Illegal Immigration in Small-town America

I see in the news that the little township of Riverside in Burlington County, New Jersey—where I lived briefly as a child in the early 60s—has voted to repeal a law that was voted in in July 2006.  The law would penalize employers or landlords $1,000 to $2,000 for hiring or renting to illegal aliens.  Riverside’s population of about 8,000 is estimated to be nearly half comprised of residents who are here illegally, many of whom come from Portugal and Brazil.

And why did this little township repeal this common-sense law?  Because they don’t believe they can afford to defend the legal challenges in federal courts!  What an outrage!  On the one hand the federal government demonstrates that it is absolutely willing to look the other way and not enforce its own immigration policy, and on the other they’re populating the courts with “justices” who will sometimes rule in favor of illegal immigrants—as happened earlier this year in Hazelton, Pennsylvania—thus stifling the efforts of small-town America in making and enforcing policy that is the federal government’s responsibility in the first place!

In the words of former Ohio congressman, Jim Traficant, “Beam me up!”