This came in over the transom, but I see it referenced here:
FROM A RETIRED SDPD Officer now living in Pennsylvania:
I respectfully submit the following commentary on illegal immigration for
your benefit and consideration. I was not only born and raised in
California, but was a San Diego police officer from the late 60's through
the early 90's. More specifically, I was a police supervisor from 1976 on,
and was head of the police department's anti-gang unit during the latter
70's. There is a saying, "As California goes, so goes the rest of the
country." In the matter of illegal immigration, Pennsylvania's leaders
would better serve its citizens by not following California's lead. It
would be my pleasure to discuss any of these issues with you or answer any questions you may have.
In the mid-70's the City of San Diego ordered all its police officers, me
included, to stop detaining - or even questioning - the illegal aliens we
frequently encountered in the course of our duties. Ignore the issue of
illegal immigration altogether, the directive said. The reason for this new
order? The city had come under ferocious attack for its long-standing,
reasoned policy towards illegal aliens. Along with the threat of lawsuits,
such words as "racism", "xenophobia", "bigotry" and "discrimination" were
being bandied about by shadowy, strangely-aligned illegal alien advocacy
groups from both sides of the border. The common denominator linking these leftists was their alliance with the American Civil Liberties Union. And they all kept to the same script, as they do even today; they would never acknowledge that the only issue on the table was illegal Mexican
immigration. None of the city's leaders at that time - or since then, for
that matter - had the stomach for the vitriolic, in-your-face gutter fight
these belligerents were looking for. Against all common sense, the city put
its head in the sand and capitulated to the inflammatory rhetoric of a few,
loud militants....to the detriment of its own citizens' best interests.
By the late 70's, the unabated flow of illegal aliens into San Diego
resulted in the melt down of its criminal justice system. The jails were
filled beyond capacity, and - because of an ACLU lawsuit - under a court
order to start releasing criminals, including illegal aliens, into the
streets. Prosecutors and the courts were overwhelmed, unable to keep up
with the load. Mexican street gangs comprised of illegal aliens were on the
rise in all parts of the city. The police department responded to this
crisis, in part, by instituting a policy wherein only violent offenders and
felony suspects actually went to jail. Those arrested for misdemeanor
crimes, including illegal aliens with no local address or identification,
were issued "citations" on the spot and told to appear in court at a later
time. That policy, of course, only served to exacerbate the already
sky-rocketing crime rate. And though there was indisputable proof that the root cause of the crisis was illegal immigration, none of the city's
leaders had the personal courage to actually do anything about it for fear
of being tagged "racist" or "bigot". It was around that time San Diegans
were beginning to hear those slurs from a new quarter - the Mexican
Consulate's office.
In the early 80's, San Diego taxpayers learned that Mexican children were
entering the United States daily to attend local public schools. At the end
of the school day, these children would walk across the border and return
to their homes in Mexico. Outrage over the fact California taxpayers were
paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the public education of
foreigners was lost to those now familiar screams of "racism", "bigotry"
and...because they were children..."mean-spiritedness". The local school
boards said it wasn't their problem to address, that laws prevented them
from asking such intrusive questions as, "Who are you and where do you
live?" when enrolling students. And, they added, what harm was there really in educating those poor Mexican kids. They also said they needed a lot more tax money to hire new Spanish-speaking teachers because, inexplicably, more and more of their students didn't speak a word of English.
By the late 80's, the illegal immigration crisis brought San Diego's
tax-paid social services programs to their knees. Local tax money earmarked for indigent emergency health care - money set aside as the last safety net for those resident citizens who needed it most - was being spent almost exclusively on the flood of illegal aliens now in the city. Compounding the problem was the U.S. Border Patrol's new policy of "unarresting" in-custodyillegals when they needed medical care, and dropping them off at the entrances to local hospital emergency rooms. This new practice, of course, was the federal government's ingenious way of avoiding its legal responsibility for medical bills incurred by in-custody illegal aliens. As the tax money dried up, hospitals received less and less government reimbursement for the medical care given to illegals - who had no money, no health insurance, and no means whatsoever of ever paying their medical bills. Politically savvy hospital administrators weren't about to take the steps necessary to remedy the situation, and risk incurring the public wrath of the illegals' advocacy groups. They chose instead to artificially inflate medical care costs across the board for everyone. That prompted the health insurance companies to raise premium rates for their policy holders, and it was once again demonstrated to San Diegans the many ways in which they were going to pay for the presence of illegal aliens in their city.
By the early 90's, San Diego's long-running illegal alien crisis had become
California's nightmare. Public policy regarding illegal immigration
degenerated into theater of the absurd throughout much of the state.
