Wednesday, February 23, 2005

No Respect for the Rule of Law

The Nation reports, "House Republicans finally found a solution to America's illegal immigrant problem: bounty hunters. As part of a bill to ban states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, Rep. Pete Sessions inserted an amendment less than 24 hours before the vote establishing ten state-sponsored bounty hunter centers. Though bounty hunters are currently legal--more than 3,900 operate in Sessions' home state of Texas--the new plan allows bail bondsmen to nab suspected illegals even before a final deportation order has been issued.

The plan also evokes a number of uncomfortable precedents, including the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Part of the Compromise of 1850, the law allowed authorities to track down runaway slaves in any region of the country, including free states. Any person who failed to cooperate with the slave-hunters or assisted the slaves drew a $1,000 fine. As a result, 20,000 blacks fled to Canada via the underground railroad. Fourteen years later, after countless protests, Congress repealed the law.

'It illustrates the extremism of the House,' Jeanne Butterfield of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said of the Slave law's 21st century counterpart. 'We have law enforcement officers to enforce the law, not vigilantes,' added Rep. Zoe Lofgren. (Global factoid: a recent row emerged between the governments of Colombia and Venezuela when bounty hunters snatched a Columbian rebel off the streets of Caracas.)"

Government sponsored vigilantism? This is America under the GOP, folks.

1 comment:

Nat-Wu said...

Hey, maybe Americans want to return to an era of the pre-war South. The pre Civil War South.