As we were going to press, President Obama declared that he was making “legalization” of our illegal-alien population his priority following the Fall budget charade. As Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council, replied, “The President is in no position to demand Congress pass immigration reform. His administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have undermined ICE’s enforcement mission and put the public safety and national security at risk. Officers are currently forced to apply his DREAMer orders to detainees in prisons and jails.”
Crane went on to underline that Obama’s policies have resulted in hardened criminals being let out of jails: “Aggravated felons, child molesters, and other violent criminals are released every day back into communities based on the President’s unlawful policies.”
As contributors to this issue of The Social Contract emphasize, it is the American public who is paying the ultimate price when legal authorities refuse to secure our borders, refuse to deport repeat criminal offenders, and thus enable illegal aliens to continue to prey upon innocent citizens.
Congress has failed to create a reliable entry-exit system, so we don’t know who is coming here and if they leave when their visas expire. The federal government doesn’t track and deport serial convicted criminal aliens. And the U.S. “Justice” Department runs interference when state and local law enforcement agencies try to safeguard their communities. This makes a mockery of the entire multi-billion-dollar “homeland security” apparatus that the Feds claim we should trust.
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In this issue, we also remember the work of two dedicated Americans who passed away at the end of the Summer. After a year’s illness, Barbara Coe, a co-author of Proposition 187, died on August 31, 2013. On November 8, 1994, 60 percent of California’s voters supported this grass-roots effort to reduce public benefits to illegal aliens.
Albert Bartlett, Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, died on September 7, 2013. Professor Bartlett was a leader in the field of population education and an advocate for sensible immigration policies. His work is archived at www.albartlett.org. The Fall 2005 issue of The Social Contract featured “Numbers, Population, and Energy: Professor Albert Bartlett’s Public Education Campaign,” available in our journal’s archives. We are privileged to include reminiscences by a couple of his colleagues.