Some police chiefs support "reform", oppose 287g; Damien Cave/NYT misleads about immigration law

Damien Cave of the New York Times offers "Big-City Police Chiefs Urge Overhaul of Immigration Policy" (link). Several police chiefs of major cities have reiterated their support for comprehensive immigration reform and their opposition to the 287g program [1]. Their supposed solution would only solve the situation temporarily, if that. The "reform" they support would lead to more illegal immigration, and the problems they pretend they want to solve would simply recur sooner or later. If they're sincere - and not just playing politics or trying to obtain race-based power as I strongly suspect - their only option would be to support strong enforcement of our laws in order to reduce the numbers of illegal aliens in the U.S. Instead of doing that, they're supporting something that would lead to even more of their supposed issues.

As for Cave, he draws a partially false distinction between "crimes and violations of immigration law, which are civil." See this for a longer discussion, but only overstaying your visa is a civil violation; crossing the border (even if caught months or years later) is not just a crime, but it can be a felony. Perhaps Cave should have asked the chiefs about that.

[1] Those mentioned in the article are: John Timoney of Miami, Art Acevedo of Austin, and Art Venegas, former chief of police in Sacramento.

Thu, 07/02/2009 - 02:51 · · Importance: 4