Immigration control activists should give a resounding “No!” to Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign for President.
Governor Romney has recently made much ado over his plan to allow state troopers to arrest illegal immigrants. This is less than meets the eye. The plan is to train two or three dozen state troopers to detain people they suspect as illegals according to the Massachusetts newspapers. There are 100,000 illegals estimated to be in Massachusetts.
Romney is doing the same con-job that the mayor of Danbury, Mark Boughton, did when CT Citizens for Immigration Control first came on the scene. He requested permission to train the local police force in immigration law. After two years, not a single illegal has ever been removed from Danbury, CT because of Mark Boughton. I suspect the same thing can be said of Governor Romney.
Boughton tries to placate the illegals, make it easier for them to be in his city without disturbing the residents and yet give the appearance of being tough and concerned about immigration. Romney is following in the same path.
One of the largest myths of immigration is that the state and local police do not have the power to arrest illegal aliens or employers of illegal aliens for immigration violation. They have all the power necessary. State and local police have implicit authority to enforce all federal laws, such as immigration, counterfeiting or kidnapping. (Go to CTCIC’s website for details in the legal section.)
There are practical issues with local police arresting 12 million illegals and turning them over to ICE, but there is no legal issue. Further, the more effective strategy would be to arrest a few employers and confiscate a few contractors’ trucks and employment of illegals would stop in a heart-beat.
The Governor of any state has vast state powers, much less federal, to enforce laws against illegals and their employers. First, employers are violating state laws in regards to state income tax, workers compensation, worker safety laws and other state laws. Second, the employees are filing false documents or no documents at all, which are state crimes.
Investigations by state inspectors as to employment, tax laws and insurance would end the hiring of illegals. This would include the day-workers and also those employed in legitimate businesses under false IDs, such as restaurant workers and day care workers. Romney has done nothing to enforce state laws against illegal aliens.
Further, the Boston Globe reports that for ten years landscaping his suburban lawn. In knowingly doing so, Mitt Romney is guilty of a federal crime and subject to fines and imprisonment. If we remember, several appointments were sunk in the U.S. Senate because someone had employed illegal help. This should sink his candidacy.
Romney’s website on the issue of immigration is hardly reassuring:
“I would like to see us, as a nation, bringing in fewer illegal immigrants.”
“I do not like the idea, therefore, of Amnesty because I’m afraid that when you have a regular Amnesty program, of one form or another, you will create a greater incentive for people to come into the country illegally.”
“In my state I’ve said that I will veto any legislation which calls for a driver’s license for illegal immigrants.”
This is all well and good, but it does not answer the question, “What will he do to get twelve million illegals out of the country?” Apparently, Romney will do nothing. Romney does not like this or that, but as governor he has done nothing. He does not like 100,000 illegals in Massachusetts but had not done one thing about them in years as a governor. The key question is, “Are there more or fewer illegals in Massachusetts since Romney took office?” Need we give an answer?
Romney presents himself as the all-American boy candidate: valedictorian, Harvard Business and Law School. He is the ultimate corporate candidate. Mitt Romney was an Eagle Scout. If one had to call central casting for an All-American candidate, with an all-American wife, who was the pinnacle of American success complete with degrees and government service, you could not dream up anyone better than Mitt Romney.
Given his socio-economic status and Harvard Business School orientation, it is doubtful that he has any idea of the destructiveness the catastrophic economic trap the United States has walked into: soaring national deficits, runaway foreign trade, massive legal and illegal immigration.
Romney seems to regard illegal immigration as another issue for a corporate-politician to deal with, like social security or environmental pollution. Immigration is another issue to be politicized, strategized and anesthetized. He will take the responsible conservative middle and appear all things to all Republicans.
The corporate globalists will love him, because he is one of them. They know he is incapable of taking the dramatic action needed. They know he will engage in a preemptive surrender to the illegals and mass immigration, rather than a good stiff fight to remove them.
Immigration advocates do not need a religious boy scout as President. We need someone that will effectively, ruthlessly enforce the laws that are in place. We need a President that will use all means of the federal executive to remove the twelve million illegals in the country. We need a President that will put employers of illegals in prison. We need a U.S. Grant, not a Republican version of Jimmy Carter in the White House.
In the movie Brave Heart, the hero is told to never trust the aristocrats. That the aristocrats are not one of “us,” that is, totally committed to the freedom of Scotland. Immigration control activists should look to their own, those with a deep and proven commitment to immigration control for a Presidential candidate, whether that person be a professional politician or not. We should not settle for a candidate for whom immigration is simply another plank in his platform for higher office.
Mitt Romney eventually will sell-out immigration control advocates. He will promise much and deliver nothing. He will become a prisoner of the corporate globalists of the Republican Party.
In 2004, immigration control advocates held their noses and voted for George Bush as the better of two bad alternatives. It has been a catastrophe.
They should not make the same mistake again with Mitt Romney in 2008.
Paul Streitz
Co-director
CT Citizens for Immigration Reform
www.ctcitizensforimmigrationcontrol.com/
ctcic@optonline.net
amfirst@optonline.net
Mr. Streitz is author of Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I, The Great American College Tuition Rip-off and America First, Why Americans Must End Free Trade, Stop Outsourcing and Close Our Open Borders.
