Dispatches: Local communities battle illegal aliens

OVERVIEW:

CHARLOTTE -- Police here operated for years under what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward illegal immigrants.

As elsewhere in the United States, law enforcement officers did not check the immigration status of people they came into contact with, and in the vast majority of cases, a run-in with the law carried little threat of deportation.

But that accommodation for the burgeoning illegal population ended abruptly in April, when the Mecklenburg County sheriff's office began to enforce immigration law, placing more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, others with traffic infractions.

The program takes one of the most aggressive stances in the United States toward illegal immigrants, and officials in scores of communities, including Herndon and Loudoun County, have been considering adopting their own version. The House earlier this month was weighing a measure "reaffirming" the authority of local law enforcement agencies to arrest people on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

ESCONDIDO ---- When a City Council majority voted last month to draft an ordinance banning illegal immigrants from renting in the city, Escondido joined a diverse bunch of 30 small towns and midsize cities around the country that have considered, and in some cases passed, similar local legislation.

There are industrial cities in the Northeast, rural towns that barely stand out on a map, and growing metropolitan suburbs in 13 states that have all looked at doing what Escondido has proposed, fining landlords for renting to undocumented immigrants.

Most of the towns and cities also want to prohibit business licenses for companies that hire undocumented workers, and make English the official language of local government.

Try to determine a common denominator among the cities, however, and there is only one: Joseph Turner, the founder of Save Our State, an anti-illegal immigration group that tried to drum up support for a similar initiative he wrote.

Turner's efforts in his hometown failed earlier this year. But the 29-year-old activist from San Bernardino said that, despite his initial setback, everything is going to plan.

"Without a doubt, I was trying to franchise an idea, a cookie-cutter," Turner said in a recent interview.

WASHINGTON — Congress put immigration reform on hold last week when it left for the August recess. But across the country, the debate simmers on in city councils and county governments where local officials and residents are losing patience with the federal government's failure to resolve the issue.

From California to New Jersey, communities are considering or adopting their own measures, including penalties for employers who hire unauthorized workers and fines for landlords who rent to them.

The movement has taken root even in the nation's heartland, where the newcomers, most of them from Mexico, have only recently begun to settle.

In southern Ohio's Butler County, Sheriff Richard Jones took a count of his jail inmates last October and concluded that as many as 40 of the 800 were in the country illegally.

After calls to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency failed to convince it to take custody of the prisoners, Jones decided to take matters in his own hands. He launched a public campaign that has stirred controversy and made him a national figure in the immigration debate.

Picking strategic spots around his county, Jones placed billboards featuring a stern picture of himself, with arms folded on his chest, and the message "Hire an illegal — break the law!"

That approach is more effective than anything the politicians in Washington, D.C., have devised, Jones argued last week in a telephone conversation.

"The country's looking at putting up these giant walls and the military on the border," he said. "We don't need any of that. All you need is to punish employers that hire illegals. Lock them up."

Jones has yet to jail an employer, but he said he could make arrests for violations of state tax and employment laws. The threat is enough to change hiring practices for local business owners, the sheriff held. "They don't want to be on the front page or on TV in handcuffs."