Gerry Clinchy
12-13-2011, 07:43 PM
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/13/team-obamas-immigration-hypocrisy/
If this article is accurate, you can't help but see some humor in the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
According to the State Department’s own website, the Department considers it important that state and local law enforcement comply with the Vienna Convention so that our own citizens will be provided with the same type of assistance by “U.S. consular officers” when they are abroad.
So while the State Department is doing everything it can to encourage local law enforcement officials to check the citizenship status of anyone arrested so that the U.S. can comply with treaty-provided consular access privileges, the Justice Department is suing to prevent local law enforcement officials from checking the citizenship status of anyone arrested even when they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is in the United States unlawfully.
This despite the fact that the State Department manual says on page 13 that it “is the arresting officer’s responsibility to inquire about a person’s nationality if there is any reason to believe that he or she is not a U.S. citizen.” “Any reason to believe” is a less strict standard than “reasonable suspicion.”
It’s time for the Obama administration to stop suing states and start cooperating with them, encouraging them to help the federal government find, detain and deport illegal immigrants. If it lacks the courage to do that, and it truly believes, as its litigation indicates, that authorities should not be checking the citizenship status of local lawbreakers, than the State Department should withdraw its “Consular Notification and Access” manual, and stop telling local police officers to comply with the Vienna Convention by checking the citizenship status of criminals. And it should quit asking the Supreme Court to prevent the executions of convicted murderers because local police did not identify them as foreign nationals.
If this article is accurate, you can't help but see some humor in the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
According to the State Department’s own website, the Department considers it important that state and local law enforcement comply with the Vienna Convention so that our own citizens will be provided with the same type of assistance by “U.S. consular officers” when they are abroad.
So while the State Department is doing everything it can to encourage local law enforcement officials to check the citizenship status of anyone arrested so that the U.S. can comply with treaty-provided consular access privileges, the Justice Department is suing to prevent local law enforcement officials from checking the citizenship status of anyone arrested even when they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is in the United States unlawfully.
This despite the fact that the State Department manual says on page 13 that it “is the arresting officer’s responsibility to inquire about a person’s nationality if there is any reason to believe that he or she is not a U.S. citizen.” “Any reason to believe” is a less strict standard than “reasonable suspicion.”
It’s time for the Obama administration to stop suing states and start cooperating with them, encouraging them to help the federal government find, detain and deport illegal immigrants. If it lacks the courage to do that, and it truly believes, as its litigation indicates, that authorities should not be checking the citizenship status of local lawbreakers, than the State Department should withdraw its “Consular Notification and Access” manual, and stop telling local police officers to comply with the Vienna Convention by checking the citizenship status of criminals. And it should quit asking the Supreme Court to prevent the executions of convicted murderers because local police did not identify them as foreign nationals.