Vic Glasberg’s “Resist Complicity” letter [Gazette Packet, Feb. 28] urges local officials and news editors to “resist complicity” in federal enforcement of our country’s immigration laws, which he considers “perverse, counterproductive, and discriminatory.” These laws, enacted by bipartisan majorities, are long-standing. When the Obama Administration attempted to annul them through executive action, 26 states successfully sued.
It would be hard to imagine a country today which does not enforce who can and cannot immigrate. E.g., to stanch continental immigration, UK voters recently adopted “Brexit.” Had continental European countries been more open to allowing the UK to restrict EU immigration, UK voters might have upheld the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s free-trade zone.
Illegal immigration involves considerable costs. E.g., would Alexandria need a new elementary school if it did not have to educate children from illegally present households? Because when Alabama tried to quantify the costs of illegal immigration, the Obama Administration threatened to sue, Alexandria cannot be faulted for failing to quantify the costs to city taxpayers. But now that a new administration is in office, city hall owes the public an honest, independently arrived-at estimate of the costs to city taxpayers associated with illegally present persons and their households.
For City Council and for those who would have us “resist complicity” to express support for illegally present persons, at a time when City Council is contemplating imposing enormous tax and fee burdens on residents, without leveling with the public about the associated price tag, is dishonest. It amounts to a non-negotiable demand to write a blank check to benefit, and even privilege, a category of lawbreakers, while the rest of us continue to be expected to abide by laws.
What could imaginably be more perverse, counterproductive, and discriminatory than that?
Dino Drudi
Alexandria