businessweek.com
Hudson (N.H.) police Chief Richard E. Gendron says he has nothing against immigration but warns that "if you want to come to this country, come in the front door." Otherwise, he vows, illegal aliens caught in his town of 25,000 will be charged with criminal trespass.
Gendron's officers have done just that, intercepting three Mexicans and four Brazilians on their way to restaurant and landscaping jobs; during traffic stops, they admitted to being in the U.S. illegally. As Gendron awaits a mid-July court test of his novel legal approach, he's fielding laudatory calls and e-mails, including praise from state legislators.
New Hampshire is part of a fast-spreading grassroots backlash whose message to Washington is simple: Seal the borders from illegal immigration, or we'll take matters into our own hands. The outcry has reached all the way to President George W. Bush, who was warned recently by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to pull back from the Administration's goal of providing guest worker status to undocumented workers in the U.S. Instead, DeLay told reporters after an early June legislative strategy session, "we have to be very clear...about protecting our borders before we start talking about immigration" reform. The White House is now looking to highlight strict enforcement rather than its amnesty plan.
A shift in the rhetoric may not be enough, however. Across the country, local officials are howling over the use of scarce tax dollars to provide health care, education, welfare, and other benefits for illegals. In Danbury, Conn., Mayor Mark Boughton has called for the state police to begin arresting illegal aliens. Immigration foes in Colorado are trying to place a measure on the 2006 ballot similar to Arizona's Proposition 200 in 2004 that cut off some state aid, including welfare benefits, to illegals. In Idaho, Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez proposes to sue local businesses under federal anti-racketeering laws if they hire undocumented workers. And on May 26, Mayor Alan Autry of Fresno, Calif., proposed a two-year moratorium on all immigration, saying: "The jails are overflowing with people we don't even know, and the hospitals are packed with people using the ER as their primary doctor, putting those hospitals near bankruptcy."
Posted by Suzanne at June 28, 2005