When you look at this illegal alien mess it isn’t easy to tell who’s to blame. And as citizens we aren’t privy to the inner workings of government. When things go wrong the problem becomes more difficult since bureaucracies circle the wagons rather than step forward and take the blame.
A case in point is the fatality that started it all for me; Patricia Henneken. Patricia was killed on Memorial Day 2006 by Javier Rico, an illegal alien driving drunk who broad-sided her car out on Golf Road. Rico had a record with the police.
The question was: Why wasn’t Rico deported BEFORE he had a chance to kill Patricia Henneken?
The answer from authorities? Well, Tandra Simonton over at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office claimed innocence, saying local law enforcement agencies have the burden of reporting illegal aliens under arrest.
And Gail Montenegro, a spokesman for the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said, “We are at the mercy of county officials to let us know.”
Montenegro should have gone on to tell us that a DUI conviction will not get someone deported. They happen all the time and go unnoticed by Immigration. Again, bureaucracies circle the wagons and go into self-protect mode when there’s trouble.
Let me say here that I am not being critical of the cop on the street, or the ICE agent either. They are doing the best they can.
The model is as old as the Roman Army. There is the
strategy level where they decide what to do. Then there is the
tactical level that takes care of the how. And then there are the brave
soldiers who carry the spears in to battle.
The Bush administration has never planned to enforce immigration laws to any degree. Right from the start Bush wanted to grant amnesty to illegal aliens and saw enforcement and deportation as unnecessary. Funding and other resources were never given to Immigration.
If you look at the data Bill Clinton did a better job of worksite enforcement. Only in the last two years has Bush done any serious worksite raids and prosecutions of employers. The same can be said for rounding up the illegal alien fugitives. And cooperation with local authorities has spiked as well. And the number of detention beds for deportations has recently gone up.
What I’m saying is that at the strategic level Immigration enforcement has been weak all along. And Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security even admits it in a backhanded sort of way.
Chertoff told VOA on October 10, 2007:
"For many years, the way we dealt with illegal immigration was we paid political lip service to toughness. I think we've got to show the public that we are serious about enforcing the laws as they currently are written."From Chertoff’s report on the state of immigration reform, November 6, 2006:
“I think you’ll remember that this past August, after Congress failed to pass the proposed immigration reform bill, we announced that we were going to use the tools that we have, such as they are, sharpen them up and go about the business of getting control of the border. And to that end, this past August the administration announced a series of reforms to strengthen immigration enforcement and to meet our nation’s workforce needs to the extent the law permits so that we could try to fill the gap left open by Congress’s failure to act to address the challenges comprehensively.”Chertoff Press Conference August 10, 2007: “
We're obviously disappointed in the fact, as is the President, that Congress has not chosen to act on our comprehensive solution. The Senate bill that we worked on would have given us important new tools and resources to strengthen border security, increase and toughen interior enforcement, and help meet the needs of our growing economy through a temporary worker program. Our hope is that the key elements of the Senate bill will see the light of day at some point. But until Congress chooses to act, we're going to be taking some energetic steps of our own.”Bush himself admitted that laws were being broken regularly and that the American people wanted a show of enforcement before they would trust congress with immigration reform. Read his remarks of June 7, 2006 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060607.html
So, yes, we blame Washington for allowing things to get this bad. We blame them for not enforcing the laws on the books. And we are more than a little suspicious when they do a press release telling us what a great job they are doing by rounding up 50 illegal alien gang members three times a year.
We see it as part of the package to show some enforcement so they can pass amnesty.
Again, we think the ICE agent on the street is great. He’s doing his job the best he can with what he’s been given. Our beef is with the people in Washington and Oak Brook.
This photo was taken Tuesday. 
By Saturday it looked like this.
Unpaved parking between Porter Court and Liberty on the south side of Summit. 
Just down the street on the north side of Summit (just west of the fire station) was more unpaved parking. 
Then at 431 Summit someone had tagged the garbage can with graffiti. I believe the group is the “TBS” for True Bombin’ Soldiers. 
Walking north on Dundee I noticed that the homes along the north side of Summit (400 block) have all sorts of unpaved parking in the back. These homes are behind the empty Dunkin Donuts shop on the corner. 
Then at about 555 Dundee you see this unpaved parking right out front. 
And yet another one at Dundee and Enterprise. 
The Family Dollar store right next to Larsen Middle School has graffiti on the parking lot light pole and the realtor sign out at the street. (You don’t suppose the middle school students notice these things, do you?) 
At 593 Dundee they have decorated the sidewalk outside Mitchell Insurance. 
523 Columbia. More unpaved parking. 
628 Lincoln. Ditto. 
639 Lincoln (I’m guessing at the address since I didn’t see one). Unpaved parking. 
And more unpaved parking at 544 Jefferson.