I have a hard time with this philosophy of ignoring the illegal immigration problem.
First; Law Enforcement officers are sworn to uphold all local, state and federal laws. That does not mean only the laws we feel are "just". That means law enforcement officers have to uphold all laws. Having a city council or police chief who thumbs his/her nose at a law because they disagree with it, and ordering the police powers of the city to ignore that law is just plain wrong. There are gray areas of officer discretion in the law, however, a mandate from the city council or police chief ordering a complete ignoring of a law does not fall in the gray area in my opinion. To have civil liberties, I was always taught, one had to be a citizen, or at least a legal guest. When someone is in our city illegally, they are not "the most vulnerable among us", they are here illegally. There are legal channels to follow to come to this country. For those opting out of those channels, they are not only undocumented aliens, they are here illegally. Of course police chiefs with mainly (all) democratic councils are not going to support many things that go against the council. They are political appointees. So to have the police chiefs on record as supporting something that the council has issued an ordinance on shouldn't be taken as more than it really is. Tom Thompson Como Park Original Message: "In my opinion, what we should be much more afraid for are policies that strip us of our civil liberties and target the most vulnerable among us--as Governor Pawlenty is trying to do by pressuring the St. Paul City Council to rescind its INS/City Separation Ordinance--in the name of security. Both Chief Finney and Minneapolis Police Chief Wm. McManus are on record as supporting the INS Separation Ordinance; it seems, then, that the ordinance doesn't have much to do with actual security and much more to do with election year politics. Hopefully, we would apply the same degree of scrutiny to measures proposed on the city, state and federal levels designed to keep us safe---at the expense of the very freedoms we seek to protect." _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
