Those Who Trespass

Here's a novel way to get serious about illegal immigration:

New Ipswich, N.H., a small town by the Massachusetts border, is not where one would imagine a major immigration dispute involving illegals from Central America would begin. The town of fewer than 5,000 residents is roughly 2,300 miles from the Mexican border, and its Hispanic population is less than one percent. Yet it has become a hotbed for border patrol issues thanks to Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain's efforts to get the federal government to do something with the illegal aliens he keeps finding in town.

Last July Chief Chamberlain stopped a black Chevy van for speeding. Inside were nine Ecuadorians who confessed to being in the country illegally. They said they had come through California after paying as much as $10,000 a piece to be smuggled over the border. Some had been in country as long as four years. The chief contacted immigration officials (then the Immigration and Naturalization Service), but they refused to take custody of the aliens.

"They told me they didn't have the resources to take them," Chamberlain told the Union Leader newspaper. "We had to let them go."

A few months later police discovered 11 illegal Mexicans living in the town. This time immigration did take them. Things calmed down after that, but this month they heated up again after police arrested Jorge Ramirez at a traffic stop. Ramirez had a valid Mexican driver's license, but all of his other documents were forgeries. He admitted being in the United States illegally.

Chamberlain charged Ramirez with criminal trespass. Under New Hampshire law, a "person is guilty of criminal trespass if, knowing he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any place."

"Mr. Ramirez entered the United States illegally," Chamberlain told the Union Leader. "He was not licensed or privileged to be here."

On Tuesday Ramirez goes to court, where a judge will decide if Chamberlain's application of the trespass statute is legally sound. If it holds up, it would mean any police officer in New Hampshire could arrest any illegal alien simply for being an illegal alien. That is a power only federal authorities have now.

If confined to New Hampshire, this tactic probably would have little effect on Washington. But if law enforcement officers in other states follow Chamberlain's lead, there is the potential to terribly embarrass Department of Homeland Security bureaucrats as well as administration officials.

I favor immediate deportation, but most Americans are a bit weak-kneed and misty-eyed about such a prospect. I get weak-kneed and misty-eyed about the legitimate immigrants who didn't break American law, who pay taxes and assimilate and who wait interminably to become U.S. citizens and who deserve to have that mean something. I get weak-kneed and misty-eyed when I think about hard-working American citizens donating the wealth earned by the sweat of their brow to a healthcare and educational system strained to the breaking point by squatters.

If you entered and remained in this country illegally, I have no sympathy for your plight. Period. You're taking up a slot that people who respect our laws would give an arm to have.