Mark your calendars for Thursday, May 13 at 6:30 pm. Program your navigation systems for the City County Building. Set your cruise control for ramming speed. That is when and where the Dane County Task Force on for (Illegal) Immigration is taking public comment.
Remember one Reinaldo Garcia, age 22? Of course you don't.
Sheriff David Mahoney made up a comfy cot for Mr. Garcia in his jail this March on first-degree attempted homicide, aggravated battery, armed burglary, dealing amphetamines, psilocybin, and marijuana. After Garcia, "no address given," was tasered down on East Gilman Street March 3, he was turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Turns out he was an illegal in so many ways, including his very presence in the U.S. He was here illegally from Colombia, South America.
Or Alonso Garcia-Jimenez, age 21. Driving drunk, operating after revocation of license (three counts), hit and run, and second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts. Calling I.C.E. He was an illegal from Mexico.
Or Leon Griffiths, age 42. Specialized in identification theft. This illegal alien came all the way from New Zealand.
Battery, intimidation of a victim, false imprisonment, those were the charges against Diallo Sambo, 22, here illegally from the African nation of Burkina Faso.
All this year.
I offer these poignant vignettes as the real flesh and blood cases behind the efforts of the Dane County Task Force on for (Illegal) Immigration to prevent the elected sheriff of Dane County from cooperating with federal law enforcement authorities.
Such enforcement, "poisons the well," according to a member of the Task Force, unionized Madison teacher Jon Hawkins.
Since January 1, 2007, 824 inmates taken to the Dane County Jail have been referred to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service. I.C.E. has ordered 303 holds. What I don't have nor does the sheriff is how many of those holds ultimately resulted in deportation.
A hold indicates that ICE has put a hold on the individual, either temporary or long term. The hold can be dropped, can result in a temporary removal from the Dane County Jail for an immigration hearing or can result in a deportation once our charges have been served. However, no one is deported before a county jail sentence can be served.
Whatever the charge in Dane County, the feds may know of far more serious criminal activity elsewhere, including in their native country.
Two-thirds of the referrals came from Mexico. What of the other 270? Their nationalities: England, China, Honduras, Canada, Nicaragua, Liberia, Thailand, Cuba, Sierra Leone, Paraguay, Russia, Sudan, Nepal, Peru, Liberia, Laos, Israel, Iran, Ireland, Morocco, Guyana, Kenya, Gambia, Scotland, Tibet, Montenegro, Turkey, Argentina, and other countries.
Intimidating victims is a common thread in these cases. You don't think these people poisoned any wells, teacher Hawkins?
UPDATE: Tony Galli of WKOW TV-27 tells me his story Monday night "was scripted to reflect the residency status of all the suspects. Our earlier reporting was prioritizing the facts of the allegations, the gang affiliations, and the subterfuge used by one suspect to enroll and attend high school."
Better late than never, I suppose.
Please don't call me a liberal
Call it the Dave Obey effect. AKA: deathbed conversion. Life flashing before your eyes, etc.
Sen. Russ Feingold has gotten U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, Rep.-Janesville, to beard him as a fiscal conservative. Feingold and Ryan, two regular joes from Janesville, have introduced legislation to authorize the line-item veto to give the president the power to cut wasteful spending. Something Gov. Tommy Thompson used in historic measure to spare Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars of Democrat(ic) spending.
"It's an opportunity to control the spending that Congress can't seem to control on its own," Feingold writes. "Our proposal allows the president to take the wasteful earmarks that members of Congress tuck into large spending bills and send them right back to Congress, marked return to sender. Under our proposal, instead of having to veto the entire bill to get at wasteful earmarks, the president could force a separate up or down vote on those pet projects."
Watch the Capital Times at long last support the line item veto, now that their hero is staking his political survival on it. It's a good idea, I don't care who proposes it.
Just make sure Ed Garvey and Comrade John get to their fainting couches.
If it's good for the goose...
The Government Accountability Board approved an emergency rule that would require corporations that spend money supporting or opposing Wisconsin political candidates to disclose their activities. This is, The Capital Times tells us, a response to the ruling in January by the U.S. Supreme Court -- in the case of Citizens United v. FEC. I have asked G.A.B. legal counsel if said rule will apply to corporations like The Capital Times?
Thinking is a human responsibility
Operation Welcome Home is up to its old tricks again. This time they are encouraging "homeless" people to invade homes under foreclosure to become illegal squatters. Accompanying the online story from WISC-TV3 is a photo showing a banner being unfurled in front of a newer home. "Housing is a human right" it proclaims.
Hip Hop Hooray!!
The Obey stimulus package at work. Hey, for $846 an hour, the Squire of the Stately Manor will teach hip hop. And the job is unionized! Where is the Havens Center on this?