editor Discuss This Article AP Headlines Recent Commuter Jet Crashes in U.S. Lone Comair Survivor Pulled From Plane Almanac Predicts an Extra Cold Winter Sports Taveras Runs Hitting Streak to 30 Games U.S. Smothers Australia 113-73 at Worlds France Advances to the Quarterfinals Strange News 128 Students Suspended at Ind. School Father-Son Team Set Watermelon Records Chinese Sex Toys Confiscated in Vietnam Officials say locals swamped by illegals Most at hearing say feds ignore immigration By Tim Whitmire Associated Press Gastonia | A federal effort to enlist local law enforcement officers to help identify and deport criminal illegal immigrants is a mere stopgap in the face of a much bigger problem, officials told a congressional panel Friday. "I and many others strongly disagree with President Bush's policy, or lack of, on illegal immigration," Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph told four House members at a hearing on empowering local law enforcement to combat illegal immigration. "The Congress of the United States has let us down by the lack of action on the illegal immigration issue for decades," Pendergraph told the panel that included North Carolina Republican Reps. Virginia Foxx, Patrick McHenry and Sue Myrick. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Reform, also attended the hearing at Myrick's Gastonia office. Pendergraph's department last winter signed a memorandum of understanding with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agreement allowed 12 deputies to be trained to screen the immigration status of people arrested in Mecklenburg, home to North Carolina's largest city, Charlotte. The 287(g) program, as it is known, gives local officers access to ICE's database of fingerprints and photographs, which Pendergraph and others say is the only reliable way to identify the immigration status of an arrested person. Since screening began May 1, Pendergraph said, his department has found that most of the immigrants who pass through his jail are here illegally. "So many illegal immigrant criminals have been identified through my 287(g) program, it is causing me a jail space problem," Pendergraph said. Pendergraph's department is one of only seven departments in five states with such agreements and access to ICE's database. Gaston County Sheriff Alan Cloninger told the panel his department received approval Thursday to join the program, but Pendergraph said many other law enforcement leaders who have tried repeatedly to participate in it tell him they have been turned down or ignored. An estimated 405,000 illegal immigrants live in North Carolina, McHenry said. Michael Lands, district attorney for Gaston County, said the federal government doesn't have enough agents to handle an illegal immigrant population of that size. "Ultimately, and I mean no disrespect, this is a federal government problem that you need to address," he told the panel. The government's approach to illegal immigrants, Lands said, has been "to wait until they commit a state crime and then determine if it's serious enough to deport them." Souder responded that federal, state and local governments will have to cooperate to improve the system. "Somehow we've got to figure out how to do this together," he said. The mother of a Gaston County teacher who died in a July 2005 hit-and-run crash in Brunswick County caused by an illegal immigrant pleaded with the panel for a solution. Scott Gardner was on vacation with his family when their car was struck by a truck driven by Ramiro Gallegos, who was intoxicated and had a history of drunken driving arrests. Wife Tina Gardner remains in a vegetative state at a nursing home, her mother-in-law Emily Moose said Friday. The couple's two young children are effectively orphaned. "I believe the cost of human life is too high to pay for cheap labor," Moose said, near tears. Gallegos was sentenced earlier this year to 14 to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree murder. "If you break the law to get here, you're not going to respect the law once you're here," McHenry said. That comment, plus a statement by Moose that "millions" of lives have been lost to illegal immigration and a complaint by Foxx that the media obsesses about the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq while saying little "about the people being killed by illegal immigrants every day," appeared to motivate Lands to interject. "I think it needs to be said - and you all know - illegals aren't the only ones out there committing crime," he said. "There's plenty of crime by American-born citizens."
Immigration - 7 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Yeah, lol. As far as the last quote...hahahaha. I know their are people born and raised here that commit crime. There is no doubt about that, however, do we need the added extra from people who are not supposed to be here anyway!!! Oh, I see, lets accept crime from illegal immigrants because American legal citizens commit crime too. LOL That is like when a little kid is caught doing something naughty..."Mommy, bobby sneaked a cookie too." Well...now its justified!LOL LOL Bunch of freakin babies...no wonder we are in the state of affairs that we are!
2 :
Aren't you tired of the argument that American's commit crimes, too? Please! How lame! All that blither aside, the illegals have no business and no right to be here. End of discussion.
3 :
Bush and all the politic whore DONT care what happening with this country just thinking how to get vote money and power and remember he need support his brother got vote from anchor babies, they give it away America and just wanna destroy only take couple years. most mexicans do much more criminal look in AZ,CA ,NM,TXjail always full, after they do crime just run to mexico and back couple days with different name , AT LEAST if citizen do crime police easy catch them because they are legal. In their mind all the politics traitor just Fuc k America we dont need more criminal in here include illegal bring it on
4 :
law breaking disrespectful run away cowardly illegal criminals don't care about things. neither do their lovers. deport all illegals. they do enough crime here. after their gone will work on the rest.
5 :
doesn't matter the race everyone commit crime
6 :
I FEEL LIKE SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!
7 :
Yes, all people commit crimes. But people who are legal members of a society with a trail of records that help identify them tend to get caught when they do so they're less likely to try. And illeagal aliens committed a crime when they remained in the US illeagally, all of them wheather they shoot someone or rob someone or work hard and support a family, they're all in violation of the law.
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