No truer disciple of “feel-good” progressive political thought can be found than current Orange County State Senator Ellie Kinnaird. In a recent Carrboro Citizen editorial, she showered a veritable fountain of wisdom regarding the federal government controlling the nation’s borders. You see, if you advocate that part of the role of a national government is to control its border, well, then you are just practicing the hostility of an anti-semite. You lack a moral compass.

Yes, it's time for the Pulp to batten down the hatches again. The favorite canard of progressives is to affix a repugnant label on you if you disagree with them. (That's called “intelligent debate”.) Once the label is applied, the progressive need no longer address your arguments, no matter how cogent or powerful.

So Ms. Kinnaird gets right to work with the labelmaker. “It is time to speak out against the hostility and outrageous treatment of undocumented people in our state – such that has not been seen since the Jim Crow days. We strive to be a better people than this, but unfortunately repeat this disgraceful conduct every generation. How can we forget the history of discrimination in this country of the Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese, Japanese, Catholics and Jews? And now Hispanics are the target of intolerant speech and action.”

Ms. Kinnaird believes that the USA should open its borders to anyone from Canada or Mexico who wishes to come. At a time when the USA economy shed over 1,800,000 private jobs in the last three months, Senator Kinnaird wishes to open the borders to 140,000,000 people, of whom at least 30,000,000 are of an employable age. Moreover, while opening the borders to members of two countries, she doesn’t explain how she will keep the borders controlled with regards to the 400,000,000 that live in Mesoamerica and South America.

Moreover, she doesn’t explain, why a moral compass differentiates between those living in a country adjacent to the USA by land and those adjacent only by sea? Why is somebody living in Cambodia less worthy of open immigration than someone living in Mexico?

Perhaps the greatest wisdom from Senator Kinnaird can be found in her statement that “[a]nother advantage of open borders would be a reduction in drug trade.” Ms. Kinnaird seems to have missed the recent travel advisory issued by the US State Department, issued after the installation of the President Obama administration.

According to the State Department, USA citizens should avoid travel in Mexico if possible. “U.S. citizens should make every attempt to travel on main roads during daylight hours, particularly the toll (“cuota”) roads, which generally are more secure.”

Moreover, according to the State Department, drug cartels are waging a battle for control over the legitimate government authorities in Mexico.

“Mexican drug cartels are engaged in an increasingly violent conflict - both among themselves and with Mexican security services - for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S.-Mexico border. In order to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens should cooperate fully with official checkpoints when traveling on Mexican highways.“

“Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades. Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area. The U.S. Mission in Mexico currently restricts non-essential travel to the state of Durango and all parts of the state of Coahuila south of Mexican Highways 25 and 22 and the Alamos River for U.S. government employees assigned to Mexico. This restriction was implemented in light of the recent increase in assaults, murders, and kidnappings in those two states. The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted.”

Somehow, open borders will curb the open, violent militarism of Mexican drug cartels. Why worry over the reality, if it feels good to say it.

No word on whether or not opening national borders will eliminate anti-Semitism as well.

In most North Carolina communities if offered a federally paid-for program to remove criminals brought to the county jail off the street, even if on a minor infraction, they would jump at the chance to use that system. Not so in Orange County, where concern for lawbreaking is focused on the breaking of local laws.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created a comprehensive plan to assist municipalities in removing high-risk illegal aliens who are criminals. It’s called “Secure Communities”. DHS is offering a cost-effective information exchange linkage between the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and DHS’ Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

Criminal aliens potentially removable under the Secure Communities program are aliens illegally in the United States who have been convicted of any crime as well as lawful permanent residents (such as holders of a U.S. Permanent Resident Card) who are convicted of a removable offense as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The estimated pool of criminal aliens currently in the USA is between about 300,000 to 450,000.

Instead of welcoming the removal of criminal aliens (not someone who has confined their lawbreaking to entering the country illegally, which is not considered an offense in Orange County), the Orange County Commishes immediately grilled Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass about how the Secure Communities program would hurt lawbreaker aliens who refuse to enter the country legally.

