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By “Mark Andrew Dwyer”
June
10, 2006
Imagine an "undocumented tenant" moved into your house while you and your family were vacationing. The guy slept in your bed, wore your clothes, used your gas and electricity, and helped himself to your fridge. When you came back, he refused to leave, claiming the protection that Fourth Amendment extends to "the people to be secure in their [...] houses", so you had to call police and insist that your uninvited "guest" be removed from your place forcefully. A police officer who arrived shortly after your call was not willing to get involved, though. He referred to the situation (a “tenant” not willing to leave) as a "domestic dispute". However, he promised to file charges against your "tenant" in order to obtain a court injunction. Which he did. So, there was a trial, a "due process" if you will, after which your trespasser was found guilty and punished with ... eviction.
"Punished?" you may ask? If someone stole a car, is returning it to the rightful owner a "punishment" of the thief? Or if a bunch of thugs were apprehended during an attempt to rob a bank, is removing them from the bank building a "penalty"? It would be utterly absurd to answer "yes" to any of the above questions. The thief and the robbers need to be sent to jail, if found guilty, and no one in his right mind would claim that they were already "punished" when they lost the proceeds of their criminal act or were stopped from committing it. Yet this is exactly how some otherwise well-meaning people perceive the relationship between the illegal entry (the crime) and the deportation (the alleged punishment).
In his article recently published in The American Chronicle (see [1]), Tony Dolz wrote: "The penalty for violating our borders is deportation; anything else is amnesty." I hate to criticize somebody who apparently is on the same side of the immigration issue as I am, but calling deportation of an illegal entrant a "penalty" is nonsense. In addition of being illogical, it may give each and every one border violator "the right to a speedy and public trial" (quotation from 6th Amendment), which many ACLU attorneys are already claiming on behalf of the invaders.
If someone
illegally crosses the American border, he faces a fine and jail/prison time (a
fine of $50 to $250 and/or up to six months in jail or prison for first
offenders, that becomes up to 20 years in prison for repeat offenders with a
serious criminal conviction), just like thieves, robbers, and other criminals
do. I addition to that, the proceeds of his crime will be taken away from him.
The thieves will have to return the stolen property to the owners; the robbers
will have to give the stolen money back to the bank. And likewise, the illegal
aliens will have to depart the
No one in his
right mind would claim that by paying a penalty or serving a jail time (some
use phase “paying the debt to the society” in this context), a
thief acquired a right to the property he stole, or a bank robber earned the
money that he robbed during the stick up. Yet the majority of
If the thieves
or the bank robbers were to be granted amnesty, they would be freed from
prosecution and imprisonment for the crimes they committed, after, perhaps,
paying a nominal fine. That would not
give them any legal right to the property they stole, never mind a title to
that property. Similarly, if illegal aliens were to be granted amnesty, they
should be given immunity from prosecution for their violating of the border
and, perhaps, forgiven that violation, but by no means should they be allowed
to stay in the
In order for us
to avoid getting trapped in nonsensical pitfalls as any of the above, we must
insist on using words in their proper meaning. Deportation of an illegal alien
is not a penalty. It’s restitution. Immunity from prosecution
(perhaps, in exchange for a nominal fine) is
amnesty. Rewarding illegal border crossers with a permit to stay in the
Readers’ comments: Excellent
column by you on robbers/theives and illegals! Great point in
"restitution" vs deportation as punishment! You hit the nail on the
head. Now if we all could only convince our "friends" on the
anti-Invasion side of things to use Daneen Peterson's 23 million to 30 million
figure, we MIGHT just get Americans off their collective duffs and force the
government to "secure and deport", ie 1) secure the Borders (Southern
and Northern), which really means shutting them down to all illegal entry and
2) deport all illegals and overstayers AFTER we've frozen their assets
(including property here)--restitution. Just "what amount" of
restitution we'd require is a whole other issue. Again, I worry about
enforcement. All the laws on the books don't mean squat if they aren't
enforced. We'll need many lawyers and more Federal judges to carry this off,
and that worries me. The EOIC is already part of the problem with "catch
and release"; most of them are liberal lawyers and judges (a redundancy, I
know!).
But you got the juices flowing at just the
right time, Mark, so I am hoping more or us will read
your column. A future column by you should discuss "what form of
restitution" that might be and how we would enforce it. I'm more than
happy to "weight in"!
REFERENCES
[1] Bush says deportation 'ain't gonna work'
The American
Chronicle -
By Tony Dolz
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=10926
Past commentary (May 27, 2006) ANATOMY OF TREASON
Past commentary (March 29, 2006): Liberation and Socialism, Or the Marching Morons?
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