In loco parentis

We are very serious about the responsibilities of the state when it comes to our children. Shootings on college campuses, cases of teachers using duct tape to restrain students, and sexual relationships between students and teachers are all in the news far too often. And we are very careful to impose stiff sentences when drug and gang activity are detected near a school. And sex offenders are kept far away from school children.

The Fox River Grove train accident in October of 1995 is an example of our resolve to keep kids safe. Seven students died on the school bus that morning when the bus driver, thinking she was driving a shorter bus, drove across the tracks and stopped at an intersection. The back of the bus was struck by a passenger train.

As a result, railroad crossings throughout Illinois (and much of the United States) were redesigned to prevent another accident. Millions of dollars were spent in changing the timing of the lights, painting hashmarks on the pavement, adding signs to indicate the amount of clearance between the tracks and the stop line, and changing the speed limit of the trains.

All this effort could not stop illegal alien Epifania Alvarez from killing her two sisters and infant nephew at an “improved” Elgin railroad crossing in December of 2006.

And now we have another opportunity to spend millions of dollars in memory of children killed on a school bus. In Cottonwood Minnesota this week, four children were killed when an illegal alien ran a stop sign and t-boned a school bus that subsequently tipped over.

This illegal alien was arrested in 2006 for driving without a license, but nothing was done about her unlawful presence in the United States. She carries a Minnesota Identification Card. As recently as January of this year she was working at a Hormel turkey processing plant as though she had a right to work here.

Perhaps now we will get serious about illegal aliens in this country. Perhaps now we will spend millions of dollars to identify and deport them rather than praise them. Perhaps now cities like Chicago and Minneapolis will rescind their sanctuary status. Perhaps now it will take something less than eight DUI convictions before Immigration will even respond to requests for deportation.

Then again, illegal aliens are a protected class and chances are this will be quietly swept under the rug as irrelevant. It’s funny how we can be selective about in loco parentis.