boonecountygirl
Wiley Coyote
hal
Herman Cain
Mark Pellin
GOP Contenders Tackle Illegal Immigration
The tensions and controversy embroiling a nation in debate over how to best deal with illegal immigration bubbled to the surface Friday afternoon during a press conference at GOP Headquarters in Charlotte.
Republicans Jim Pendergraph, Dan Ramirez and Corey Thompson, all three running for at-large seats on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, called for tougher enforcement of existing laws, and in some cases creating new ones, to crack down on illegal immigration, with an emphasis on the word illegal.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear,” Pendergraph said. “We’re talking here about illegal immigration, with a capital I for illegal.”
That message drew skepticism from a pair of pro-amnesty supporters who attended the press conference and nearly hijacked the event when the floor was opened for questions.
Hector Vaca, a community organizer with Action NC Charlotte, accused the candidates of politicizing the issue by using the term “illegal immigrants.”
“It’s just a conservative buzzword,” Vaca said. “If somebody doesn’t pay their taxes, or steals a loaf of bread, do you call them illegal Americans?”
Pendergraph, the former Mecklenburg County sheriff who also previously led U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s state and local coordination efforts, countered that “illegal immigrants” wasn’t a political buzzword; it is the official term used by the federal government and ICE.
But Pendergraph agreed that politics plays a major role that’s contributed to the problems of illegal immigration.
“The gutless wonders in Washington, D.C.” he said, targeting the Obama Administration and Capital Hill Democrats, “don’t have the intestinal fortitude to deal with it.”
Pendergraph said that Republicans would, if they regained majority control of the county board of commissioners. He called for three specific remedies, starting with a push to aggressively lobby state legislators to enact a law similar to the one in Arizona that is drawing national attention. The law went into effect this week, but a judge blocked some of its most controversial provisions from being implemented.
Pendergraph said commissioners should press Mecklenburg Department of Social Services officials to improve their client verification process and ensure illegal immigrants aren’t receiving taxpayer-funded services. He also called for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials to make a full accounting of how many illegal immigrants are enrolled in the district and how much it’s costing taxpayers, a price tag that he said would likely run into tens of millions of dollars.
Pendergraph has first-hand experience with the local costs tied to illegal immigration. He implemented the county’s 287(g) program, which trains local law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws and place offenders into deportation hearings. He said that during his tenure as sheriff, illegal immigrants comprised about 25 percent of the jail’s population.
Pendergraph acknowledged that existing regulations prohibit schools officials from asking students about their immigration status, and that doing so would likely draw a lawsuit. He said that would be a legal challenge worth fighting. Thompson, who is employed as a teacher with CMS, agreed.
“At the very least, we deserve to know what the financial impact of that is,” he said concerning illegal immigrants enrolled in district. “And then we can figure out a way to deal with it.”
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[...] Mark Pellin and Pundit House: GOP Contenders Tackle Illegal Immigration and this from the UPoR and Franco [...]
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I am a “disappointed” christian knowing that someone who is the executive director of a ministry doesn’t stand up for what is within the parameters of the law. I guess if you would like to disregard the 10 commandments that would be O.K. too. Both arguments from Maudia Melendez and Hector Vaca are ridiculous and as pointless as defending illegal immigration.
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The “Show-Me” State Shows Arizona…
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog
…
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I don’t understand why it is so hard to understand the deffinition of “ILLEGAL”! Anybody that doesn’t respect our local, state, or federal laws, whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony, is referred to as having committed an “ILLEGAL” act. Yes….. there are different punishments to fit the crimes. The Federal Law on “ILLEGAL” immigration says they should be deported. Washington is not enforcing it!!! Federal immigation laws, says to apply for a work visa, you can be here for a specified amount of time and then go
home.
