Silly, isn't it? But it could just be more real than we would like considering the Department of Homeland Security's program 287(g) permitting immigration enforcement to be handled by local sheriffs, most of whom are elected politicians without prior law enforcement experience and are utterly untrained in the complexities of one of the nation's most difficult problems. In many venues they are basically summons servers and jailers.
In Cobb County Georgia, where the population is 11 percent Hispanic, the sheriff has touched off a firestorm of protest by filing a felony charge against a 21-year-old undocumented college student who has been in this country since she was 11. What was her crime? She gave the police a false address. However, according to her lawyer, she did give them the address where she used to live and where her car insurance is registered. He said she also provided police with her current address.
The student, Jessica Colotl, is a Mexican immigrant brought here as a child with her parents. She surrendered to the sheriff and was released on $2,500 bond, telling reporters she was treated like a criminal who was a threat to the nation. Earlier her supporters, including the president of the university she attends and where she has an exemplary academic record, convinced U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities to free her from a detention center. They granted her a one-year reprieve from deportation so she could graduate.
Colotl was initially apprehended for the heinous crime of "impeding traffic" whatever that means. The arresting officer was a highly trained immigration specialist and traffic monitor - i.e. a campus cop.
This particular case has broad national repercussions with all the elements of the national immigration problems. It includes local politics, the increasingly virile Hispanic voting bloc; the cost of educating illegals at all three levels - elementary, secondary, and college - and the question of basic fairness. Jessica has been paying instate tuition at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta. She now must pay the higher out-of-state fees as an illegal.
Most importantly it highlights the growing rift, as has the much-publicized Arizona law giving police jurisdiction over immigration, between the federal authorities and state and local politicians over how illegal immigrants are detected and prosecuted. According to press reports, civil rights leaders have charged that Cobb County historically uses federal laws aimed at detecting dangerous criminals to arrest illegal immigrants for minor offenses. It is an allegation backed up by an Atlanta newspaper investigation that showed from 2007-09 the main crime for which immigrants were detained was traffic related.
Of course not all sheriffs' departments are incompetent or mean spirited as is charged. But it is safe to say a significant number are more interested in which way the political winds are blowing than in dealing out justice soundly and fairly, especially in areas of the country where they wield considerable power. Traditionally, they are an office that is rewarded by lucrative jail contracts and other fees. It seems unbelievable that Homeland Security officials would turn them loose on such a complex situation.
All of this is the result of chaos caused by congressional inaction. That vacuum is being filled by a patchwork of state and local policies that have failed not only to quell the worst elements in the illegal immigration flow but also to provide for the best immigrants to become citizens or documented workers. Without some coherent overall plan it can only get worse.
Jessica Colotl told reporters that she is hoping for the adoption of the Development, Relief and Education for Illegal Minors Act that would provide students with a path to become legal. She probably should not hold her breath until that occurs. Or for that matter until Andy returns to get her out of the jam she is in with Barney.
Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.
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It is a mark of his lack of integrity that he slurs Sheriff Warren. Obviously his sources are the Atlanta newspaper's so-called investigation, that failing newspaper to our south.
What a litany of stupid suppositions and half-baked statements. First he repeats the canard that Colotl has an "exemplary academic record." Acquaintances of mine, who are in the know, assert that the student has a C average at best, hardly exemplary but average. Then he engages in the cowardly liberal's method of arguing--smary and dishonest ridicule. Barny Fife, indeed. This is the kind of liberal sanctimony and childishness that is familiar to anyone who has the misfortune to argue with a lib or read their writings.
Since the MDJ for some reason does not print email addresses, here's this worthy's email:
(E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan(at)aol.com.).
Set his mail box on fire!!
He says Ms. Colotl was discovered as an illegal by the trivial activity of a traffic violation (plus not having a driver's license, plus lying about her address). If illegals cannot be identified after these violations, when can they be identified? It sounds very much like Thomasson doesn't doesn't want them identified under any circumstances.
His characterization of the campus policeman as incompetent is at odds with the "campus cop" treated Ms. Colotl during the entire episode.
Calling the Cobb County Sheriff a "Barney Fife" and implying that he couldn't be considered competent because he had been elected is stupid as well as ironic. All of the people actually responsible for the immigration mess are elected,including congress and the president!
As for Mr. Thomasson, he couldn't even be elected to be a campus cop!