Over the past year, some readers have occasionally submitted comments regarding immigration and its impact on the Saline County community. Fairly or unfairly, some have tied the recent wave of Hispanic immigrants to nearly all aspects of Dorchester-area life -- from schools and public infrastructure, to housing and jobs. And for every critic of mass immigration, there seems to be a defender on the other side.Until now, we have remained mostly silent on the issue. Today marks our foray into hostile territory.
The Times staff regularly observes the weekly record posted in The Crete News. In recent months, we have noticed a disturbing trend: the rising and disproportionately high number of law enforcement stops and arrests of citizens with Hispanic surnames.
Randomly selected, the weekly record of the Feb. 6 issue of The Crete News shows that 36 percent -- or 21 of 58 -- of the listed stops or arrests involved individuals with Hispanic surnames.
For example, Jose Torres-Cortez of Dorchester was stopped for careless driving. Marcelino Temporal-Padilla of Crete was charged with using the identity of another person to procure a drivers license and to obtain employment, as well as accessing financial resources of the victim.
Felix Cesar Delacruz of Dorchester, listed as a habitual criminal, was booked on felony charges of committing terrorist threats. Ten others were given citations for having no vehicle operator's license or valid form of ID.
It is unknown if these are the individuals' actual names, since this country has no nationally accepted method of identification verification. It is also unknown whether these individuals are in the U.S. legally, since local law enforcement follows a "catch-and-release" policy due to a lack of coordination with federal immigration officials.
We at the Times hesitated to bring forth these observations, since we are all well-versed in the abuses and prejudices suffered by previous generations of immigrants, especially those of German and Czech ancestries -- both of whom held staunchly to their homeland traditions. We print this polemic at the risk of being called xenophobes or worse.
Regardless of the epithets that may be thrown our way, we believe the issue of immigration -- legal and illegal -- deserves serious dicussion, not disinterest. The willingness of recent immigrants to assimilate and abide by our nation's legal code -- including immigration laws -- is impacting our daily lives whether or not we wish to confront the topic. Do we have a say in the matter?
We heed and forward the advice of one nationally syndicated columnist who wrote:
"Don't sit and wait for the fence to get built. It won't be finished under the Bush administration or a McCain administration or an Obama or Clinton administration. What you can do is alert county sheriffs that you want them to work with the feds to end illegal alien catch-and-release policies in your neighborhood. What you can do is stop patronizing businesses that you know are knowingly employing illegal immigrants using fake IDs and stolen Social Security numbers."
This makes perfect sense. Best of all, it is certainly is more productive than complaining only.
This is no analysis. Please hire a professional researcher and statistician. In addition, if you are going to name names, please also include Farmland,Tyson, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see you guys finally recognize a problem most of us have been recognizing for a decade. As I've said before, we should all be calling the federal government's Immigration and Customs Enforcement if we know of illegal aliens living near us or employers who hire them. The number is 1-952-853-2550.
ReplyDeleteGrand Island residents called a year ago to complain about all the illegals working in the Swift plant and look what happend.
Hire a professional? Why?? To tell us we have a problem with illegal immigration???! That would make as much sense as spending millions on a border wall that will never be built.
ReplyDeleteLook what has happen in crete, we now have spanish writings on almost everything, most people do not know spanish, I say if they want to live here, they should have to use english writing for their signs, I blame this on Crete mayor, for not making it a manditory, Crete used to be a nice town, I wouldnt live there if you paid me. Clean up your town CRETE.
ReplyDeleteAs one in law enforcement, it is very hard to do anything about this, when ICE will not come out and investigate unless there are a large number for them. Also, if you issue a citation to someone, it is not unusual for the person to not show for court, and just find out they moved somewhere else, and are now using another name. Many illegals do not have insurance on their vehicles, or have drivers licenses. Last summer, a fellow was drunk and wrecked his vehicle with children in it. He was arrested, and the name he used was used to book him, he had an ID, and six months later, the FBI advised us, he was wanted in another state for the same thing. (We got his fingerprints back.)This is his third time for this, he just moves ona dn assumes another name. We ahve no clue where he is, and the next person he drunkenly slams into may be one of our loved ones!
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there are a large number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, who are industrious, God fearing people, who work hard. But what bothers me, is that we (tax payers) are footing the bill for the illegal's children in our schools, and in our health care.
I am all for LEGAL immigration, but what about illegal do government, and corporations not understand. If the jobs were not being offered, the temptation to come here for those jobs would dry up. We need to hit employers, who employ illegals, in the pocket, and jail some of the people responsible for hiring. It would fix itself pretty soon. In the meantime, we need border security. This is an invasion. And many of these people are not coming here to be citizens, and have no idea what "God given rights" as ecompassed in our Constitution, and Declaration of Independence means. They come here for wages, and the intitlements that go with them.
Local law enforcement must be given the power to arrest illegals, and ICE should be mandated to come and get them, on the scene. Until that happens, it is just a revolving door.
Enforce the LAW!!!!
JR Wolfe
Why dont we just publish the whole list of traffic violations. Because everyone is talking about the hispanics but no one ever says any thing about the youths in dorchester. I beleive i saw aa kids name in the paper for spotlighting and no fur harvesters permit.
ReplyDeleteThis is a news story that I found online:
ReplyDeletePHOENIX (AP) - A new study concludes that law enforcement and criminal prosecutions linked to illegal immigration is costing Arizona border counties millions of dollars a year.
The study says the battle over illegal immigration is also diverting money from parks, libraries and other law-enforcement efforts.
University of Arizona and San Diego State University researchers say in the four border counties in Arizona, costs increased 39% to $26.6 million in fiscal 2006.
The study was commissioned by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a non-profit group of border-county officials.
I thought this would be a good response to the study done by the University of Arizona and San Diego State University.
ReplyDeleteImmigration Reduces Crime Rates
LiveScience.com
Contrary to popular stereotypes, areas undergoing immigration are associated with lower violence, not spiraling crime, according to a new study.
Harvard University sociologist Robert Sampson examined crime and immigration in Chicago and around the United States to find the truth behind the popular perception that increasing immigration leads to crime.
Sampson's study results, detailed in the winter issue of the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine, summarizes patterns from seven years' worth of violent acts in Chicago committed by whites, blacks and Hispanics from 180 neighborhoods of varying levels of integration. He also analyzed recent data from police records and the U.S. Census for all communities in Chicago.
Based on assumptions that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes and settle in poor, disorganized communities, prevailing wisdom holds that the concentration of immigrants and an influx of foreigners drive up crime rates.
However, Sampson shows that concentrated immigration predicts lower rates of violence across communities in Chicago, with the relationship strongest in poor neighborhoods.
Not only does immigration appear to be "protective" against violence in poverty areas, violence was significantly lower among Mexican-Americans compared to blacks and whites. Sampson refers to this as the "Latino Paradox," whereby Hispanic Americans do better on a range of social indicators - including propensity to violence - than one would expect, given their socioeconomic disadvantages.
Sampson's analysis also revealed that first-generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans. Controlling for immigrant generation even narrowed the violence gap between whites and blacks in Chicago by 14 percent.