Council may send Bush letter

Costa Mesa city leaders ponder mailing president a missive on city's stance on illegal immigration.

As federal officials debate immigration reform, President Bush may be hearing from Costa Mesa. The City Council on Tuesday will decide whether to send Bush a letter detailing the city's position on illegal immigration.

Councilman Eric Bever wrote the letter, which urges Bush to uphold federal immigration laws. He revised it late this week, removing a reference to "hundreds of hit-and-run accidents" in Costa Mesa that he said are among the effects of illegal immigration.

"Basically, I think the timing was right [to send the letter] because there is a debate going on at the federal level," Bever said Thursday. He added that the city has a unique perspective on the issue because of a federal agent working in the city jail to identify illegal immigrants booked there.

Recent polls, including a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released Wednesday, have shown a majority of Americans support allowing illegal immigrants to become legal residents if they meet certain requirements. Bever said that doesn't jibe with what people are telling him.

"In my experience, everybody I've talked to is interested in seeing enforcement of the law," he said. "There may be some interest in revision of the immigration program, but certainly the border needs to be secured before any other actions are taken in terms of legalizing or legitimizing certain groups of people."

As to the omitted sentence about a large volume of auto accidents caused by illegal immigrants, police statistics show no such trend.

They measure the number of accidents and the number of drivers with no license or a suspended license, but not whether the drivers are legal residents of the U.S.

A statement Friday from Costa Mesa Police Chief Christopher Shawkey states, "We are not able to draw any correlation between hit-and-run accidents, unlicensed drivers and illegal immigration."

Bever said Friday his information was "based on anecdotal information from a police department source, and during my fact-checking it became clear that the relevant statistics were not kept, so that point was deleted."

He said the letter may be further revised before the council discusses it Tuesday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Below is the text of a letter the Costa Mesa City Council will discuss sending to President Bush regarding the city's stance on illegal immigration.

On behalf of the Costa Mesa City Council, I wish to convey our position on illegal immigration. We feel it is vital that local governments such as ours communicate our concerns in this area. Our community suffers significant social, civil and law enforcement impacts, which appear to be the result of unfettered illegal immigration.

Promoting the deeply flawed SB 1348 is an affront to all law-abiding Americans. Passage of such legislation would be a disaster for our community and nation. We strongly oppose amnesty by any other name; just making something legal does not set things right, and will not address the impacts Americans suffer.

Since December 2006, we have had an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent assigned to work in our city jail. In the last six months, an astounding 262 arrestees have been flagged as probable illegal aliens from points around the globe who will be subject to deportation after their jail time is served. This demonstrates at a local level that existing laws can work if they are applied.

The immigration system is not "broken," the only thing that is broken is the will to uphold the law. Your administration's lack of will to meet its obligations regarding immigration enforcement is disrespectful toward all American citizens and legal immigrants.

Please uphold the existing federal immigration laws. Please provide all federal, state and local agencies the necessary resources and training to assist where they can. Federal funding is also needed to reimburse local governments' social, civil, and incarceration costs of illegal immigration.

Mr. President, we are weary of the massive local impacts of unfettered illegal immigration. We do not want amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens; we do want strong enforcement of our existing immigration laws.

“Recent polls, including a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released Wednesday, have shown a majority of Americans support allowing illegal immigrants to become legal residents if they meet certain requirements. Bever said that doesn’t jibe with what people are telling him.”

“In my experience, everybody I’ve talked to is interested in seeing enforcement of the law,” he said. “There may be some interest in revision of the immigration program, but certainly the border needs to be secured before any other actions are taken in terms of legalizing or legitimizing certain groups of people.”

Who are you going to believe - statistics or your own lying eyes and ears? Hmmm.

The MSM polls try to build up the phony impression of support. Why the polls lie:
First, the establish the question as a hypothetical that throws in a ‘kitchen sink’ of caveats to reduce the ‘no’ from those skeptical. For example “I dont want this community overrun by people speaking another language”

“well, what if they had to speak english?” etc.

so they ask a question full of caveats, get 63% support and ‘translate’ that into ‘support senate bill’.

caveat:
- “clean record” means they could be gang members, deportation absconders, and petty criminals;
- ‘learning English’ means “not learning English in any way shape or form for at least 10 years (viz Sessions loophole)”, after all we are talking about mostly uneducated people, many of whom are not literate in their own language

- being here a “number of years means, actually, 0.5 years, and ‘some’ means “PRACTICALLY EVERY ONE OF THE 12 MILLION, AND THEIR FAMILIES TOO”.

