File this under the heading “things that shouldn’t surprise you.” It turns out that ICE agents are currently in the process of detaining criminal aliens that have re-entered the country illegally. As heartened as I was to learn that the Obama administration was taking a brief respite from its unrelenting campaign to emasculate Arizona in its attempts to ensure the security of its citizens, I can’t help but feel that this New York Times article does more harm than good in illuminating the critical issues that any scrutiny of this government’s immigration enforcement and detention policies inevitably raise.
While it’s technically true that the sheer number of deportations has increased within the past year-left unmentioned are the policies President Obama has implemented that give effective amnesty to thousands of illegal aliens awaiting deportation-the overall impression given by this reporter, i.e. that the current administration is more hawkish on illegal immigration than its predecessors, is completely misleading. Mark Krikorian has gone a good way towards debunking this emerging mythology, especially in television appearances that highlight the two most important deterrents to illegal aliens in the past 2-3 years. Namely, the rejection of amnesty by the United States Congress and the dire straits of our nation’s economy.
So, while it is somewhat comforting to know that the Obama administration has not completely abandoned the notion that some criminal aliens should not be allowed to further embed themselves within American society-and the amnesty enthusiasts who occupy the upper echelons of ICE do occasionally pressure sanctuary cities to comply with some federal laws-it would be mistaken to assume that these positions are anything other than a political expedient used to enact a much broader, more deleterious agenda.
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