Illegal Immigration and the Law

It seems one of the major political issues facing this country that is also an issue at the state and city level is that of illegal immigration. Fremont in particular has put the issue in the forefront locally with their illegal immigration ordinance, “which bans hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants.” In the Omaha World-Herald on Sunday, State Senator Charlie Janssen wrote an editorial on illegal immigration and made a couple of points that I take issue with and would like to address. I won’t get into all the pros and cons of this issue, it suffices to say I do not believe illegal immigration is a particularly pernicious activity that merits the attention folks like Janssen want to give to it.

First I want to address this sentence by Janssen, “Ignoring some laws and enforcing others creates disrespect for all of our laws. This should not be the guiding principle for any legislation.” I want to welcome Janssen to the real world. All laws are not and should not be enforced equally. Let me give you an example. If you find a one hundred dollar bill on the ground you are legally obligated to report that as income on your tax return. However, any attempt to enforce this law would be a waste of government resources. Does this create “disrespect” for all of our laws? Of course not, if somebody breaks this law they are not more or less likely to break any other laws, to claim otherwise would be ridiculous. Now I know that seems like such a minor crime so I’ll give you another example. I’ll guarantee you cannot go to a sports bar without bumping into someone with a couple of bucks on the game. Yet when was the last time a gambling ring was busted? Some crimes are just not worth the time and resources to fight compared to others. We want our police officers fighting real crime, like murder and rape, rather than crimes like gambling or smoking pot or illegal immigration that generally do not have a direct impact on anybody else.

Speaking of smoking pot, that brings me to the next passage in Janssen’s editorial that I take issue with. He says that when our immigration laws lead to families being broken up, that is “an unfortunate circumstance, but it is also a necessary one.” I have a friend in law enforcement who was fortunately born with a little common sense and empathy for others. Occasionally while enforcing the traffic laws he’ll come across a couple of young kids with some marijuana and related paraphernalia. Rather than throw the book at these kids, he frequently will have them dump out the marijuana and throw the paraphernalia away. Why does he do this? He does this because he recognizes that kids do dumb things and he doesn’t want them to wind up with a record because he understands that that can ruin these kids’ lives. If they have a record they may not be able to get into college or get a scholarship. Is it really in the best interest of society if every kid who ever tries a little dope has their lives ruined? The same goes for illegal immigration. Let’s show some compassion and empathy in situations where families are involved. I understand they broke the law and put themselves in that situation, but that doesn’t mean we have to bring the hammer down in every instance. A little empathy would go a long way in this world we actually live in that Janssen chooses to ignore. I’ll end on that note but I have an idea for another post that might open some eyes about how we view illegal immigrants so stay tuned.