Because of fraudulent voter registration schemes concocted by those
leftists, illegal aliens were now voting in both local and federal
elections - and in one case, actually making the difference in a
congressional district race. Many communities witnessed the collapse of
entire medical care systems under the weight of illegal immigration alone.
Billions of public dollars were being spent annually just for the medical
care and education of illegals. It was driving the state ever closer to
bankruptcy, and severely strained the bounds of civil discourse on the
issue. It was time to draw a line in the sand, and millions of California
citizens did just that in 1994. Through the state's initiative process, a
grass-roots proposition was put on the statewide ballot which would finally and absolutely put an end to "business as usual." It sought to end all government subsidies to illegals in the state, including public welfare,
public housing, public education, and all medical care except in the cases
of true emergencies. In spite of the leftists' rabid campaign of slurs and
name calling, common sense ruled the day and Proposition 187 overwhelmingly passed on a two-to-one vote.
The victory was short-lived. The ink had barely dried on the governor's
signature when the leftists found a single sympathetic federal judge to
claim the new law unconstitutional. Since then, California's illegal
immigration nightmare has blossomed to become this nation's cancer, and
it's destroying the very fabric of our society. No matter how you slice it,
there is nothing benign about immigration fraud, identification fraud,
welfare fraud, voting fraud, social security fraud, and tax evasion. It all
boils down to deceit and theft. Illegal aliens in our country today are
committing these crimes on such a massive scale it boggles the mind, and no community in this nation will survive the scourge. There is nothing an
illegal alien can bring to a community by way of beneficial productivity
which will compensate for his/her drain on that community's social
services, criminal justice, educational, and medical care systems. It's
never happened and it isn't going to happen. Local tax dollars are a
community's life-blood and are not infinite. History has shown that illegal
immigration bleeds that critical supply dry. In spite of these facts, and
against all logic, politicians across the country are seriously debating
whether to give illegal aliens the "right" to vote, the "right" to higher
education, the "right" to state-issued drivers' licenses, and even the
"right" to accumulate social security credits while using stolen or
counterfeit identification. The leftists' mantra, "immigration (illegal
immigration, if you please!) is the sole responsibility of the federal
government", is a lie. The federal government has proven over the past 30
years it isn't capable of, or even willing to, control illegal immigration.
The ugly fact of the matter is - the feds alone will not, and cannot, do
it. This is precisely why the battle against illegal immigration is an
absolute and moral responsibility of every elected official in this
country, including county commissioners and local township supervisors.
I've been a student of illegal immigration since the late 60's, when I was
a rookie cop assigned to the police department's border sector adjoining
Tijuana, Mexico. During those early years, and over the span of my police
career, I witnessed events and had first-hand, personal experiences with
illegal immigration few other Pennsylvanians have had. And I've seen the
devastating consequences illegal immigration can have on a city, a region,
an entire state. These are the lessons I learned and my advice to anyone
concerned about the presence of illegal aliens in their community:
Be suspicious of public officials - with control over tax dollars - who
claim illegal immigration isn't a crisis....or worse yet say, "it isn't MY
crisis." Hold on to your wallet if you see that happening!
Be skeptical of any media that reveals a transparent leftist agenda in
support of illegals. You'll recognize this when the editorials and
reporting are slanted, and one-sided, and when illegal aliens are
continually referred to as "undocumented workers" and characterized as
victims rather than suspects.
And be very, very wary of those self-appointed, self-proclaimed
"community activists" who profess to be the guardians of ethnic
sensitivities - but whose real motives for involvement are murky and
self-serving. These will be the ones who seem to be afforded a little too
much legitimacy and garner a little too much attention by the media. These
will be the only ones spewing personal insults and slurs, and threatening
lawsuits at township meetings.
Finally, if nothing you've read here has hit a familiar chord or raised a
flaming red flag, consider this scenario - which isn't all that
implausible, believe me....There is only one tax dollar left in the
government treasury which is to be used for the public good. You are an
honest, law-abiding American citizen and desperately need that dollar just
to survive the day. So does the criminal illegal alien who just snuck into
your country, and is standing in line next to you. Your only witness to
this event is your personal sense of decency and fair play. His witnesses
include an ACLU attorney, several "community activists" holding
inflammatory placards, and a few media types with cameras rolling. And the bureaucrat, about to decide who gets that last dollar bill, tells you the
law forbids him from acknowledging the obvious in making a decision.
L. Ernie Foucault, Sergeant (Retired)
San Diego Police Department
