Illegal Immigrants

The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Wednesday to the government's use of a strong new identity theft law against illegal workers who use fake ID cards. Last year, U.S. immigration agents raided a meat-packing plant in Iowa and arrested 389 workers for having false documents. About two-thirds of them were charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year prison term. Lawyers say this charge is used as a bargaining chip.

California corrections officials say the state will no longer spend the estimated $10 million a year it costs to lock up undocumented immigrants with prior convictions who reenter the country illegally after being deported. The stance refers to immigrants who had committed crimes in California and finished serving their terms. In the past, the state kept them on parole after deportation and incarcerated them for four to eight months for violating their parole by reentering the country illegally.

The leader of the Three Franciscos, a ring accused of transporting more than 9,000 illegal immigrants through Los Angeles and around the country, was sentenced to six years in federal prison Monday. Federal officials called the organization the most prolific of its kind ever uncovered in Los Angeles, collecting fees as high as $3,700 from relatives of immigrants who were packed into cramped vans and safe houses.

When I was a boy growing up in Los Angeles circa 1970, I did something that brought dishonor to my people. I tossed a hamburger wrapper onto the parking lot at a fast-food restaurant. This caused my mother to snap that I should never litter because "when people look at you and see black hair and brown eyes, they think you don't have any manners." The word Latino had not yet entered the California lexicon. Hispanic or Hispano was used only by bureaucrats and academics.

A former U.S. attorney who oversaw a crackdown on illegal immigration on the California-Mexico border a decade ago will be appointed the Southwest border czar by the Obama administration, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. Alan Bersin, who served in a similar post during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, will be charged with controlling illegal immigration and drug violence amid Mexico's ongoing war against organized crime, the official said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that the claim by some conservative activists that illegal immigration is to blame for all of the state's fiscal problems is ignorant and bigoted. The governor made his comments during a public forum at The Times building in downtown Los Angeles, where he expressed frustration with anti-tax organizations and others seeking to derail a package of ballot measures that will come before voters in a May 19 special election.

Waving American flags and pictures of President Obama, thousands of protesters took to the streets Friday in May Day rallies in Southern California to promote immigration reform. Marchers said they were encouraged by Obama's support for change and his pledge this week to begin laying the groundwork for legislation that would include a path to legalization for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

What is it about illegal immigration that unhinges otherwise reasonable people, leading them to propose inhumane and unworkable remedies to the problem? Yes, it is frustrating to have 11 million or 12 million people living in the shadows of our society. We get it: They shouldn't have come here illegally. They should have worked through proper channels and not jumped ahead of other immigrants seeking a life in the United States.