Waukegan - You Are Not Dead To Me!

Rejoice!

The aldermen of Waukegan may keep their jobs in my eyes, for they held true to their words and did not back down from the swarm of protesters who used everything from prayer vigils to corporate boycotts to coerce the city councilmen away from their initial 7-2 ruling in favor of applying for the federal program which will train some police officers and give them the power to set the deportation process in motion. Even though the hall only had enough seats for 200 people, of course the city had to sell 400 tickets to the meeting. This led to over 100 people having to stand in the room and hallways, hoping for a seat to open up. This is in addition to the hundreds outside, still protesting for and against the measure.

The new count? 8-2 in favor of applying for the federal program!

The extra vote came from the Mayor, also in favor of applying for the program. While I have not yet confirmed this, I suspect that the two "nay"s were the same as the first vote, those two aldermen who claimed it would lead to racial profiling or that it would frighten even the legal immigrants and they wouldn't be able to trust the police.

While it IS true that the ability to deport extends not just to illegal immigrants, but also to legal immigrants - that only applies to those who are arrested for heinous crimes like murder, rape and some drug-related felonies.

So hey, legal immigrants - don't murder or rape or smuggle cocaine! Got it??

That's all it takes! Don't commit these crimes! I'm more than willing to admit that harsher laws don't really have that desired effect to deter criminals from committing those crimes - but you have to admit that once deportation is on the line for immigrants (both legal and illegal), they're hopefully going to think twice before KILLING SOMEONE. I mean "think thrice", because if you're going to kill someone without a second thought, you don't deserve deportation - you deserve the death penalty.

Maybe now that we've shown that SOME City Councils out there have the balls to follow through with their decision to apply for this great federal program that cuts down on the red tape and paperwork, we can get some other cities with high illegal immigration populations to apply for it as well.

This is a trend that needs some momentum, and we need to keep it going bigger and stronger. Maybe someday major cities like Chicago will be able to participate and we can finally start ENFORCING the laws that ALREADY EXIST!

Write your City Council! Tell them to apply for 287(g) and get your local law enforcement this training program!

An article ringing in the good news!