— by Bill Buchan —
I am no longer a resident of San Juan County, but [I am doing what I can] to help get Initiative 2017-07 on the ballot.
I urge each of you to do what you can to oppose the wrong-headed aspects of our President’s Immigration Policy. Initiative 2017-07 is a good step to ensure that the abuses we hear about throughout our country do not happen in OUR county.
I have visited the Northwest Detention Center (read jail), and heard the stories of those held there. There are spouses of petty criminals, grabbed up because they were handy. There are people brought here as young children, who know no other life except that of an American, subject to deportation to essentially a foreign country. There are long-term (yes, illegal) residents in our country, with children who are U. S. Citizens by birth, at risk of having their families torn apart. Non-U.S. Citizens released from minor jail offenses at the end of their sentences, instead of going back to their community like anyone else, get a one-way “go to jail” detention card instead. Inmates can work, but receive only a dollar a day, while the GEO Corporation, one of the corporate welfare hogs in our Prison-Industrial complex, makes hundreds of millions in profits out of other peoples’ misery.
If the President’s “promises” that he would deport only felons and gang members were true, it might not be so bad, but 40% of those deported this year are guilty of no crime whatsoever. Of course there SHOULD be a better way to have low-wage guest workers, but our Congress refuses to address real immigration reform. Many employed “illegals” pay taxes, and pay into a Social Security system that they can never hope to benefit from. Let’s stop criminalizing them! Take the small step of getting Initiative 2017-07 on the ballot, to make sure that San Juan County is not a participant in this cruel business.
(Editor’s note: Initiative may be signed at Ray’s Pharmacy or the Orcas Food Coop in Eastsound)
I am appreciative of all the people working on immigration rights in San Juan County. However, I find some of the terminology in this letter to the editor disturbing. Maybe it’s just a quirk of mine, but I cringe when people are referred to as illegals or even illegal residents. I prefer the terms undocumented residents or workers/employees. No offense meant to the author; I had a strong enough reaction that I felt the need to write.
I hope our Sheriff is fully informed of his Constitutional Right to Prohibit a Federal Officer from coming into his County. He doesn’t h
ave to let them step foot in SJC!
Isupport the initiative because I believe it is necessary to protectect those who we see as neighbors, but Spirit Eagle is just flat wrong about the Sheriff’s power to exclude ICE from coming into the county. Where ICE officers go is controlled by Federal law and the Constitution and the Sheriff has no authority to ban them. What the initiative does do is direct County employees including the Sheriff not to ask people about their immigration status and other info that is unnecessary for them to perform their duties.
Is it a good idea to direct our County officials to refuse to cooperate with federal law? The reason I ask, is what if this policy of allowing each State, each County, each City to choose which federal laws it wants to cooperate with becomes popular? There are many locations that find certain federal laws to be unacceptable. If each local chooses which it wants to cooperate with then we either weaken the nation and devolve to a number of feudal states or we strengthen the federal government as it takes on more police roles as the local agencies refuse to do the job.
I think the best option is not to ask our County to refuse to cooperate with federal law but instead persuade the federal government to change the law.
Good issue, Sandy Lee.
The best place to start is with the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the States and their local authorities, such as the counties.
This means that although the states can NEVER PROHIBIT or IMPEDE the federal government from carrying out federal law, they are not required to perform the federal government’s functions. As things stand, state authorities do not usually do the jobs of federal officers or carry out federal laws. And barring certain exceptions, the federal government may not require the state and local authorities to carry out federal law. The federal authorities carry out federal law, the state carries out state law, and the county authorities carry out county and state law.
This initiative would require only that our county employees and officials NOT take on jobs which the federal government is charged with performing. Consider a comparable situation: The federal government does not and cannot require county officials to enforce federal tax law. Why should federal immigration enforcement be any different?
Hi Spirit Eagle. Stan Wagner is absolutely correct: the Sheriff has no authority whatsoever to keep the federal government out of the county or from performing federal duties. That’s just the way our government throughout the US is organized.