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July 13, 2010

Deportation for a traffic violation?

Phil Boehmke
Now that the Obama regime has made good on their threat to sue the state of Arizona for attempting to enforce federal immigration law, tragic sob stories of racial profiling and deportations are appearing in the news as if by magic. Obama's fellow travelers in the media are only too happy to spin tales of woe in support of their dear leader's thinly veiled voter registration drive.

In a recent column Georgia Pabst made a blue ribbon effort to win public support for amnesty by telling the story of Rogelio Calderon-Gonzalez. According to Ms. Pabst the 27 year old Calderon-Gonzalez has been in the U.S. illegally for 11 years and has always worried about the prospect of being caught and sent back to his native Mexico. Recently those fears were realized when Calderon-Gonzalez was a passenger in a car which was stopped for a routine traffic violation.

The police ran a normal check on each of the passengers and discovered that there was an outstanding warrant on Calderon-Gonzalez for driving without a license. While in police custody Calderon-Gonzalez was identified as an illegal immigrant, was questioned by ICE agents and is currently facing deportation.

Iliama Santos, the mother of Calderon-Gonzalez 10 month old daughter says that her boyfriend "doesn't smoke or do drugs and hasn't committed any crimes."

But these days Calderon-Gonzalez and many other illegal immigrants find themselves in deportation proceedings for traffic and various other infractions, says Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera, a low-wage worker and immigrant advocacy group.

This is exactly the sort of problem that Eric Holder has been concerned about in Arizona since passage of their new immigration enforcement law, however in this case the arrest and deportation proceeding is taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home of the geographically challenged County Supervisor Peggy West.

"In the past few years, we have seen a disturbing trend of escalated arrests of non-criminal immigrants who, through collaboration of local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), end up in deportation proceedings," she wrote in a letter to Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway and other county supervisors.

Voces has "documented dozens of cases in the last 12 months in which immigrants, arrested for traffic violations or crime for which they were later found innocent, are now facing deportation," she wrote.

[...]

Voces aksed the Milwaukee County Board to start a formal investigation of the collaboration between ICE and the Sheriff's Department.

She was joined in her request for the investigation by the Milwaukee Commission on Community Police Relations immigration and racial profiling taskforce, which includes the NAACP, Islamic Society, the Council for the Spanish Speaking and the Sherman Park Association.

Ms. Neumann-Ortiz doesn't seem to consider that the violation of federal immigration law is a crime which is worthy of the honest efforts of the law enforcement community. In calling the normal cooperation between local and federal agencies "collaboration" Neumann-Ortiz seeks to conjure up images of the relationship between Nazi Storm Troopers and their informants.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., responded by saying.

"My role in this thing is to enforce the law and not make subjective decisions," said Clarke. "We work and cooperate with all law enforcement in sharing information."

He explained that ICE has access to the names of everyone booked into the jail-the same information that's available to the public and the media. He said that everyone who is arrested and booked is asked for name, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security number and biographical data.

"We don't investigate (the immigration status), we just collect the information," he said.
"For someone to suggest we shouldn't allow another law enforcement agency access to our information is ridiculous, but it happens," he said.

He added: "I believe, based on things going on around the country concerning immigration, passion and emotion now have replaced logic and reason."

The fact of the matter is that nobody is being deported for traffic violations. Ms. Neumann-Ortiz and Georgia Pabst can spin and weave their tapestry of tears, but it doesn't change the fundamental truth that illegal immigration is a crime and those who break the law are subject to deportation no matter if they are caught in Arizona or Wisconsin.


paboehmke@yahoo.com

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