MAX ON MONDAY!

Hey hunnies, a little bleary eyed Miss Vero here and when we say here we mean not in Vero Beach. In fact we are somewhere way outside our comfort zone in a hotel lobby with free wifi, bringin y'all Max on Monday and yes, we know what time it is. Late. Late morning or afternoon but whatever kids we did manage to get ourselves to y'all.

Did y'all have a good time at your Oscar parties? Did we? Do y'all have to ask?

Max has decided to send us something about immigration which, honestly we have not taken the time to read, because we have a feelin that our battery on our laptop is gonna give up the ghost any second...

So we did the next best thing and posted along with Max's piece, a favorite little youtube video, that we hope relates.

MWAH!

YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME, BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE

Max Newport

If you want to see the tip of the iceberg of the immigration problem, drive by the courthouse on any Tuesday morning between 7:45 and 8:00 A.M. What you will see is a group of folks that are here illegally waiting for the courthouse to open and huddling massively. Most of the illegals are there to face misdemeanor criminal charges of driving without a license. Most will leave as convicted criminals. Those who were caught and choose not to appear, for fear of deportation, will face a bench warrant for arrest under the name they were cited under. Many were issued citations for the misdemeanor rather than physically arrested and taken to jail for the booking process since they were able to provide a local address as residence. As such they were not booked and fingerprinted. Those that appear for court, may have given the officers their real name or have a clean record on the name they are currently using. Most will plead guilty, pay a fine and leave the courthouse without leaving any fingerprints on any official document. The officer will not be there to verify that the person before the court is person who was cited.

Why don’t these folks just get a driver’s license? Since they are here illegally, they cannot get a valid license and by the way, what is confusing about the word “illegal”? Since driving without a license is a relatively low level crime, chances of deportation are low for a first offense. A second offense will get the Department of Homeland Security’s attention. They are supposed to deport after the second misdemeanor conviction or the first felony. Due to the massive numbers, they seldom do it. Hence, the line of illegals at the courthouse every Tuesday. Chances are they would be elsewhere if DHS was there to greet them at the front door.

Now driving without a license is not that big of a deal, that is why it was previously described as the tip. Add alcohol to the equation and perhaps an accident with injury to another and you can begin to see some of the waters recede. Under a literal interpretation of the word “illegal”, these people should not be here. Somehow the definition of that word has subsided. The question that cannot be answered is “Why?” Tough question.

Things must really suck in Mexico.

Recently a man was stopped with four valid Florida driver’s licenses. At least they appeared to be valid. They all had his picture. The problem was they were in four different names, each with a corresponding valid license number. Does this guy have a friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles? When he presented the license, the officer pulled up the name and number on his computer and saw that the picture didn’t match. Once the guy was arrested they found the other phony licenses with stolen identities. You can only imagine the problems for the holder of the valid license if the officer had not taken the second step to verify the license. The legitimate holder of the license could suddenly find himself arrested and hauled to jail for failing to appear for court based upon an incident he never knew occurred. Who is the guy that was actually arrested? What is his background? Why did he need so much false documentation?

More water is receding.

We are facing a giant problem in this country economically. Adding to this problem is that thousands of immigrants are entering this country illegally to work and thousands of people that are citizens are being laid off from their jobs. The illegals are working and the citizens are not. The illegals want jobs. Many of the laid off citizens want benefits. Those who defend the presence of illegals claim that they will do jobs Americans do not want to do or more likely will not do. Therein lies the problem. What does that say for the American workforce? Could it be that government benefits for not working are more attractive than doing a job you won’t like? How long can we continue to wink at the immigration laws that allow those who do not belong here to do the jobs that we don’t want to do yet continue to pay benefits to Americans who don’t want to work?

A very simple, yet unrealistic solution would be to deport those who are here illegally and open up the jobs for citizens. Citizens who are able bodied and refuse to take these jobs would be denied benefits from the government. Instead we are going deeper and deeper financially in debt as a nation to purportedly stimulate a system that isn’t working. How long can we perpetuate this standard?

Please notice that there are a lot more questions here than answers, but we can’t have it both ways. If the laws are not going to be enforced, why have them? If new laws are needed, they should be enacted and then fully enforced. The system as it is, is not working and one can surmise that it is part of the economic crisis we are currently facing. There are six bills pending in the Florida Legislature that would criminalize those who are “undocumented”. Some of these bills authorize workplace enforcement of immigration laws. If the worker doesn’t have his or her paperwork on site, the worker will get into a bus.

If you get a chance watch the movie “Fast Food Nation”. If not, we’ll be catching you at the courthouse on Tuesday morning. As bad as times are getting here, things must really suck in Mexico.

missvero@live.com