As I mentioned in A Nation of Outlaws, a non-profit organization called Judicial Watch planned to file a lawsuit against Herndon, Virginia, to stop the town from building an illegal “day labor” center for illegal aliens. (Photo from Help Save Herndon)
The group filed suit last Thursday (PDF copy of complaint). I’m currently working on the second part of the op-ed, which will highlight this and other efforts to stop the expenditure of public funds for illegal purposes.
Did you know that it’s against federal law to enter the country without proper documentation, to give public benefits to non-citizens in the country without proper documentation, and to employ non-citizens in the country without proper documentation? Of course you do, and so do illegal aliens who cross the border, government agencies that dole out taxpayers’ money and unscrupulous employers who do the hiring. Knowing that these laws exist and witnessing their violation every day is strikingly incongruous, and it’s been nagging at me for a long time.
What is the purpose of federal immigration laws, and if they’ve outlived the purpose, why not just change the laws? I will try to find the answers.
The Washington Post has a story about the lawsuit, and they make sure readers know that Judicial Watch, the group challenging Herndon’s illegal enterprise, is “conservative”:
A conservative legal group sued the town of Herndon yesterday in an attempt to block an official site where day laborers can wait to be hired, saying the plan would attract immigrants who are in the country illegally….
“We want to shut down the day laborer site,” Tom Fitton, president of the organization, said yesterday. “This day laborer site undermines and violates federal immigration law, and it can’t go forward.”
Herndon Mayor Michael L. O’Reilly released a statement saying Judicial Watch had “recruited” residents as plaintiffs to further its agenda of influencing federal immigration policy.
“Clearly the national immigration issue needs to be handled by Congress and the executive branch and not by small local governments such as Herndon,” he said. “Whether or not a regulated site opens in Herndon will have no impact on the national issue.” (Also see the Washington Times)
Mayor O’Reilly is a fool. Influencing government policy is exactly what citizens are supposed to do. It’s why we elect people to legislate, to write laws, for crying out loud. Is he saying that citizens should sit quietly by while their money is being used for illegal purposes?
When it comes to recognizing the burden of illegal immigration on local governments, O’Reilly is no fool. He knows the federal government does not enforce immigration law. I spoke with someone at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and I couldn’t get a straight answer. The spokesperson kept telling me I’d have to speak to a “local official” about the day labor center when I specifically asked her what ICE had to say about what Herndon planned to do.
All she’d say on the record was, “We continue to work closely with law enforcement partners to enforce immigration laws, and I don’t have anything to say about a local issue.”
I’ll just keep calling until I find someone who does have something to say.
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Lots of related links at For the Cause, FAIR…
FOXNews.com’s two-part series on illegal immigration: Impatience Grows for Immigration Reforms and Day Labor Centers Stir Controversy Throughout Country…
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“Is he saying that citizens should sit quietly by while their money is being used for illegal purposes?”
That’s exactly what he is saying…the old “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. It’s just another step toward a “non-democratic” society.
I sent an email to Governor Warner’s office asking him if he could talk to the Mayor of Herndon to see if the “Herndon day labor” site and/or it’s funds could be used for the LEGAL citizens now displaced by Katrina (I mean, Virginia has to do its part, right?). I also asked that perhaps he recommend that Vincente Fox keep his aid he is offering and do us a favor… taking back his LEGAL citizens that are here ILLEGALLY and taking care of them with that aid . Of course I haven’t heard anything back yet
I would wager that the “day labor” center is not being built in the mayor’s neighborhood. If it were, he would be against it.
The Washington Post article on August 18 reported the following:
“But council members said they were helpless in the face of what they called a federal failure to police U.S. borders. They said it was their responsibility to bring order to a neighborhood nuisance that had become the town’s most divisive issue in recent history.
“Here we sit, expecting this local government to resolve a national immigration problem that is out of our control,” council member Harlon Reece said before the vote.”
Thus, Herndon wants to organize their pick up sites for day laborers and Herndon openly admits it will turn a blind eye to whether they are serving “illegal aliens” or not.
Well, “build it and they will come.” This Field of Dreams enterprise, if successful, would attract droves of “illegals” the same way any unregulated welfare program overwhelms itself.
As to the worn out logic above (#3) about the consequential accident of a fire station benefiting an illegal alien: The more logical syllogism is building a fire station near a bed of arsonists.
Why is it that bleeding hearts always resort to the logic of false cause based always on the premise of victim-hood?
It’s the “since everyone else is doing wrong, I may as well do wrong also)…
go figure
Heliotrope: Wow, I’m a bleeding heart? That would be news to just about everybody who knows me.
You’ve got to be kidding if you think illegals will flock to Herndon because of this center. They go where the work is (that’s why they’re in the US in the first place). Herndon doesn’t have enough work for the day laborers (legal and illegal varieties) for all the day laborers who already hang out at the 7-11, why in the world would an illegal from Arlington or Silver Spring or Vienna (all DC suburbs) give up the work they have near where they live to show up in Herndon? Why would a contractor drive to Herndon to pick up an illegal day laborer when they can merely drive to the 7-11 in their suburb to find more than enough willing day laborers already there?
And, while I disagree your premise that a more logical syllogism would be to build a fire house near a bed of arsonists, do you propose not having a firehouse near where fires are likely to be set? Do you not put police stations near where crimes are likely to be committed (I’m sorry innocent victim-to-be, we can’t put a police station near your house because there are too many criminals near by)? Do you not put Red Cross shelters near where victims of natural disasters are likely to be found?
La Shawn, your picture tells a thousand words! We already have enough obscene-gesturing home-grown louts in this country, we don’t need any more! Notice how well-fed they look, to the point where could stand to lose a few pounds!
If you have a comment on that post, e-mail me. – Admin
I’d like to see someone make a gesture like that to a 5 ton truck full of Marines!
Readers should check out the photos on the Help Save Herndon site. I don’t know about other cities, but there are quite a few of these types of places in Chicago, but nobody says anything about it. And there’s more garbage, catcalls to women, overcrowding than in Herndon. This is what I’ve been talking about: once people live around it, they get a different perspective. If the leaders of our nation and cities lived right around it, they’d be more concerned. Especially if their daughters had to pass by these places every day and endure harassment.
I agree with you 1000% mj…
as long as it’s not in “their” backyard, they really don’t care about it
Perhaps they should build the day laborer site, have “bosses” pull up in droves, “hire” these guys and drive them straight to the feds. It wouldn’t eliminate the problem, but it would eliminate a bunch in one whack.
What charming fellows!
/sarc
So Judicial Watch is back to being an evil conservative advocacy group? When they sued Cheney over his evergy meetings, they were simply a “government watchdog” group.
Welcome back, JW!
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