Promises not kept by Republicans
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Hannah M. Senft
Published: April 13, 2008
Republicans on the local and state level really demagogued the illegal immigration issue in this past election. They raised expectations about what is possible and they made promises they could not keep.
Yes, we have overcrowding in our schools and yes, we spend a significant amount of money on ESOL classes. But Republicans misled voters about the number of illegal immigrant children in our schools; they failed to mention that the exact number is not known.
They ignored the Federal and Supreme Court rulings which mandate the educating of all children (Lau v. Nichols, 1974, Castaneda v. Pickard, 1981, Plyler v. Doe, 1982, Gomez v. Illinois, 1987,
Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby, 1989).
And yes, we all want to get criminals off the streets. But instead of the more cost effective method of checking those already incarcerated, Republican firebrands promoted immigration checks done at the point of the traffic stop. This prompted residents to think that everyone stopped would be sent away. All to gain votes! ICE only accepts a small number of illegal immigrants for deportation each month and only after they are convicted and have served their sentences. They do NOT deport all the people identified as illegal immigrants. This could have been done by ICE trained officers of the jail.
We need police officers patrolling the streets, not tied up with a lot of paperwork.
Manassas, Manassas Park and Prince William County do not have the funding for this added enforcement. Prince William County just emptied their contingency fund and that still wasn’t enough money.
Increased funding for law enforcement will not be coming our way from the state. Republican delegates to the General Assembly won’t vote for dedicated funding for our transportation crisis, so they won’t be providing any new sources of revenue to help law enforcement. It’s disrespectful to law enforcement to expect them to do more and more with fewer resources. But that did not matter to Republicans who wanted to win their races at whatever cost to the community.
Call your elected officials and tell them to stop making promises they cannot keep.
HANNAH M. SENFT
Manassas
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on April 14, 2008 at 11:25 am
Edwinking It is very easy, any bill pass thought several committees before it goes to the floor , at any instance it can be kill or put at sleep. Just go to the Virginia Assembly web site, it is a learning experience you can’t miss.
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Posted by ( Equality 7-2521 ) on April 14, 2008 at 11:07 am
Barnun, I don’t understand your argument. (And I mean that in the most respectful way.) Could please you elaborate?
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Posted by ( barnun ) on April 14, 2008 at 10:44 am
Equality, based on your guidelines the police do not seek out all offenders. if they wanted to do this they could go thru the schools, and set a post at the ER. I believe picking up illegals for a traffic stop is dealing with someone that has already broke the law. one of those few speeders you mentioned.
For Ms Senft, I think our state should send the feds a monthly bill for the time, effort and services our police put forth on their behalf.
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Posted by ( Equality 7-2521 ) on April 14, 2008 at 10:26 am
Barnun-I think you’re missing her point. She isn’t saying we should pick and choose, she’s saying we should use our limited resources more effectively.
For example, local jurisdictions already choose the level at which they want to enforce a law. The State Police don’t stop the thousands of speeders on I-95 everyday because doing so would be too costly. Instead they focus on speeders that cross a certain threshold or those that can be fined for other offenses too.
Law enforcement is as much about efficiency as it is about enforcing the laws. At some point the police have to decide that expending more resources on something will not achieve efficient results because it will decrease the availability of those resources for other demands. That is Ms. Senft point: target the resources where they will be most effective.
While I don’t necessarily agree that simply checking those already incarcerated will get the job done, I do agree with her overall proposition.
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Posted by ( edwinking ) on April 14, 2008 at 9:57 am
GOdsaveus, how can the Democrats, the miority party, kill a bill in the House? I know that since the raging right took over the GOP in Virginia every bill that might have improved the state has been killed but did not know until now that they were so inept that the Democrats ran things.
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Posted by ( barnun ) on April 14, 2008 at 9:43 am
I’m not completely sure what Miss Senft’s point is. Is she saying we should ignore the law to save money ? But then she wants to pick and choose which laws to ignore. I dont think anyone has been turned away at the schools. As long as they are able to circumvent the law, the children will be educated. For those who cry about racial profiling, the ESOL focus’s on spanish as a second language. The schools dont send papers home written in korean, russian, japanese, chinese, hebrew, arabic etc. Why is that ?
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on April 14, 2008 at 8:54 am
There is not doubt that under your DEMOCRAT point of view REPUBLICANS are not keeping their promises , there are hundred of bills related to illegal immigrants killed in committees for Democrat representatives in a obstructionist way. We can see also that most of the proposed bills where oriented to fine employers hiring undocumented workers. Most Democrats and Gov. Kaine are against any kind of law that might “hurt fillings of immigrant’s families”. We are still talking about the 12 millions of illegal immigrants , but as we discuss most probably the number is over 18 millions and Virginia got a big chunk of that due to the construction boom, they came along with their kids , and the state provide exceptional amount of money to ESOL programs. If we continue on the same pace very soon thanks to DEMOCRATS we are going to be another Maryland.
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