So a better question is this:
“Of the 12 million estimated illegal aliens in this coutnry today, do you think a legalized path to citizenship, also known as amnesty, should be given to:
1) None of them / very few of them (less than 1 million)
2) A small fraction of them / under half of them (1-4 million)
3) Some of them / about half of them (4-8 million)
4) Most of them (8-12 million)
5) All/almost all of them (12+ million)
?”

The Senate bill is between 4 and 5, it’s an “almost every single one of them” approach.

I believe most Americans, when asked the ‘pollaganda’ question, are answering what they think is a #2 question, imagining the hurdle to be reasonably high because of the phrasing. We oppose ‘amnesty’ as an open-ended thing, but support the idea that those who are here a long time and are an asset to communities shouldn’t have to go, *if* we fix the immigration system overall first.

If 63% is the approval of #2 or #3 or above, then 37% are in category #1, then likely only a minority approve of #4 or #5.
Perhaps it might come out like this:
#1 - 30%
#2 - 25%
#3 - 17%
#4 - 18%
#5 - 10%

So actual support for Senate-style amensty could be in 30% range.

There goes their DHS money...

Now HERE is a city truly deserving funding cuts:

From LA Indymedia:

LA City Council reaffirms Special Order 40
by Leslie Radford Saturday, Jun. 16, 2007 at 8:47 PM

LOS ANGELES, 12 June 2007--At its regular meeting, the Los Angeles City Council told the Department of Homeland Security in no uncertain terms that the autonomy of the LAPD was a paramount concern to the council in a 10 to 1 vote in support of a resolution opposing "any [federal] legislative provision or amendment which would prohibit or pre-empt local 'separation' ordinances and similar local regulations such as the LAPD’s Special Order 40." The resolution is a rebuke from the U.S.'s largest immigrant city to various Congressional proposals mandating that local law enforcement report to federal immigration enforcement.

Special Order 40 has been city policy since 1979 under police chief Daryl Gates. In February 2006 the council ignored a petition with over 10,000 signatures requesting the council's endorsement of Special Order 40, brought by La Placita Immigrants Working Group, CARECEN, and the Immigration Solidarity Network, but times have changed.

Today Special Order 40 is being challenged in two lawsuits. In the wake of rising anti-migrant sentiment, Special Order 40 has come under attack because of its provision that police officers "shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." Special Order 40 exempted the LAPD from the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which permits, but does not require, local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officials after receiving training. One lawsuit, brought by the Federal Immigration Reform Enforcement Coalition relies on an arcane state health statute that appears to require local police to provide the names of undocumented immigrants arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking or possession to federal authorities. The other suit, brought by Judicial Watch on behalf of L.A. resident Harold P. Sturgeon, claims Special Order 40 is superseded by state and federal law.

The Council's resolution may also be a message to the LAPD in light of a May 1 police action in MacArthur Park, in which peaceful ralliers supporting immigrant rights were stormed by police officers, beaten, and blasted with rubber bullets and wire mesh "bean bag" bullets. The Los Angeles Police Protective League earlier this spring seemed poised to take a stand against the order and has vehemently disagreed with Police Chief William Bratton's remarks laying partial blame for the MacArthur Park anti-immigrant beatings and shootings on street officers. The resolution provides cover for Bratton to resist pressure from the police union.

Sheriff's departments in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties have memoranda of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security under Immigration and Nationality Act section 287(g) to scour jails for undocumented arrestees. In addition, in Orange County, police attached with special units may check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of a felony. Sheriff Carona hopes to expand that authority to beat officers, as has been done in other city police and state highway patrol departments across the country, opening the door not only to racial profiling, but to permission for cops in the street to demand proof of identity and citizenship.

The text of the council's resolution, which was moved from item 33 on the agenda to the consent docket, is

"RESOLUTION (GARCETTI - REYES - ZINE) relative to legislation that would prohibit local regulations, such as the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Special Order 40, which are law enforcement tools that encourage the involvement of the undocumented immigrant community in police activities.

Recommendation for Council action, SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:

RESOLVE to include in the City’s 2007-08 Federal Legislative Program OPPOSITION to any legislative provision or amendment which would prohibit or pre-empt local “separation” ordinances and similar local regulations such as the LAPD’s Special Order 40 which are effective law enforcement tools which prevent victimization of undocumented immigrants as well as foster participation and involvement of the undocumented immigrant community in police activities and increase the LAPD’s ability to protect and to serve the entire community.

Council members Eric Garcetti, Ed Reyes, and Dennis Zine offered the resolution, and Tony Cardenas, Wendy Greuel, Janice Hahn, José Huizar, Tom LaBonge, Bernard Parks, Jan Perry, Bill Rosendahl, Jack Weiss, and Herb Wesson approved. Greig Smith voted no without comment.

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