Immigration paranoia

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Immigration paranoia				August 14, 2010

I don’t know what demonic additive has been floated into the drinking water up in Prince William County, but if you’re going to drive through it, I suggest you take with you your birth certificate, naturalization papers, green card or anything else that proves you’re in this country legally. It seems that the supervisors up there have passed a law requiring police officers to check the immigration status of anyone, and I mean anyone, whom they stop or arrest.

Prince William is represented in the House of Delegates by Republican far-right-fielder Bob Marshall. Marshall, who delights in legislation that socks it to anyone who is not as brain-twistedly pure as he is, thought this immigration law was such a good idea that he asked his ideological compadre, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, to offer up an opinion on the matter.

Cooch, who seems to drop opinions more easily than rabbits do rabblets, had no problem assuring Marshall that this was a really fine idea. Police officers throughout the state, said Cooch, have the right to check the immigration status of those they stop or arrest if they suspected immigration violations.

What Virginia statute would give credence to such an opinion Cooch didn’t say. Probably because there is none. Nor did it seem to bother him that a judge in Arizona had recently ruled that such shenanigans in the Arizona law were unconstitutional because immigration policy is a federal issue. Or that racial profiling could result.

Such was the tack taken by the Virginia ACLU, which sent a letter to all police organizations in the state, urging them to disregard Cuccinelli’s directive. In its letter, the ACLU warned that “law enforcement inquiries into immigration status are likely to lead to racial profiling and mistrust of police in immigration communities, resulting from less cooperation from crime victims and witnesses.”

Marshall’s response to the ACLU’s intervention was typical. Alien terrorists and gangs would soon be untouchable, he mused, as though all illegal immigrants were terrorists and gang members. He seems not to be worried about terrorists who are in the country legally.

Local police organizations want none of this. Most of them are not trained in federal immigration policies, and all of them, as noted by the mayor of Newport News, have all they can do to keep kids from shooting each other. Trying to keep track of illegal immigrants simply cannot be part of the already full and under funded agenda they face every day.

Given the fact that Arizona is a border state and as such is subject to at times uncontrollable influxes of illegal immigrants, one might understand the desire of lawmakers in that state to stem the flow. But Virginia?

You have to wonder what psychotic animus drives people like Marshall and Cuccinelli to rather constantly take out after those they consider “other” than themselves. Are they really so egocentrically persuaded by their exotic world view that they don’t understand the risks involved in persecuting those of other races who come to this country for the same reason that immigrants have always come here?

Would their xenophobic rancor be so voracious if it were an influx of people from Britain or Canada that we were dealing with? Or has it peaked because most immigrants these days are Latinos or non-whites whose mother tongue is something other than English?

It seems that most of the Latino immigrants who have come to Williamsburg and James City have assimilated well. They have jobs and they work diligently. What they do with the money they earn I have no idea, nor do I care. Nor do I care if they speak Spanish. In fact, it’s rather refreshing.

What I do hope is that, unlike Prince William, we in James City never tolerate unwarranted police harassment of anyone for the sake of ferreting out illegal immigrants. That would be embarrassingly shameful.