Repost – four years ago, my first column on 287 (g)

Why do we lag behind Alabama and Arizona on law enforcement?

By D.A. King, Marietta Daily Journal, November 10, 2005

Last week, I returned from my third trip to Cochise County on the Mexican border in southeast Arizona.

Fully one-half of the illegal immigration into our nation comes through Arizona, a very large part of that through Cochise County. Few illegals linger in that area.

Border Patrol headquarters in Washington reports that in the first six months of this year, it apprehended more than 696,000 illegal aliens on our southwest borders. The official line is that for each one caught, two or three make it into our nation. Do the math.

Maybe you have seen some of them around Georgia.

In my most recent trip, I spent four days driving around, speaking to local ranchers and property owners and visiting with business owners in restaurants, hotels and shops.

It is quite an education.

If you travel there from Georgia, the first thing you will notice is the absence of the flag of Mexico. I saw only one the entire time I was there. It was flying in Mexico.

I saw no “day-labor” sites.

I ate in several restaurants and stayed in two hotels, one in Bisbee – not eight miles from the Mexican border- the other in Sierra Vista and attended a meeting in a third.

Another glaring difference between Cochise County and Georgia is that the workers seem to be those pesky “gringos” that we are told will not do the construction work, or be cooks, busboys, landscapers or grounds-keepers.

I spent more than a few hours talking with many of these folks, and it turns out that they were indeed …Americans!

How can this be?

Strolling down the main street in Bisbee, I chatted with a man named Tom who was – get this – painting a storefront. In broad daylight! Kind of like what I saw here in Georgia ten years ago.

Maybe an illegal alien from Holland or Ireland I thought, so I stopped and asked where he was from. “Originally, St. Louis” he said, “but I have lived here for twenty years”.

Hmmm.

It is unusual to drive more than a few miles around Cochise County Arizona without seeing a Border Patrol vehicle, most often, a pick-up truck emblazoned with the emblem of that law enforcement agency, driven by an armed Patrol Agent and mounted with paddy wagon- like enclosure used to hold and transport illegals after they are apprehended.

What a concept.

I have wondered before about the distance from the border at which illegal aliens stopped being apprehended and removed from the U.S. – and began to be regarded as oppressed victims “living in the shadows” while they are “looking for a better life”.

I have a good grasp on the answer now.

Illegal aliens do not stay long where they know American immigration laws are enforced.

Retired Border patrol agent and Cochise county citizen Dave Stoddard confirmed my conclusions. “Operation area for Border Patrol goes as far as Tucson, but in Phoenix, two hundred miles north of the border, there is little presence”. “There, you will see day-labor sites and fearless illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico.” he said.

In Georgia as well Dave – gangs and meth dealers too.

I bring all off this up because as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996, section 287 g, state and local governments have the ability – and right – to send law enforcement personnel to be trained by the federal government and authorized to enforce federal immigration laws.

That includes apprehending and detaining illegal aliens for both civil and criminal federal violations.

What a concept.

The state of Alabama has chosen to take advantage of this law. [Alabama!]

It suffers about ten percent of the number of illegal aliens as does Georgia. Florida has trained some of its state troopers to enforce federal immigration law. Arkansas and Tennessee are right behind.

All are far ahead of Georgia. We should all be asking why.

The recently signed Homeland Security Appropriations act of 2005 provides federal money to pay for the training.

Unsecured borders and immigration laws that go un-enforced is national suicide and any elected official who is not actively striving to do all they can to remedy the situation is complicit.

As much as the criminal employers of taxpayer subsidized illegal labor will resist, as voters and citizens, we must demand that all available solutions be used to put a stop to the madness.

If we cannot change our elected official’s minds on this concept, we have a duty to change our elected officials.

When is the next election again?

King is president of the Dustin Inman Society HERE

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Marietta Daily Journal columns by D.A. King