Like A Cancer, It Spreads

Fremont, Nebraska, mostly a meatpacking town, has joined ranks with the Devil, er, Arizona, after voters approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants.

That's the bad news,

The good news is that an expected court challenge could keep the measure from ever taking effect. The ACLU has promised to file a lawsuit to block enforcement of the proposal roughly 57 percent of Fremont voters supported Monday.

Fremont's vote is the latest chapter in the fracas over illegal immigration, which includes that recently passed Arizona law that requires police investigating any other incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.

The Fremont measure, however, requires would-be renters to apply for a license from the city, and forces city officials to refuse to issue a license to applicants found to be in the country illegally. The ordinance also requires businesses to use the federal E-Verify database to ensure employees are allowed to work.

Fremont has seen its Hispanic population surge in the past two decades, largely due to the jobs available at the nearby Fremont Beef and Hormel meatpacking plants.

See that? For two decades they've allowed illegal immigrants into their towns and into their factories, but now they say it's enough. They've spent two decades doing something they now say is illegal, and seek to punish not only those Hispanic people new to the area, but the very same Hispanic people for whom they opened the door twenty years ago.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm all for immigration reform, for all immigrants, however, not just the Hispanic-looking, -sounding, -shoe-wearing, ones. But let's make it clear, if we opened the door to illegal immigration twenty years ago, and then closed our eyes because these Hispanic people were willing to work in our factories when we were not, then we cannot turn around now and say, "Go home."

We allowed them to make this their home for the last two decades.

The only rational solution to the illegal immigration problem is to first strengthen the borders, North, South, East and West, to all illegals, no matter the skin color or language. Then, we offer immunity to those who wish to become legal; make them pay a fine and work to become legal citizens. And the ones who don't, or the one's who've committed crimes while here, should be deported.

But you cannot invite them in, give them jobs no one else wants, let them live here for twenty years, and now say, Go home.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself Nebraska.