'More Law-Abiding, Emptier and Whiter'

The New York Times plays racial politics as they lament local officials in Florida taking the initiative and cracking down on illegal aliens in the panhandle.

Three months after the local police inspected more than a dozen businesses searching for illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers, this community in the Florida Panhandle has become more law-abiding, emptier and whiter.

Many of the Hispanic immigrants who came in 2004 to help rebuild after Hurricane Ivan have either fled or gone into hiding. Churches with services in Spanish are half-empty. Businesses are struggling to find workers. And for Hispanic citizens with roots here — the foremen and entrepreneurs who received visits from the police — the losses are especially profound.

“It was very hard because the community is very small, and to see people who came to eat here all the time then come and close the business,” said Geronimo Barragan, who owns two branches of La Hacienda, Mexican restaurants where the police arrested 10 employees.

“I don’t blame them,” Mr. Barragan added. “It’s just that it hurts.”

Sheriff Wendell Hall of Santa Rosa County, who led the effort, said the arrests were for violations of state identity theft laws. But he also seemed proud to have found a way around rules allowing only the federal government to enforce immigration laws. In his office, the sheriff displayed a framed editorial cartoon that showed Daniel Boone admiring his arrest of at least 27 illegal workers.

What exactly is wrong with the Sheriff being proud of enforcing the law? If he were to sit around and wait for the federal government to crack down on illegals, it's likely his jurisdiction would be overrun.

If the reporter is so befuddled at this, he should re-read his first paragraph: Illegals using stolen SSI numbers. Right there you have two criminal offenses. What is so confusing about this?

In reality, many jurisdictions around the nation have taken it upon themselves (shocking!) to enforce the laws already on the books, and what do you know, it's resulting in a wave of self-deportation.

State lawmakers, in response to Congressional inaction on immigration law, are giving local authorities a wider berth. In 2007, 1,562 bills related to illegal immigration were introduced nationwide and 240 were enacted in 46 states, triple the number that passed in 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A new law in Mississippi makes it a felony for an illegal immigrant to hold a job. In Oklahoma, sheltering or transporting illegal immigrants is also a felony.

It remains unclear how the new laws will be enforced. Yet at the very least, say both advocates and critics, they are likely to lead to more of what occurred here: more local police officers demanding immigrants’ documents; more arrests for identity theft; more accusations of racial profiling; and more movement of immigrants, with some fleeing and others being sent to jail.

“It is a way to address illegal immigration without calling it that,” said Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports intensified local enforcement. She added, “They don’t just have to sit and wait for Washington.”

The bottom line is this: Politicians in Washington are not listening to local authorities whose communities have suffered under a crushing wave of illegals. Since they're the ones who are paying the price, why is anyone surprised they're taking action?

The Times will never figure it out because they don't want to. What they're lamenting is the likely fact a whole host of new Democrat voters are leaving the country.