In April, when Antonio Perez was killed outside the print shop where he worked on Fordem Avenue, the Madison Police Department wasted little time in bringing all its resources to bear for the search. Additionally, MPD officers took pains to assure Madison’s Latino community they were not interested in the immigration status of residents — just information that would enable them to solve the crime.
The necessity of that assurance serves as a telling symbol of the times.
Since his election in 2006, Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney has pursued a policy of reporting all county inmates suspected of being non-citizens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While, according to the Capital Times, offenders most likely to be reported to ICE are drunken drivers, Mahoney does not discriminate between offenses, meaning any crime, no matter how trivial, is cause for a family-shattering deportation.
But on June 1, the Madison City Council unanimously expressed an increasingly collective sense of community disgust when it voted on a resolution that disapproved of reporting non-citizens to ICE.
Although this board has in the past struggled to understand how making Rafah in the Gaza Strip a sister city is a remotely intelligent use of public time, City Council seems to have gotten this one right. There is an obvious interplay between county deputies and city officers — in practice, residents are unlikely to distinguish between the two. And though Mahoney isn’t under the council’s jurisdiction, his actions have a palpable effect on the largest city he ostensibly protects. Mahoney’s policy renders MPD’s outreach to the Latino community less effective, jeopardizing a fragile relationship with a population already confronting the daunting cultural barriers. Thus the council has every right to rebuff his policy as not only harmful, but patently unnecessary.
Further complicating the matter is Mahoney himself. When pressed for justifications, Mahoney responded by saying he is simply complying with federal law. However, such antiquarian judicial philosophies have rarely seen the light of a public forum since 1946. And for good reason. If Mahoney wishes to continue helping ICE deport his constituents, he owes them more than a perverse variant of the Nuremberg Defense.
By sending a clear signal of its distaste — even if the sheriff’s office answers to the Dane County Board — City Council has created an official conduit for the outrage and fear of Dane County’s largest voting base. If only Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, District 5, the resolution’s sponsor, had done so sooner. Mahoney’s sole challenger in the upcoming election for sheriff has stated that reporting non-citizens may be the only issue on which the two agree.
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There is no justification for defending or sheltering illegal alien criminals. None.
Their actions were and are criminal. They came here illegally. They use Social Security numbers illegally. They commit additional crimes while here.
Stop defending criminals and their criminal actions!
Secure the US Borders - Now.
Require Citizenship Status On Every Drivers License In Every State - Now.
Deport the Illegal Aliens - Now.
Support Legal Immigration - From this day forward.
Si Se Puede!!!
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So people who have no legal right to be here are getting sent home? You’ll have to excuse me for not shedding any tears.
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Admit it, Badger Herald! You liberal morons love illegal immigrants more than your fellow Americans! You prefer illegal immigrants over homeless, unemployed Americans because you know the illegals will always swing liberal. That’s how selfish and arrogant you liberals are. You’re no better than the redneck conservatives who have always pissed on poor, working class Americans. And now when their lives are on the ropes, you liberals come along and do your damage.
Mahoney is doing what any law enforcement officer at any level of government should do-his job. As for the breaking up of illegal immigrant families, we could care less! Send the kids back to Mexico along with the parents. What about homeless American families that have been split up by poverty and loss of a job? What about them?! It’s like you self-centered liberals only care about what’s hip and not what’s necessary.
In November, Republican candidates will have an historic victory. No one’s counting on them to help homeless Americans displaced by the glut of illegals taking the jobs they need, but you liberals certainly haven’t expressed an interest in alleviating their suffering. As for your hopey-changey president, he’s going to be a one-termer for sure. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves. And as soon as the new faces in November begin to show their true colors, there will be nothing left but mayhem in the streets-no kidding! Enjoy your lattes, because your days are numbered.
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This editorial is positively incoherent. I have no clue what your argument is, though you conclude with something vague about how the sheriff shouldn’t be reporting illegal aliens.
I’ve compiled a brief outline of what I perceive to be your argument:
Huh? I see your conclusion there, but I honestly have no idea how you achieved it. All I see between the first sentence and the last are a bunch of seemingly unrelated and uncited assertions. The sheriff’s job, by the way, is not to foster “community relations” except insofar as it assists in achieving the end of enforcing the law.
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Thanks for (not) posting my comment. Dissent is so pesky.
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Oddly enough, the guy was a temp from Qualitemps, a temp agency that, like so many others, routinely sends illegals out to do work that Americans could be doing right now. Every temp agency in Madison is doing it. Everybody loves cheap labor. Meanwhile, more and more unemployed Americans are ending up on the street because of this.
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Just another adolescent, predictable, knee-jerk and feebly “journalistic” exercise by the BH to let the community know how outraged they are at the death of this person.
A problem though, NO mention of how he died, who is suspected, or what factors/events might have preceded this homicide.
INSTEAD, they go off on the sheriff’s perceived politics on the topic of illegal aliens quivering all around us and whether or not he is poking them out of all our restaurant kitchens, car washes or lawns in University Hts.
WOW, the BH REALLY cares about this guy! Too bad this just another illegal mortality that will all too soon be gone from the front page and forgotten.
Oh yeah,let’s not deal with 30 million illegals in the US. Why would we think their effect on our economy or workforce is just political hearsay.
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“If Mahoney wishes to continue helping ICE deport his constituents”
So now the law breaking illegal resident aliens are “constituents”? In what sense?
They jumped the line to get into the USA legally, of that there can be no doubt. I call out anyone who tries to jump the line at the movies - you better beleive that these line jumpers ge NO sympathy from me.