MCRI ·
Why isn't Chicago columnist demanding an end to his city's "sanctuary" policy for illegal aliens?
By Dave Gorak, 01/08/2012
In recent back-to-back columns, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass blasted the Cook County Board for its September decision to make Chicago even more inviting to illegal aliens.
By a 10-5 vote, the board in September put in place a policy that ignores federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants and also allows those charged with misdemeanors and felonies to post bond.
But such stupidity, which grew out the city’s decades-long pandering to illegal aliens and their advocates in hopes of gaining votes from the nation’s fastest growing minority group, has consequences.
In this case, it was the death of William “Dennis” McCann, who allegedly was killed last summer by illegal alien Saul Chavez who was driving drunk. Thanks to the city’s new attitude toward “immigrants,” Chavez skipped town and now is believed to be in Mexico.
Kass, who again reminded his readers that he is the “son of Greek immigrants,” which has nothing to do with the issue because who among us doesn’t have someone dangling from our family tree who wasn’t an immigrant, says he understands why people enter this country illegally and freely admitted that he would do the same if it was the “only” way to get here.
But illegal entry isn’t the “only” way to get here. This country has the most generous immigration policy in the world that every year issues 1.5 million work permits to legal immigrants, even during the most recent downturn. Think about it: 22 million Americans are unable to find full-time jobs while our government is passing out work permits like they were free pizza samples in your local supermarket. Add to this the Obama administration’s decision to allow 7 million illegals to keep their jobs in the construction, manufacturing, transportation and service industries. You read this right: It’s the same Obama who keeps telling us that jobs for Americans are a “top priority.”
Kass then makes this startling statement:
“But this isn't about immigration.”
Oh, but it is. This nation’s immigration crisis exists because our federal government for years has refused to enforce its own laws, and this dereliction of duty has been aided and abetted by a mainstream media whose members are too lazy to cover this issue in accordance with their own ethics and standards. Nearly every immigration news story can’t help but leave readers and viewers with the impression that in 21st century America only the foreign-born, especially illegal aliens, are entitled to “search for a better life.”
As a result, 25 years after President Reagan’s “one-time only amnesty” for nearly 3 million illegals, the illegal alien population now is estimated to be 11 million people, 500,000 of them in Illinois. “The Land of Lincoln” has become a major magnet for illegals thanks in part to the efforts of immoral politicians like Sen. Dick “DREAM Act” Durbin and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the nation’s poster boy for illegal immigration.
Kass’ cavalier attitude toward illegal immigration is not only troubling, it also is very confusing.
In 2009 he criticized U.S. Senate Democrats for killing a proposal requiring employers to use the federal E-Verify program to prevent illegals from taking jobs created by President Obama’s jobs stimulus program. In other words, it was OK to deny newly created jobs to illegals, but not a word from Kass since then about those millions of illegal aliens still bringing home regular paychecks at a time when so many of his fellow citizens are wondering how they will provide for their families.
Early last year, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced the Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 2885) that would, among other things, lift the restriction preventing employers from using E-Verify to screen all their employees regardless of how long they had been working and fire those here illegally. It also would close the ID theft loophole.
Why hasn’t Kass written a column in support of this bill? In support of the millions of unemployed Americans?
Kass needs to get off the fence and start using some of the energy he uses to blast corrupt bozos like the former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to blast with equal force the double-talking promoter of hope and change sitting in the White House who has decreed that some illegals are more illegal than others.
And he needs to remember that those who support sanctuary cities have on their hands the blood of those who are killed by illegal aliens.