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The town of Herndon in Northern Virginia has decided to shut down its controversial day labor center rather than allow illegal aliens to use it. Bravo. (Source)
Brief history for those who haven’t followed the story: As they often do in too many cities and towns across the country, illegal aliens looking for work in the Herndon area began congregating at a local 7-11 store and on citizens’ property, making a nuisance of themselves. Two years ago, the town council thought it would be a good idea to use public funds to provide a place where these criminals and their criminal employers could meet up to engage in activity in direct violation of federal law.
Outrage doesn’t begin to describe Herndon’s or my reaction to the day labor center. The people booted out the mayor and other bums who voted to build it. But that didn’t end the matter. Even before the center opened, there’s been a lot of back and forth over who should be allowed to use it. A shameless illegal alien employer named Stephen A. Thomas had the nerve to cite a First Amendment right to illegally solicit workers at the center.
A circuit court judge ruled in Thomas’s favor. Illegal aliens must be allowed access to the day labor center. Which means employers are free to illegally solicit workers.
The new pro-immigration enforcement mayor, Stephen DeBenedittis, and the town council will close down the center rather than comply with the stupid ruling. Again, bravo. DeBenedittis didn’t want to break his campaign promise. A politician keeping a promise. Breathe in the fresh air, people! This is a rarity.
The solution isn’t to accommodate illegal aliens. We need to make it more difficult, not easier, for them to find work. And we need to come down brutally hard on individuals and businesses that hire them. Getting illegal aliens off neighborhood streets and out of parking lots is only a surface-level change, however. We must go deeper and get them out of Herndon, out of the region, and out of the country altogether. If they want to come back, they’ll have to go through legal channels like everybody else.
Sound harsh? Maybe it does, but I really don’t care. They have no respect for us, yet we’re supposed to shower respect on them? Not this American.
It’s worth noting that the circuit court judge who ruled in favor of illegal aliens said the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause applies to them, too. I’m not sure about that. The relevant portion of the amendment reads (emphases added):
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The issue is whether the ratifiers — not judges — intended for illegal aliens (as opposed to legal aliens) to have the same protections as citizens (note the use of separate terms: citizens and person.) If that’s the case, what’s the point of distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens? Couldn’t a clever lawyer argue that the existence of separate classes of residents (citizens, legal residents, legal aliens, illegal aliens) itself is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause?
Think it can’t happen? The argument’s ridiculous, you say? If we’re at the point in our society where we’re even discussing two men “marrying,” let alone allowing it, anything — and I mean anything — can and will happen, even an attempt to destroy America’s sovereignty and erase citizenship status distinctions. And America’s greatness continues to fall…
(Photo Credit: 2006 Photo By Tracy A. Woodward — The Washington Post Photo )
Related posts:
- Herndon Applies for Immigration Enforcement Training
- Herndon’s Day Labor Center-Supporting Politicos Kicked to Curb
- Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit Against Herndon, Virginia
Related columns:
- End Birthright Citizenship
- Now that amnesty is dead, locals must act against employers
- Local liberals learning new lessons on “diversity”
- A Nation of Outlaws II
- A Nation of Outlaws I
Update: Excellent response from reader Heliotrope:
“LaShawn, the 14th Amendment has long been a curiosity to me and I would like to share by 2 cents.
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
“There are two distinct statements here that are bridged with a semicolon. The first statement refers to citizens who were clearly defined in the previous part of the amendment. The authors did not use a colon, which would have made what followed an extension of the subject (citizens), but used a semicolon which allowed them to merge two (in fact, three) sentences. These sentences are unified in scope, but they each have their own subjects.
“It is clear (to me) that citizens are persons, but not all persons are citizens. Citizens get privileges and immunities that (all) persons may not enjoy. However, all persons get due process and equal protection of the law as citizens or as non-citizens.
“So the question arises, can a state enact laws that grant privileges and immunities to citizens alone? The answer is ‘yes’ so long as it does not hamper in any way the due process and equal protection of a person who is not a citizen.
“If a city opens a job center, can it bar certain citizens? Of course. Drunks, minors, armed felons, people driving through the plate glass, etc. Can it bar non-citizens? If one of the provisions is that non-citizens must have a legal status for being in the country and be able to prove it, I can see no violation of the due process or equal protection clause.
“You said somewhat the same thing.
“The 14th Amendment has been incorporated selectively against various phrases of the Bill of Rights, but not all of them. This has created a judicial sham that allows activists to pretend that a semicolon is a colon and that citizens and people are one in the same under all distinctions.
“Also, some judges are not too bright. They may have learned to ‘read the law’ without ever having learned to understand the language.”
