True North

I received the following press release in my email this morning.

(St. Paul) For Immediate Release

Seifert Amendment on Illegal Immigration Fails by One Vote

Representative Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) came up one vote short on an amendment to a bill that would have taken local aid away to cities that prohibit their law enforcement officers from inquiring about the legal status of people detained by police.

Currently, Minneapolis and St. Paul disallow their police officers from inquiring about the status of people detained for violations of the law. Reports of illegal aliens using the two cities as "safe harbors" have come to light since the cities adopted the ordinances some years ago.

"Something needs to be done to bring sanity to this insane system," Seifert said.

Seifert's amendment failed 66-67, with DFLers keeping the voting board open and urging their members to vote against the measure. All of Seifert's fellow Republicans voted for the amendment, while all votes in opposition were DFLers. Seifert was able to persuade 18 DFLers to vote with him, but it wasn't enough.

Seifert said he would try to attach measures to restrict illegal immigration to any bills that would relate to the topic.

Roll Call vote failed 66-67.

Now before you start with the hate mail (I can hear the talking points warming up now) realize one thing. This is not about race - I am an American of Mexican decent...one whose family did what they had to in order to immigrate here legally. It is not about immigration - hundreds of thousands of people immigrate to the US legally every year. This is not about people who come here legally, build businesses and relationship and, due to the snail like pace of our government bureaucracy, over stays their Visa. This is about the rule of law. This is about fairness for the hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) to enter our country legally. This is about people of all nationalities whose very first act in coming to the US is to break our laws and the cities in our state that encourage them to continue breaking our laws. It is about 66 members of the Legislature who care more about buying votes than they are about enforcing the laws of this country.

I wonder if they would be as understanding and forgiving of people who broke other laws....like maybe the smoking ban....

Cross posted at Ladies Logic where your comments are always welcome.