First, Stop The Bleeding

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July 29, 2007 08:04 AM

HOGG2

Member Since:
July 25, 2007

Comment updated July 29, 2007 08:04 AM

Investor's Business Daily

July 30, 2007 Monday
NATIONAL EDITION

ISSUES & INSIGHTS; EDITORIALS; Pg. A16

First, Stop The Bleeding

Illegal Immigration: The Senate funds a border fence as a federal judge says it's unconstitutional to enforce federal law. Cities wouldn't have to deal with illegals if we protected our borders. Build it and they won't come. It was a classic good news-bad news situation. The Senate on Thursday passed an amendment to the Homeland Security Department spending bill authored by South Carolina Republican Lindsay Graham that adds $3 billion to finally, we hope, build the 700-mile border fence we desperately need.

At the same time, U.S. District Judge James Manley overturned Hazleton, Pa.'s tough law imposing fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and denying permits to businesses that give them jobs. Among Manley's claims was that Hazleton's ordinance disrupted "a carefully drawn federal statutory scheme." What?

Graham said the $3 billion added to the Homeland Security bill "is as necessary for national security as any spending we do in Iraq." He likened passage of his amendment to "having been robbed 12 million times and finally getting around to putting a lock on the door."

The amendment also provides money for more border agents, vehicle barriers and ground radar, and better systems to check whether employees have proper documentation.

Thursday's Senate vote was a reversal from Wednesday, when Democrats used a procedural vote to block a similar amendment.

We're relieved that the Senate has decided that national security trumps "comprehensive" immigration reform in a debate that at times has seemed like quibbling over how to remodel the kitchen while there's a fire raging on the stove.

We're distressed that Judge Manley would stand logic on its head by ruling that Hazleton, a city of 30,000 some 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia, "could not enact an ordinance that violates rights the Constitution guarantees to every person in the United States, whether legal resident or not."

Last time we checked, the document that begins with "We the people of the United States" did not guarantee rights to foreign nationals who under federal law don't have the right to be here in the first place.

Hazleton's denial of permits to businesses that hire illegal aliens is not a disruption of anything but a mirror of federal law that says it's illegal to hire illegals and fines businesses that do so. We also wonder what housing rights inure to someone who has broken federal law and who pays rent with money he's not allowed to earn.

Mayor Lou Barletta, who says the "fight's far from over," argues that illegal immigrants brought drugs, crime and gangs to his city, overwhelming police, schools and medical facilities. The rest of the country shares his concerns.

Witness the law recently signed by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano creating the state crime of hiring illegal aliens and requiring all businesses to verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database.

Illegal immigration also provides a mass of humanity that potential terrorists can hide in. Last fiscal year, 98,153 OTMs (other than Mexicans) were caught sneaking across our porous southern border. How many were not caught is not known. The Fort Dix Six could just as easily have been the Hazleton Six.

A January 2007 report by the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, then-chaired by Texas Republican Michael McCaul, noted: "Members of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already entered the United States across our southern border."

As Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate hearing before the Democrats took control, "illegal immigration threatens our communities and our national security." So much so that at one point the governors of Arizona and New Mexico, including Democratic presidential wannabe Bill Richardson, at one point declared border emergencies.

We do indeed have a border emergency. The U.S. needs a fence like most homeowners do. We welcome guests, but let them first knock at our front door.

I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage. Samuel Clemens (M.T.)

First, Stop The Bleeding

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