April 30, 1999
By Raoul Lowery Contreras
A group of reactionary, white supremacists in Los Angeles will submit an initiative for the next State wide ballot in March that will convert local cops into immigration officers. A crime wave of tsunami proportions could hit the state while local cops pretend to be immigration cops and waste their time hassling people who look "Mexican" while White and Black criminals run amok on copless streets.
The same mentality that brought us the controversial and divisive Proposition 187 in 1994 is preparing a new initiative that will unleash traffic cops, park rangers, meter maids, State Treasury messengers, and part-time constables into every nook and cranny of California to search for people illegally in the country.
The proposed title of the initiative: The Local Immigration Officer Training Act. It would mandate that local/state laws and policies prohibiting "cooperation" between local and state law enforcement agencies will be by-passed by this Act and such agencies "shall provide full cooperation to peace officers in the performance of immigration law enforcement functions pursuant to an agreement under" the U.S. Code.
Supporting the proposed act is a cabal of anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican activists White reactionaries and surprising Los Angeles conservative Blacks. This is done to convince the media and the general public that the sponsors of the proposed Act are not radical White Supremacists, but rather inter-racial community minded people that have positive goals. They fall short, however, when one reads the "Findings and Declarations" of the proposed Act.
"Section 1. Findings and Declaration. The People of California find and declare: That the federal government's enforcement of the United States immigration laws has failed to prevent millions of aliens from unlawfully entering California and taking up residence within the State; That the unlawful presence of millions of aliens imposes intolerable burdens on California public schools, public health resources, and other state and local government services and facilities and FOSTERS A CLIMATE OF LAWLESSNESS THAT THREATENS SOCIAL PEACE AND STABILITY (emphasis added)."
There is no "climate of lawlessness" in California. Are there "millions of aliens" in California who have "unlawfully" entered the state and taken up "residence?" No! No one knows how many illegals there are, though the Census and Immigration officials estimate somewhat over 5-million in the country. How many are there in California? No one knows. Millions? No. Intolerable burdens? No.
Crime rates are plunging all over the state including the inner-cities. Yet, these people complain that "millions" of illegals are making a "climate of lawlessness." These assertions do not compute with plunging crime rates. These assertions are incongruous and dangerous. Why? Because, if local cops and Highway Patrol officers are empowered to be phony "immigration officers", criminals will have their way throughout California because cops and the CHP will be busy interviewing "profiled" illegal alien suspects for citizenship or legal residency.
Those millions of suspects will keep the cops real busy. Don't be fooled by the pro-local immigration cop proposal. They will cry that the proposal is aimed at all illegal aliens, not just Mexicans, but they lie, just as they did with Prop. 187 and in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debate. The Wall Street Journal editorialized in the NAFTA debate that the "target was Mexicans." So it is with this proposed Act.
Will cops stop blonde-blue eyed people to check if they are illegal Canadians among us? There are hundreds of thousands such illegals living and working in California. Will cops bother them? No, cops will stop everyone who looks Mexican. Every such person will have to carry proof of citizenship and legal residency. Imagine, they, I, will have to satisfy cops as to whether we are living here legally. I won't have to do that in New York, or Texas, or New Hampshire, just in Kalifornia.
Here come police checkpoints, warrantless searches and midnight raids. People who don't look Mexican won't be inconvenienced, this time. But, what about next time?
You can email Contreras at: sdraoul@pacbell.net
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