Mr. Pendergrass explained to the Commishes that his staff aren't acting as immigration agents under the ICE 287(g) program. The county is checking the fingerprints of any detainee jailed in Orange County against a national database of criminals (i.e., for offenses other than entering the country illegally). He told the Commishes that deputies aren't even notified of someone's immigration status unless U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contacts them to detain the person.

The Commishes are worried that local participation in the Secure Communities program violates a 2007 county resolution forbidding local officers from enforcing immigration laws. In the words of Commish Barry Jacobs, the system could be manipulated ”to take advantage of people we don't want to take advantage of [namely, lawbreakers who refuse to enter the country legally]”. (See N & O Sheriff Grilling Story.)

In response to this solicitous concern for lawbreakers, Mr. Dan E. Way, new editor of the Chapel Hill Herald, recklessly and without checking for the progressive “groupthink” asked the following questions, “Does Eve Carson ever cross the minds of the seven Orange County commissioners? Did they think of her as they grilled Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass about his law enforcement agency's involvement in a federal program designed to protect American citizens and national interests?” Perhaps not knowing that the local media isn’t supposed to ask probing questions, he went further. “One thing is sure. When probation violators are identified as recurring lawbreakers, they can be jailed and dealt with. But Orange County commissioners favor a double standard that gives greater protection to immigrants violating federal law than is granted to native Americans on probation, and that is wrong.”

Clearly, Mr. Way has not been given a suffcient dosage of Orange Progressive Cool-Aid before assuming his position. In Orange County it would be an outrage if federal government officials refused to cooperate with Orange County officials in returning someone into county custody who had violated Orange County law. However, the reverse is not true.

Showing the acute respect of Chapelboro elected officials for obeying the law, Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton chastised Mr. Way with the following reminder of selective law enforcement. “There are thousands of immigrants in our community who are just trying to make a living. Some of them have the correct paperwork from the feds. Some don't. Personally, I am far more concerned about criminals who are hurting people and stealing property - no matter where they are from or how they got here.”. That the Secure Communities program is designed to do precisely that has escaped the steel trap mind of Mr. Chilton.

Yes, illegal immigration is reduced by Orange Progressives from a conscious decision to flaunt the legally authorized system for entering this country into simply not having the right paperwork. Perhaps in Orange County grand theft auto also isn’t a crime. It’s simply not having the right paperwork for possession of someone else’s car.

By July 2008, Wake County detention officers will have the power to start deportation proceedings against illegal aliens passing through the Wake jail, joining six other North Carolina counties.

Eighteen Wake jailers have qualified under the federal 287(g) program to process such detainees who have not legally entered the country. Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison estimates that at least 10 percent of the 1,200 people he houses daily in his three jails are not legal residents. In a most unprogressive attitude, he says ”They're the ones that made the mistake. We didn't. They're here illegally.”

North Carolina has an estimated 300,000 illegal aliens, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Orange County and the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro assume sanctuary status for Raleigh metro illegal aliens. These municipalities have not taken advantage of the 287(g) program. They have openly stated that officers will not submit any detainee’s identity to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) computerized identity check program. They will not detain for ICE pick up any person identified as an illegal alien, even if they have committed violent crimes in the US in other jurisdictions.

Despite local progressive handwringing over the injustice of enforcing immigration laws and the coming “economic collapse” if cheap labor is forced out, ICE estimates that only about 5,300 people have been processed for deportation in North Carolina since 2006 under the 287(g) program. See N&O Illegal Alien Story.

Due to a federal “open border” policy and “sanctuary city” municipal policies, the Hispanic population in North Carolina increased from 76,726 to 597,382, a 770% increase since 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau). Moreover, Hispanic births increased 1100% times during the same period. Last year, one of every six babies born in North Carolina was Hispanic.

Womens’ Hospital (UNC-CH) reports that half (50%) of babies born there are now registered as Hispanic, up from 37.4% in 2005.

Uninsured mothers are eligible for emergency Medicaid regardless of immigration status. The average cost of a Caesarean birth with complications in North Carolina is $16,651 (Blue Cross and Blue Shield). For hospital births, all families earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty limit are fully covered (roughly an annual income of $38,000 for a family of four).

(Originally reported in the 2 January 2008 Chapel Hill Herald)