Is it just me, or isn’t the federal government of the United States, and those who administer its responsibilities, actually supposed to reinforce our laws?
Evidently, the Obama Administration feels like squatters’ rights trump illegality:
As states across the nation ramp up their efforts to catch illegal immigrants, the Obama administration on Thursday launched a new free hotline for people busted on violations to get help.
The hotline, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is available 24/7 for detained individuals to phone if they think they “may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime.”
The hotline will have translation services available in several different languages. ICE personnel will gather the caller’s information and send it to a field office for immediate action, according to the press release.
The purpose of the hotline and other measures, including a new detainer form, are “to ensure that individuals being held by state or local law enforcement on immigration detainers are properly notified about their potential removal from the country and are made aware of their rights.”
The new practices are “part of a broader effort to improve our immigration enforcement process and prioritize resources to focus on threats to public safety, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants and immigration fugitives while continuing to strengthen oversight of the nation’s immigration detention system and facilitate legal immigration,” ICE wrote in its press release.
ICE is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
In my post titled For Mr. Krentz, published in March of 2010, I related the following news report:
Police say Robert Krentz, whose family has been ranching in southern Arizona since 1907, was gunned down early Saturday morning, March 27th, 2010, by an illegal immigrant while out on his ATV tending to fences and water lines on the family’s 34,000-acre cattle ranch.
Reached by phone early Tuesday at his family’s ranch, Andy Krentz, Krentz’s oldest son, said his father was a churchgoing man who routinely went out of his way to help those in need.
“My father was a very good family man,” Krentz told FoxNews.com. “He supported his kids, supported his family. He went out of his way to help anybody we could without regarding to who they were. It didn’t matter who they were.”
Sue Krentz, Krentz’s wife, said she was “pretty overwhelmed” by her husband’s death, which coincided with her parents’ deteriorating health.
“This is icing on the cake,” Krentz said.
Yes, it was. The public outcry was deafening.
Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Friday, April 23rd, 2010, a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.With hundreds of protesters outside the state Capitol shouting that the bill would lead to civil rights abuses, Brewer said critics were “overreacting” and that she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.
“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Brewer said after signing the law. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”
In response, I wrote at the time:
Thank you, Gov. Brewer. I wish it had been earlier. A good man lost his life due to government neglience and political correctness. So, what did the President of the United States say about this horrible situtation? Did he comfort Mr. Krentz’s family? Did he congratulate Arizona for cracking down on Illegal Immigration? Are you kidding me?
“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said at a Rose Garden naturalization ceremony for 24 members of the U.S. military. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona.”
The actions by the Arizona legislature threaten “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” Obama said. It also may hamper trust between residents and law enforcement authorities, he said.
He said he has instructed U.S. authorities to monitor the state’s actions and to “examine the civil rights and other implications” of the legislation.
“Surely we can all agree that when 11 million people in our country are living here illegally, outside the system, that’s unacceptable,” Obama said. “The American people demand and deserve a solution.”
Obama lauded the work of Senators Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, to come up with a framework for legislation that can win bipartisan support.
Graham has said he’ll introduce legislation only after it’s finished and at least one other Republican signs on. He said this week that any effort to move immigration this year will fail badly because both parties need to “lay the groundwork” politically with tough border-control approaches first.
I must confess…I had an out-of-body experience that morning and launched the following mini-rant:
Yes, sir. Americans can always count on Scooter to do the right thing, can’t we? I mean, to do the right thing for his Far Left Base and Democratic Political Hack Cronies. As he is proving time and time again, Obama does not care what the majority of Americans think and want. He is going to do exactly what his handlers and the Far Left Moonbat Base want him to do, basically telling average Americans where to go and the temperature when we get there.
In this case, by pushing for Grahamnesty, err, amnesty, err, immigration reform, he is trying to insure a Socialist Democratic Ruling Class (Politboro) by installing a brand new voting base. And John McCain’s pet, Lindsey “Metrosexual” Graham, useful idiot that he is, is obliging Scooter.
Has anyone heard one mention of the loss of Mr. Krentz’s life by the President? I haven’t. Like everything else he does, Scooter is attempting to use this situation for personal and political gain. By legalizing these trespassers, he, along with his minions, are trying to get re-elected. In their minds, the loss of a good man’s life is not as important as their political ambitions.
And that is why they must fail.
And now, almost two years later, this same Administration still seems to be worried more about the “rights” of those who are here illegally, than about the American citizens whom they are sworn to protect.
Mr. Robert Krentz remains unavailable for comment.
