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Marietta Daily Journal
D.A. King
Columnist

Locals have duty to do jobs feds won’ t

“Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders.” – from the official Website of the Libertarian National Committee.

In the most recent example of liberal judicial activism, Federal Judge James Munley of Pennsylvania, a Bill Clinton appointee, ruled last month that the city of Hazleton, Pa., does not have the authority to enforce federal immigration law.

Good luck with that one on appeal, judge.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the head of Hazleton’s Hispanic Business Association, Rudy Espinal, hopes that the decision will “restore a sense of normalcy to his community.”

Normalcy indeed.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) had this to say about the Hazleton case: “The ordinance usurped the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration, deprived residents of their constitutional right to due process, and violated federal and state law.”

Quite a significant contradiction from the corporately funded MALDEF. The well-paid officials of that non-profit “civil rights” group, along with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Council of La Raza, the National Immigration Forum and the National Immigration Law Center, put out a handbook for the rest of the illegal alien/open borders lobby last year titled “State and Local Police Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws: A Tool Kit for Advocates.”

The second sentence of the introduction of the 53 page document clearly acknowledges the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has found that local police have the “inherent authority to enforce all federal immigration laws.”

Maybe these advocates forgot about their own publication?

The “Toolkit” goes on to explain to other advocates for illegal aliens on how to persuade local authorities that they do not have the recognized and obvious enforcement authority.

This contradiction represents “normalcy” for MALDEF, widely recognized as one of the most aggressive proponents of illegal immigration and bilingualism in the United States.

On another remarkable note, former Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Cobb County – now a confirmed Libertarian – wrote a recent guest column in the Atlanta newspaper headlined “Immigration belongs at the federal level” enthusiastically endorsing Munley’s decision. “Immigration policy is a power reserved for the federal government,” he wrote.

Pehaps the former congressman and former U.S. Attorney has overlooked the 1996 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed while he was in Congress, in which the existing and inherent local enforcement authority is expanded with federal training in section 287(g).

Federal immigration law ( 8 USC 1324 a ((h)) ) clearly allows state and local governments to regulate “those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens” by imposing civil or criminal sanctions through “licensing and other laws.”

Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren’s success in getting illegals out of our community is but one brilliant example of the results of taking advantage of the tools provided to local governments to enforce immigration laws. By using 287(g) authority his office has in just one month begun deportation cases on more than 50 illegal aliens.

Americans paying attention in Cobb can only hope that the Cobb police have plans to soon apply for the federal training.

State Sen. Chip Rogers’ Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act also uses available tools to enforce compliance with federal immigration laws. Georgia State Patrol officers will soon graduate from federal training and begin to enforce federal immigration laws.

Cobb was the first county in the state to begin using the no-cost federal program now called “E-Verify” – available to all employers – to determine the eligibility and immigration status and of newly hired employees, thereby helping to enforce the federal law making it a crime to knowingly employ an illegal alien.

Given their absurd argument that illegal immigration is solely a federal issue, one can only wonder when MALDEF and the ACLU will attempt to stop this very welcome enforcement.

We look forward to their argument that using these tools somehow usurps the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration.

Regardless of judicial activism in Pennsylvania, Sheriff Warren and state and local officials all over the nation not only have the authority, but the duty to do the job the federal government will not do.

Doing so may return American citizens to “normalcy” in their own country.

King is president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta based coalition actively opposed to illegal immigration.

Link to column in the MDJ here.