Comments on: Fighting Illegal Immigration at the Local Level

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:51:48 +0000

DD Web Site Reader Richard Davies writes:

” Good column. Thanks…Made me think, which is a dangerous thing!!”

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:19:07 +0000

Now we got a discussion! Barry?

By: Kevin Fries

Kevin Fries — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:53:32 +0000

There’s a bit of difference between visiting a foreign country and illegally remaining there. As to rights, children born here are US citizens, regardless of what country their parents live in or if the parents are here illegally.

You’re comparing apples and oranges here, Mr. Nolan.

Having lived next to Farmers Branch for a number of years and having read and listened to all the bombast and rhetoric on both sides, it simply boils down to what federal, state and local governments can and can’t do. Or won’t do, as Ms. Dimond relates.

Perhaps Mr. Nolan would like to compare the rights of illegal aliens here vs. his rights in Mexico if he were there illegally. Hell, there’s a lot of countries that are worse than Mexico in that regard. I agree it doesn’t make it right, but who has the vote on this? Citizens and their elected representatives. (That’s a bit of a joke since I left out the lobbyists who shill for special interests.)

While I agree that a local municipality, or hundreds of them, should not be creating laws that are wildly divergent on this matter, it should be up to the states or the federal government to define the limits. So I can understand the frustration that local governments feel when they are feeling threatened enough.

So I’m not opposed to making the laws on a local level until they can be defined on a larger scale, provided that they aren’t unconstitutional. Farmers Branch made it illegal to knowingly rent to illegal immigrants and adopted English as its official language. I don’t exactly see that as all that draconian. Of course you can prefer to look at it as the beginning of further laws. But from my perspective, it’s not like folks have no other alternatives to rent elsewhere.

I know US citizens who travel 60-75 miles a day, each way, to work in the DFW Metroplex. I’m not talking about professionals, I’m talking about construction workers and other labor intensive tasks. You’re taking money out of their pockets by tacitly agreeing to allowing illegals to undercut them on making a living.

That’s a shame.

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:08:07 +0000

I love you, Barry Nolan! You always make me think – and that’s a good thing. ~ DD

By: Barry Nolan

Barry Nolan — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:13:57 +0000

The Right is so wrong on the issue of Rights
The most famous and beloved of our founding documents – the Declaration of Independence – makes it very clear who has rights. Humans. They are endowed – not by the zip code of their birth – or even by their government – but by their creator with certain unalienable rights. You get them by being born. The Bill of Rights then went on to enumerate what some of those rights are – but the founding fathers made it clear – they didn’t think that this was all of the those rights – just some of them.
And if the first lady to respond here were to have her way – “those who are not citizens have no rights at all” – the corollary to that would be that when Americans were in any other country -we would have no rights at all – None. No right to know the charges against us – no right to counsel – no right to habeas corpus – no right to see the evidence against us. Is this really the world you want to see come to pass? Or have you maybe been listening to Glenn Beck just a little too much?