Finally, an illegal alien we can deport

Virginia has finally decided that there is one group of illegal aliens they can all agree needs to be deported – sex offenders (Washington Post link);

More than 170 immigrants convicted of sex crimes are being deported after authorities found their names on Virginia’s sex offender registry, state and federal officials announced yesterday.

Some of those being deported are undocumented immigrants, and others were in the United States legally, but all were convicted of sex crimes once they entered the country. All immigrants are subject to removal under federal law if they commit crimes of “moral turpitude.”

The majority of those arrested in the past year, 36, were lawful permanent residents who had lived in Northern Virginia, officials said. One hundred and thirty-five offenders had been incarcerated for such crimes as sexually abusing a 4-year-old and using a “date-rape drug” to rape a woman. All will be deported.

I suppose one question might be; why didn’t they do this before? What was there to stop them? Was there some moral issue they needed to wrestle with first?

Of course, lawyers need to keep some loopholes open so they can chase behind the buses rounding up the pervs;

“Certainly we want our immigration enforcers to focus on community safety and to prioritize serious crime,” said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which pushes for fair immigration policies.

She added, however, that all immigrant sex offenders should not be deported automatically. “It depends on the seriousness of the crime, did it occur decades ago and have they since led an exemplary life,” Butterfield said.

Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to crack down on illegal immigration, said: “The concern is that when you have open borders, many of these people are fleeing justice.”

Dane added, however: “Checking a list for places of birth to identify a particular crime seems a little discriminatory or intrusive.”

Was it intrusive for the Army to ask me my place of birth when I joined? Is it intrusive for banks and credit card companies to ask me my place of birth? We can’t just declare being a sex criminal unsavory enough, we’ve got to have lawyers to tell which are socially palatable and which are not.

Category: Illegal Immigrants, Legal