Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Bills moving through the Missouri Legislature would give the state Highway Patrol and local police the power to arrest illegal immigrants and haul them off to federal detention centers out of state. The bills also would ban illegal immigrants from attending state universities, family literacy programs, after-school tutoring and vocational education.
These bills are impractical and punitive. Our uniformed officers already have their hands full catching drunk drivers, thieves, rapists and meth cooks.
The vast majority of illegal aliens commit no crimes, and their illegal presence here is not in itself a criminal offense. America’s criminal and immigration statutes are separate. Being here without papers is usually a civil matter. Sending police into restaurants, horse stables, meat packing plants and landscaping businesses to ferret out illegal immigrants is a waste of resources. Denying illegal immigrants access to language and job training will only assure their continued existence as a quasi-literate underclass.
The Senate bill has passed out of committee. The bans on participating in tutoring, literacy and vocational education programs were deleted on the Senate floor, but, unfortunately, the rest of the bill seems headed for passage. The House bill is still in committee.
As we’ve said before, the answer to illegal immigration lies in tougher security at our borders, tougher penalties levied against unscrupulous employers and eventual amnesty for the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants already here. As President George W. Bush said recently, trying to chase them all down and ship them home just isn’t gonna work.
Sen. Bill Alter, R-High Ridge, and Rep. Scott Rupp, R-Wentzville, announced the bills at a press event while standing near a construction site in O’Fallon, where an out-of-state contractor had brought in a crew of illegal aliens, prompting protests from St. Louis construction unions.
Illegal immigrants take low-wage jobs because those employers will wink at their immigration status. That makes it easy for unscrupulous bosses to undercut wages and under-bid companies who obey the law. If we legalized those 11 million illegal immigrants, that source of cheap, easily exploited labor would dry up as immigrants were freed to find better work.
An amnesty would solve the O’Fallon problem with no need for police raids.
So, why do legislators want a measure that is both cold-hearted and untenable?
“Bigotry, meanness, bias,” said Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, who opposed the bill.
Add foolishness.
The vast majority of illegal aliens commit no crimes, and their illegal presence here is not in itself a criminal offense. America’s criminal and immigration statutes are separate. Denying illegal immigrants access to language and job training will only assure their continued existence as a quasi-literate underclass.