No Sanctuary for Illegals

The backlash just keeps coming ever since New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced his proposal to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. After a scathing editorial [1] by CNN's Lou Dobbs ripped apart the plan, another well-known independent, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg [2], recently went on the record to oppose Spitzer's proposal. And even though the Ithaca Town Board recently voted to endorse this atrocious idea, laws are still laws. The actions of both the state and local government deserve no defense; immigration laws should be defended.

When the Ithaca Common Council passed a resolution [3] April 4, 2007 to refrain from enforcing federal immigration law in most cases, it essentially turned a blind eye to the law. While no one could expect Ithaca to focus on immigration as much as the Border Patrol does, laws do not disappear on the local level. To give the Common Council some credit however, ignoring the problem may not discourage illegal immigration, but at least it does not actively support illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, the Town Board more recently decided to take the plunge by supporting Spitzer's plan to actively aid illegal aliens with driver's licenses. By doing this, it effectively condoned breaking our nation's laws, sending a warm, welcoming message to those who should not be welcomed, but a chilling message to the rule of law.

One cannot underscore the hypocrisy of the local Ithaca government upon comparing its treatment of Cornell University to its treatment of illegal immigrants. It is no secret that Ithaca has fought several town-and-gown battles [4] with Cornell over its tax-exempt status. Furthermore, Ithaca stalemated the construction [5] of Milstein Hall due to a legal battle over proposed modifications to University Avenue. Yet for illegal aliens, who often avoid taxes despite having no tax exemption and whose mere presence presents a legal battle, the City of Ithaca has decided to bend over backwards to accommodate their needs.

The fault lies not only with government. Local businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants equally deserve such shame. Rather than compete with a good business plan and a model for success, these companies compete to see how many laws they can break in their hiring process. They may not be responsible for enforcing the laws, but that does not mean they can break them.

But of course, there's the man who wants to hand out driver's licenses like candy to illegal immigrants: Gov. Spitzer. Since sustainability is a buzzword at Cornell, why not use it as the paradigm to evaluate Spitzer's plan? The population of illegal aliens has grown from 3 million to 12 million in the United States since Congress passed comprehensive immigration "reform" in 1986, and Spitzer's plan does nothing to reverse this unsustainable trend. On the contrary, it will only promote illegal immigration at the expense of legal immigration. If immigrants can just sneak across the border and find a job and a driver's license, they have little incentive to enter America legally. Those who follow our laws, not those who break them, deserve incentives. Spitzer's plan contributes not only to an unsustainable wave of illegal immigrants, but also an unsustainable wave of disdain for our nation's laws.

Instead of following New York's lead under Spitzer, America should be more like France. Under their brilliant new president, Nicholas Sarkozy, France set a deportation quota [6] of 25,000 for this year. Granted, America would have to fight long and hard to remove all our illegal immigrants, but Spitzer's unsustainable policy will only make this problem worse. Although driver's licenses would improve the tracking of undocumented workers, such marginal gains would be overshadowed in the long term by the continued surge of illegal aliens, to the point where even monitoring them, much less deporting them, becomes a Herculean task. America must act now before the problem spirals out of control. Even if law enforcement cannot kick out all illegal aliens, they still need to deport them faster than they can illicitly cross the border. Only through this can America achieve a sustainable immigration policy.

Such polices are not the product of hatred towards immigrants and racism, either. America loves immigrants and their hard work, but America loves laws, too, and the immigrants who follow them. In fact, if America could minimize the population of illegal aliens, perhaps then it could open its doors to more legal aliens. As for racism, those who play the race card against opponents of illegal immigrants rely on the false stereotype of a Hispanic immigrant for their claims to hold water. Opponents of illegal immigration, on the other hand, are equal opportunity deporters, advocating the removal of illegal immigrants regardless of race, gender, class, ethnicity, nationality, religion or sexual orientation. The rule of law applies equally to all.

From border to border, America must remain vigilant against the tide of illegal immigrants. All governments, big and small, need to enforce immigration laws. There should be no sanctuary for illegal immigrants because there is no place where the laws do not apply. Whether it's the undocumented workers themselves or the businesses that employ them, all must be held accountable. America may benefit from immigration, but those who desire to come here need to follow a simple lesson everyone learned as a child, but only legal immigrants have obeyed: wait your turn in line.

Mike Wacker is The Sun's Assistant Web Editor. He can be reached at mwacker@cornellsun.com [7].