We must have a passport to go into Mexico or any other country and we have to get permission to travel between countries. We cannot just walk across a border without permission….ask the 3 Americans that just happened to walk across the Iranian border. President Calderon can’t run his own country and control
his southern border.He needs to keep his nose out of the laws of the United States. The Mexican gov’t is so corrupt and controlled by drug cartels. WE HAVE A NATIONAL SECURITY PROBLEM with them allowing terrorists to come through Mexico into the United States.
I am running for County Commission Dist 3 and I stand with the Commisssioners at Large with their immigration stance. All you have to do is look at California and what it has done there. DO WE WANT THE SAME THING HAPPENING HERE? There is still time for us to do something about the abuse of our
resources. The 14th Amendment was to give citizenship to the African Americans brought here for Slavery and for them alone. All of our families came from other countries, but they came through Ellis Island and had to assimilate (learn our history, respect of our flag and learn to speak English).
America and it’s people are among the most generous in all the world; however we are also a law abiding people.
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Ending Birthright Citizenship; Don’t Amend the Constitution, Apply It…
The Moral Liberal Lookin’ at ya…
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Ending Birthright Citizenship; Don’t Amend the Constitution, Apply It…
The Moral Liberal Lookin’ at ya…
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Immigration Terminology 101
With the vitriolic immigration debate roiling in all parts of our country, it is important to understand terminology. Be prepared to dispel the half-truths and no truths of the way those who are illegally in our country are described by their advocates. Knowledge is power:
ILLEGAL:
1.) Unlawful; illegitimate; illicit; unlicensed.
2.) Illegal, unlawful, illegitimate, illicit, criminal can all describe actions not in accord with law.
3.) Illegal refers most specifically to violations of statutes.
4.) Prohibited by law
ALIEN:
1.) a person who is not a citizen of the country.
2.) in the United States any person born in another country to parents who are not American and who has not become a naturalized citizen. There are resident aliens officially permitted to live in the country and illegal aliens who have sneaked into the country or stayed beyond the time allowed on a visa.
INVADE:
1. to enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields
2. to enter as if to take possession: To invade a neighbor’s home
3. to enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: Viruses that invade the bloodstream.
4. to intrude upon: To invade the privacy of a family.
5. to encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.
6. to permeate: The smell of baking invades the house.
7. to penetrate; spread into or over: The population boom has caused city dwellers to invade the suburbs
Those illegally in a country are not “immigrants”. There is no such thing as an “illegal immigrant”. An immigrant is involved with an established and orderly procedure of immigration (entering a country to which one is not native in order to settle there by legal process).
They are not immigrants, not undocumented immigrants (Dead Kennedy and the PC fan favorite), not undocumented workers, not undocumented Americans (Harry Reid’s favorite), not economic immigrants (Big Business and Wall Street favorite), not immigrants without work papers, not people who are working (Enrique Morone’s favorite), not migrant workers, not entrants, not day laborers, not the “unbanked” (Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s favorite) and certainly not “new Americans” the latest term applied by the new amnesty zealots.
The government has defined them as “illegal aliens” and explicitly uses that term in all its laws and statutes. So keep it simple…a spade is a spade…they are illegal aliens. Or, if you’d prefer, another term that would be just as correct to use is “invaders”. I would consider the two interchangeable.
One other definition is exceedingly useful since you’ll hear with every piece of amnesty legislation, the open border lobbyists, facilitators and illegal alien advocates declaring that it isn’t amnesty in the hope that you will think so. Here’s the definition of amnesty so you can decide for yourself:
AMNESTY is legislation to forgive the breaking of immigration laws and to make it possible for illegal aliens to live permanently in the United States. Amnesty represents a system of federal rewards and assistance for illegal aliens, and they entice an even greater number of foreign nationals to illegally enter a country. Amnesty is providing the ultimate goal of the perpetrators illegal entry…legalization of their presence.
AMNESTY:
1. A general pardon for offenses against a government
2. An act of forgiveness for past offenses, esp. to a class of persons as a whole
3. Forgetting or overlooking any past offense
There you have it, folks. Knowledge is power…use it wisely.
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