Scam-era Sanctuary

The Almighty Alcalde's weekend announcement that he's forming a task force to cover his a... uh, study Albuquerque's scam-era program got us skulking around the web for red light camera stories after a couple month hiatus on the topic. We were curious whether there were any new victims of "public safety" minded greedy municipalities. It didn't take long to find out that our neighbors to the southwest in Tucson are in the early stages of this public policy fleecing in the name of public safety.

Since misery loves company, we skimmed through a couple of stories and found that the scam is pretty much following the same pattern as it did right here in Eye Land. The city with the aid of the main stream media, market the scam as a way to cut down on accidents and speeding (read it here and here). At first the public generally accepts the idea - the first cameras are installed and the money starts to roll in.

Once those flashes start to count and drivers realize that it's not always the other guy that has to pay the fines, the first questions start to be asked; in this case, a question that we should have asked here but failed to consider. It seems that citizens of our sister city to the south thought to ask the question - what happens when the scam-era catches a vehicle from Mexico or any other foreign country for that matter?

"Right now, if a car from another country blows through a red light at the intersection of Tanque Verde and Grant Roads, police cannot track that driver."

"'Even a police officer who observes a Mexican plate on the street cannot run it for registration information," said Lieutenant Mike Pryor with the Tucson Police Department's traffic division.

Lt. Pryor says there's just no uniform system of tracking outside the United States."

-KVOA News 4 - Tucson

Albuquerque is already a defacto sanctuary city. Now we find out that in addition to getting a pass from APD due to their don't ask and especially don't tell ICE SOP, illegals get sanctuary from RedFlex scam-eras too. Makes us want to make a run for the border to register the Eye Mobile in Mexico.

-----Correction-----
Thanks to the reader who correctly pointed out that we meant "border" not "boarder." One is an international boundry - the other is someone who pays rent. Since illegals don't even pay scam-era fines, it would be ridiculous to think that they'd be paying us rent to be here.

Sanctuary City

We've been getting some shut Eye for the last few weeks and had planned to continue our August respite for the rest of the week, but we just couldn't believe our Eye when we read that the Almighty Marty and Chief Ray Schultz have made Albuquerque a sanctuary city. According to The Journal (Subscription), KOB-TV, and KRQE-TV, APD officers "shall not inquire about or seek proof of a person's immigration status."

The change in SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) stems from an incident (ABQ Journal - Subscription) where three Del Norte High School students were detained for presenting identification that was suspected to be false - the act itself is a fourth degree felony. The three were turned over to immigration authorities and eventually deported. Not surprisingly the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed suit claiming that the students' constitutional rights had been violated (ABQ Journal - Subscription).

We don't understand exactly what kind of insanity makes a group like MALDEF believe that illegals of any ethnicity have a right to a free education provided by the taxpayers of Albuquerque and the State of New Mexico. We've got enough problems providing a quality education to students that are in this country legally without taking on the additional burden of providing it to those who have already shown their contempt for our laws and our sovereignty.

This idiotic move to settle a case that should have been fought to the bitter end by our illustrious city attorney puts an even greater burden on officers who already have to deal with the problem of illegal activity by illegal immigrants.

Another idiotic move - this time by the state - granted illegals driver's licenses. Since the bearers are ILLEGAL they don't have social security numbers. All of the driving records are tied directly to a person's social security number so when running an illegal's state issued drivers license the information that comes up is... well, nothing. That means the driver in question could be speeding for the first time or the fiftieth, they could be driving under the influence for the first time or the fourteenth, the officer will never know until the offender kills someone.

Look, we're not advocating that APD enforce immigration law. However, it makes little sense to actively prohibit officers from contacting ICE when they suspect someone of being in the country illegally.

The tired argument that somehow turning suspected illegals over to immigration officials is some form of racial profiling is simply ridiculous, as three unfortunate Newark college students found out last week. Jose Carranza, aka Jose La Chira had previously been charged with raping a 5-year-old. Mr. Carranza should never have been allowed to have the opportunity to commit another crime, but Newark is a "sanctuary city" and so he remained giving him the opportunity to allegedly kill three innocent people.

How long is it before this reckless policy leads to the death of someone here in Albuquerque? It's not racist for us to expect that anyone coming to this country do so legally and it's common sense to give our police officers every weapon in their struggle to keep our streets safe. When someone dies because APD is prohibited from contacting immigration to deport an illegal, there will be only one person to blame... Martin Chavez.