the most vulnerable and least powerful among us -- the more than 12 million undocumented. You can't go back in time and stand up to the school-yard bullies like you now wish you had but you do have the opportunity to confront the adult bullies who think just because they were born here they can push around defenseless people who were not.

Driving while undocumented

A couple of days ago the Moline Dispatch published an article about the bill just passed by the Illinois House to allow issuing driver’s “certificates” to illegal immigrants. There have been more than 126 comments posted online many of them similar to the following:

Relax--if they are here illegally they will not sign up for any driving certificate because the feds will be knocking on their door to send them back home. Also if they are here illegally they probably can't afford or won't spend the money on insurance. Results--illegals will still be on the road without insurance. If they cause an accident good luck. They will be back to their old country before anything can be done about it and we will be left to pay for the damage.

If they are illegal why are they still here?

Do you really think these illegals are going to be getting insurance? Get real. Hopefully, the fingerprinting and address verification will be the best part of this. When the raids come looking for them they will be easier to find.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? They are illegals. They need to be rounded up and shipped back to where they came from. This is just one more piece of proof that our so called lawmakers are insane. Rename Springfield as Stupidity Inc.

Let's read between the lines..."and get to work without being stopped and thrown into jail." This is another attempt to limit a powerful law enforcement tool that led to easier deportation. Shame on our spineless politicians.

The people who wrote these comments are obviously not involved in any way with law enforcement or our courts because illegal immigrants are arrested every day for driving without a driver’s license and insurance. None of them are being deported as a result of coming to the attention of the authorities in this way. Most local authorities do not consider it their jobs to enforce immigration laws and besides if they did call ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) nothing would happen. ICE does not have the resources to come get every illegal immigrant in every local jail in the country, and currently seems to be focusing on deporting immigrants with multiple felonies and staging raids on companies who systematically and knowingly hire large numbers of illegal immigrants.

It is not surprising to me that people without a clue will post comments online, but it is a little surprising that none of the thousands of people who are in a position to know posted comments injecting a little reality into the discussion.

Ten million immigrants are not going to be rounded up and deported whether or not Illinois issues them driver’s certificates. If we are going to have illegal immigrants driving it would be better to have them apply for documentation, pass a test and obtain insurance than not. Putting pressure on Illinois lawmakers to prevent this bill from passing will not deport a single illegal immigrant. It will just make driving less safe.