Catch-and-release, again?

Deja vu, all over again?

When a Colorado state trooper pulled over a van crammed with 15 illegal aliens headed for Iowa City, it looked like their plans to visit the Hawkeye State had come to a screeching halt.

Instead, Trooper John Lopez released the van and its occupants after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent told the Colorado State Patrol that he didn't have the staff to detain the admitted illegal aliens.

Immigration officials now say that the decision Thursday to let them go was based on a miscommunication about the van's location. Even so, the release has fueled frustration over what critics see as the federal agency's inability to handle the unabated flow of undocumented workers. [Link]

The problem is the state troopers don’t have the jurisdiction to do anything about illegals when they find them. The proposed legislation coming up in the Senate would address that. Moreover, we clearly need to prioritize funding and focus into ICE. Of course, if we were serious about our border security, we wouldn’t be having so many calls in Colorado that ICE’s agents can’t respond.

Additional immigration protest views

Michelle Malkin has been, for as long as I’ve read her stuff, a strong advocate for immigrations laws enforcement and for a strong border security posture. She writes a wonderful post here on the matter of the immigration laws protests I mentioned below.

Erma Byrd, wife of Senator Robert Byrd, dead at 88

Noted with saddness:

Erma Ora James Byrd, the wife of U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, has died after battling an illness for five years. She was 88.

Erma Byrd, who met her husband of nearly 69 years when they were in grade school, died Saturday at the couple’s home in McLean, Va., according to Byrd’s spokesman, Tom Gavin. He would not say what the illness was.

The senator and members of their family were with her when she died. [Link]

Some things transcend the question of Republican/Democrat, liberal/conservative, right-wing/left-wing. This is one of those, or should be. My sympathies go to Senator Byrd and his family in this time of loss.

“Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.”

Mass Protests supporting illegal entry

Over the past few days there have been protests regarding new immigration laws, specifically one that would make it felony to illegally enter this country. Some of those protests have seen support numbering in the thousands. My take on it?

Big deal. So what?

First off, just what are these people protesting? The law at the heart of the protests and demands does not make a new classification of crime. It does not, as is constantly cited by so-called “immigrants rights” groups, “criminalize” immigration. There is nothing in the law that makes something that’s legal today illegal tomorrow. What it does is raise the classification on an existing crime to a felony level, permitting the application of law enforcement assets that currently cannot act upon the crime. And that, really, is what the protests are all about. It’s not that any of those people (who have bothered to educate themselves on the matter) are suggesting that illegal entry isn’t or shouldn’t be a crime. It’s that they understand very well that the current classification allows for a rather anemic law enforcement response. Raising it to a felony would put a more serious law enforcement threat onto their radar screens and they want to re-frame this debate so as to hide that essential fact.

Protests organized to keep our nation from effectively enforcing our laws do not impress me much. My stance on illegal entry and immigration – and those are 2 very separate and distinct concepts – are well documented right here on this blog. I approve of the latter when it’s done legally and I disapprove of the former with no reservations. All the sign-carrying in the world won’t change that. If these thousands of people want to make sure that neither they nor anyone they know run afoul of our immigrations law, then they would be better off putting down the signs and helping themselves and others out in complying with the law.