You Don’t Have to Be President to Impose Amnesty

Where I live we’ve already had extensive experience with small scale unilateral amnesty for illegal aliens without actual legal authority. Ours came courtesy of a “morally sensitive” police chief who knew much more about illegal aliens than the elected officials who hired him.

Fortunately for us Chief Charlie Deane — Virginia’s foremost practitioner of “ignoring while Hispanic” law enforcement — is voluntarily saying, “Adios, amigos” and retiring. I wish I could say the same for Barack Obama and his unilaterally declared amnesty for almost 2 million illegals.

Deane received quite the sendoff from his fellow travelers at the Washington Post. Members of the morally superior caucus find it newsworthy when someone they assume is conservative and therefore morally backward, say a police officer, turns out to share their enlightened views.

The WaPo editorial proclaimed: “When county officials wanted police to check the immigration status of residents and arrest those who were in the country illegally, he wasn’t afraid to push back at a policy he saw as bigoted and sure to cause problems for law enforcement.”

The Metro section concurred, “When the Prince William Board of County Supervisors jumped into the national immigration debate in 2007 and became one of the first places in the country to require the police department to question residents about their immigration status, Chief Charlie T. Deane thought otherwise.

“He feared cries of racial profiling and losing the trust of the county’s growing immigrant community. His stance angered his bosses on the county board and many residents who thought he was flouting the law…’When this was forced on us, we had no experience with it, and there were legal and moral implications,’ Deane said.”

The policy Deane refers to as being “forced on us” was in truth a law passed by an overwhelming majority of the county board of supervisors and a concept recently ratified by the U.S. Supreme Court.

What’s more, Deane didn’t simply express his opinion as a law enforcement official. He used his power as chief to actively sabotage the implementation of a law supported by the vast majority of citizens here legally.

Since Deane couldn’t persuade the board not to pass the law, he decided to obstruct enforcement until the 2008 election, hoping voters would elect Democrats who prefer coddling illegals. (Note to readers, don’t try this at home, obstruction of justice is a crime if you’re not the chief of police.)

Deane accomplished this by waiting until the entire police department went through training before allowing officers to enforce the law. This took months and is in direct opposition to the procedure in departments where the chief obeys his elected bosses.

Deane was forced to implement Plan B when stubborn voters re–elected Republicans who believe in the rule of law. Chief Sanctimony announced, “…we were going to focus on individuals who had committed crimes, and that we were going to protect crime victims and witnesses regardless of their status, and we were not going to do racial profiling, roadblocks, sweeps or employment investigations.”

This made it crystal clear to patrol officers and supervisors that they would be wise to avoid enthusiastic enforcement of the new law.

Simultaneously Deane began his viaje de apología. The Patron was concerned about the “climate of fear” in the Hispanic community, along with “bigotry and profiling.” He met with “immigrant rights groups” (think aiding and abetting associations) and even has an audiencia with the Mexican consul, who represents a government that actively encourages illegal aliens and works to undermine border enforcement.

But in spite of Deane’s best efforts some illegals were initially captured. The first report on the law’s effectiveness found, “In the majority of cases, [the arrest] was made during a call for service, second to that was traffic for stops (sic).”

So Deane works to dilute the law and restrict enforcement inquiries to individuals placed under arrest, which means illegals caught previously during “a call for service” or traffic stop, would go free in the future.

Progressives were fine with Deane’s unilateral decision that the intensity of law enforcement should vary depending on the individual’s national origin, because all the right people were in agreement.

But I wonder what progressive response would have been if Deane had decided to de–emphasize enforcement of domestic violence and homosexual bullying in the Moslem community because Islam has a different view of women’s roles and the Koran prohibits homosexual conduct?

Do you think worries about “Islamophobia” and encouraging cooperation with anti–terrorism efforts would have persuaded elite opinion to accept this type of arbitrary lack of enforcement? We all know the answer to that.

Charlie has his “Bridge Builder” award from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and his gold watch from the WaPo. Now maybe my county will get a chief who believes his role is to enforce the law, rather than interpret it. Maybe it will set a precedent for the nation.

Michael R Shannon

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic, entertaining and funny keynote speaker for corporate, non–profit and governmental organizations. In addition to his speaking and consulting, Shannon is an editorial page columnist for Virginia’s News & Messenger.

As consultant to The Israel Project, he has made a number of trips to Israel where he worked closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in their efforts to promote a positive image of Israel. Shannon has also conducted media and message training workshops for MFA and Israeli Defense Forces spokespersons along with representatives of various non–governmental organizations.

During the UN Court trial in The Hague, Shannon worked closely with the MFA in its international media outreach. Shannon teaches message development, crisis communication and public relations for The University of Tennessee – Chattanooga Command College, conducts the political advertising and message section of The University of Virginia's Sorenson Institute and he lectures on message development, politics and lobbying for The Police/Fire Labor Institute.

He is a regular speaker on political commercials, crisis communication and public relations for Campaigns & Elections magazine. He has also addressed the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, National League of Cities, conducted seminars for Information Management and The University of Arkansas – Little Rock and performed as the keynote speaker for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Shannon’s client list includes SAIC; United National Congress (Trinidad & Tobago); Royal Castle, Ltd.; New Generation Imaging; Dry–Clean Depot; Texas Medical Assn.; American Medical Assn.; American Medical Assn. PAC; Indiana State Police Alliance; Minneapolis Federation of Police; St. Paul Police Federation; Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance; The Peterson Companies; Gleaning for the World; various political candidates and elected officials.

The work Shannon has done in the radio and television arena has been recognized for both creativity and effectiveness. He is a multiple first place winner in the American Association of Political Consultants Pollie awards. Shannon won back–to–back first place Silver Microphone awards for radio commercials. He is a three–time winner of the prestigious Gold statue at the Houston International Film Festival.

Shannon won first place in the Vision Awards for television. He has also won consecutive Silver Microphone awards for best campaign.

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