At the WaPo this morning, Looking the Other Way on Immigrants
Some Cities Buck Federal Policies

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. — After federal agents launched a massive raid on an apartment complex here two years ago, other illegal immigrants in this quiet town near Princeton University grew so wary of the law, authorities say, that many began hiding behind headstones in a local cemetery when patrol cars approached.

But these days, the immigrants of Hightstown are more likely to be the ones calling the cops.

In the aftermath of a series of raids in 2004, the town council in this historic borough of 5,300 — transformed in recent years by an influx of at least 1,300 Latin Americans — unanimously approved a sort of immigrant bill of rights. Joining a growing list of cities enacting a no-questions-asked policy on immigration status, Hightstown now allows its undocumented residents to officially interact with local police and access city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities.

By doing so, Hightstown is subverting the principle of the rule of law.

The greatest problem I see, the most fundamental problem involving illegal immigration is that it subverts a basic principle on which the USA is founded: the principle of the rule of law.

I can not stress enough how erosive to our society is having,supporting and countenancing a group of people whose entire existence is predicated on evading the rule of law.

While the immigrants are calling the cops on those who break the law, they themselves are breaking the law. The message is clear: the immigrants are taught that the law applies to someone else.

The article continues,

It has opened new lines of communication here, officials say. One illegal immigrant at the complex where the raids were staged called on the police recently to help place a family member in alcohol rehabilitation; others have reported domestic abuse, extortion, theft and other crimes. Some are calling the town’s pro-immigrant mayor for advice on City Hall weddings and landlord troubles. Hightstown has added services aimed at immigrants, including free bilingual computer classes last month. Noting the shift, one Spanish-language newspaper recently dubbed Hightstown the “Paradise Town” of New Jersey.

For pity’s sake – when one’s speaking in Spanish, half the terminology one uses in computer and internet is in English, and the other half is anglicisms. Are they using new, Spanish, keyboards? Or are they avoiding Insert, Home, Page Up, and all those other keys? Computer classes would be the perfect setting on which to teach English as a second language.

The best-paid professions in the world use English.

If the mayor and the people involved in implementing these policies really had in mind the well-being of the newcomers, they would have free computer classes in English. As I have mentioned time and time again, India’s become an economic powerhouse in globalization because Indians speak English. Every person who comes to the USA should work hard to participate in all of our country’s opportunities. Learning English is only the first step.

Additonally, there’s the issue of integration:
In yesterday’s Blog Talk Radio podcast, Pieter Dorsman mentioned how Holland failed to integrate immigrants:

Most of the immigrants who were brought in during the post war years when Holland became such an economic success was for lower-skilled labor jobs. Immigrants were brought in from Morocco, from Turkey, and there was a very strong belief that if let this people to their own devices and let them have their own culture, they would naturally fit into Dutch society and become a part of it, and not be too confrontational.

But what has happened is that there has been no integration at all, and we have created a group of people who are completely disconnected from mainstream Dutch society who have very little opportunities to climb the social-economic ladder.

That’s exactly what we’re setting ourselves for.

What it comes down to is: Every immigrant into the USA should be taught, in English, what it means to be an American.

Not doing so condemns those very immigrants who come here in search for a better life, to the same second and third-tier existence they tried to escape.

The “Paradise Town” of New Jersey? More like a fool’s paradise.

Update, Wednesday 11 April Don’t miss Sigmund Carl and Alfred’s post Viva la immigracion
Enlighten NJ posts on New Jersey’s Boom in Illegal Immigrants