Lake County Sheriff applies for immigration authority
We reported in a previous post how Waukegan Police Chief William Biang, with the backing of City Council, had applied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the power to enforce immigration laws. At the time, there was a huge backlash from the Hispanic community, which was incensed that Americans would dare to try to enforce American law on American soil. Who do we think we are, anyway?
But Waukegan didn’t back down; and now, the Lake County Sheriff is making a similar move. As the News-Sun reports, Sheriff Mark Curran, too, has made formal application to ICE for similar authority.
“This is not open to debate or discussion,” Curran said. “We decided no one’s going to bully us. It’s the right thing to do.”
Curran indicated that protests in Waukegan earlier this year over Waukegan’s decision to seek 287 (g) status played a role in the decision not to announce the application before it was formally submitted.
He added that the application was a matter of public record and that officials made sure the decision was on firm legal ground.
Like Biang, Curran does not intend to make large-scale sweeps of the enormous illegal alien population, but intends to limit enforcement to “the baddest of the illegals,” i.e. those convicted of violent crimes, sex offenses and Class X or Class 1 drug felonies. The felons would be required to serve out their jail sentences, and would then be deported.
Still, this is a major step in the right direction. Few American political leaders dare to even hint at the fact that Americans have a right to live in their own country, while illegal aliens don’t.
But even this modest step won’t come easy. Wayne Hunter, the county’s director of homeland security, stated that “the ICE approval process is a slow one, and that he expects approval to be at least a year away. But he said as the first sheriff’s office in Illinois to make the request, the county may have beaten the rush.”
Why is the process so slow? What’s so difficult about producing a few pages of paperwork granting a local sheriff the authority to enforce existing laws? The elites of the federal government don’t really want immigration laws enforced. (Think of Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean, who are still sitting in prison for doing their jobs!) It’s relatively easy for the federal government to lean on their own employees to enforce immigration laws laxly and sporadically, if at all. But exercising control over hundreds of local jurisdictions, who really want to enforce the law, will be much more difficult. Small wonder that the feds are dragging their feet on this one!