Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 16, 2013

B7

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, March 16, 2013

STUART Tolchin..........On LIFE

HAIL Hamilton My Turn

Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

SENIOR COMMUNITY 
EDITOR

Pat Birdsall

SALES

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Chris Bertrand

Ron Carter

Rev. James Snyder

Bobby Eldridge

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Wellborn

Dr. John Talevich

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Jasmine Kelsey Williams

LIFE AND LIONS IN 
SIERRA MADRE


PART II: “AMNESTY BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL 
AMNESTY...”

This is the second in a series of articles about President Obama’s proposed 
Comprehensive Immigration Reform and why Americans should oppose 
it. It is based on information from a variety of sources including the Cato 
Institute, Center for Immigration Studies, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), 
NumbersUSA, and Pew Hispanic Center.

As mentioned in Part I, in his May 24, 2006 New York Times Op-Ed, “Amnesty by Any Other 
Name is still Amnesty...”, by former Attorney General Ed Meese III, argued strongly against the 
Comprehensive Immigration Reform proposed by President Bush, calling it what it was amnesty:

“Like the amnesty bill of 1986, the current Senate proposal would place those who have resided 
illegally in the United States on a path to citizenship, provided they meet a similar set of conditions 
and pay a fine and back taxes. The illegal immigrant does not go to the back of the line but gets 
immediate legalized status, while law-abiding applicants wait in their home countries for years to 
even get here. And that’s the line that counts. In the end, slight differences in process do not change 
the overriding fact that the 1986 law and today’s bill are both amnesties.”

Again, as I said last week, If President Obama really wants to reform our immigration system he 
should take following steps before any kind of immigration reform, comprehensive or otherwise, 
is considered.

Encourage Federal / State / Local Partnership

State and local police are badly needed to help overwhelmed federal immigration authorities 
apprehend and detain illegal aliens in the interior of our country. Illegal aliens currently outnumber 
federal immigration agents by 5,000 to one, and only 2,000 federal agents are active in enforcing 
the immigration laws in the interior of our country. Clearly, those numbers indicate that a limited 
number of federal agents are incapable of apprehending a majority of an estimated 11-22 million 
illegal aliens currently inside our nation’s borders and would benefit from the assistance of the more 
than 600,000 state and local law enforcement officers nationwide who come into contact with illegal 
aliens every day. 

End Catch and Release Policy

Many police officers routinely observe and even stop illegal aliens for violations of the law, however, 
those who arrest illegal aliens and proceed to contact federal immigration officials are all too 
often told to release the offenders unless a non-immigration offense is involved. This practice has 
commonly become known as “catch and release.” Even more troublesome is the fact that some 
police officers are prohibited by state or local laws or policies from cooperating with federal 
officials, a tactic adopted by some state and local governments that favor ensuring the well-being of 
illegal aliens rather than protecting law abiding American citizens from unnecessary harm and the 
adverse effects of illegal immigration on their communities. 

Eliminate Sanctuary Cities 

Several cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, 
San Diego, Austin, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Houston, Honolulu, Portland, and Seattle have 
made themselves “sanctuary cities” by adopting ordinances restricting local law enforcement from 
inquiring about immigration status and reporting violations to federal authorities. Most of these 
cities claim that the benefit illegal immigrants bring to their city outweigh the costs. Opponents say 
the measures violate federal law as the cities are in effect creating their own immigration policy, an 
area of law which only Congress has authority to alter.

Many legal scholars have tagged these so-called “don’t tell” measures as “obvious targets for express 
preemption” given the apparent conflict between “don’t tell” policies and the restrictions in Sections 
434 of the “Welfare Reform Act” and Section 642 of the “Immigration Reform Act” that expressly 
forbid restraints on communications with federal officials, including the sharing of information 
relating to people’s illegal immigration status. This is not good news for cities dependent on federal 
money.

Do not be fooled. Amnesty by any other name is still amnesty. Comprehensive Immigration Reform 
is amnesty -- pure and simple.

 Last night I had dinner alone at a restaurant 
in Sierra Madre. My wife’s cousin had died 
the day before and she just didn’t feel like 
doing much of anything. I was at a loss 
as to what to do. It seems that whenever 
unexpected events come up I am unable to 
take the next important step. It’s as if I expect 
to be provided with a life-manual containing direction on how 
to behave in unexpected situations. What I decided to do was to 
go to a restaurant alone on a Saturday night for probably the first 
time in my life. As I left my wife’s expression told me I was failing 
to do something very important. The next day she told me she 
would have felt better if I had just taken the trouble to hug her 
instead of worrying about my own discomfort.

 

 So anyway I was feeling pretty strange when I arrived at the 
busy restaurant. There was a pretty long waiting list but I told 
the hostess I was alone and she said there was a small table that 
usually remained empty. I said I’d take the table and soon learned 
why it usually remained 
empty. The table was right 
in the way of everything 
else and people kept 
bumping into my chair. 
One man stopped and 
began a conversation 
about how much he liked 
this restaurant and liked 
Sierra Madre but could 
never live here. He said 
that Sierra Madre was an 
anachronism and that that 
it would be a very dull place 
to live because he was sure 
nothing ever happened in 
Sierra Madre.

 I said I understood how 
he might think that but 
really some surprising 
things happened in Sierra 
Madre all the time. “Like what?” he said. “Well”, I told him, 
“Night before last two mountain lions jumped over my neighbor’s 
wall and ate a little dog.” The man thought I was kidding but I 
showed him a copy of the Mountain Views News that told the 
story right on the front page.

 .

 The man quickly seemed to lose interest and said something like 
well I’m glad that gave you something to think about for awhile.” 
It must generally be pretty dull up there up there”. I said, no. We 
often see deer, raccoons, coyotes and bears. “Why there was even 
a bear in my house last year that the police had to come and shoot 
with a bean-bag weapon.” The man thought I was making fun of 
him and walked away to join his companions at another table. I 
could see them looking at me strangely and kind of laughing to 
themselves.

 Now, I felt even more uncomfortable. I paid my bill and drove 
home Feeling strange I remembered that my neighbor, the 
dog’s former owner, or maybe the right language is the former 
dog’s owner, has told me he received a special Fish and Game 
Dispensation that allows him to shoot the mountain lions. Great, 
now I’m more worried about him shooting someone by mistake 
than I am worried about being eaten by the lions.

 Tonight rather than take our dog for his nightly walk around the 
circle my wife and I just drove down to City Hall and walked the 
dog near the canyon in the park. When we got home we noticed 
a poster wrapped around our telephone pole. I noticed no other 
posters on the block but it was too dark to read the poster. My 
wife didn’t want me to linger about on the street where I might get 
eaten or shot and said I could read the poster tomorrow.

 That’s it! I am not going to be afraid in my own 
house. I am going downstairs to read the poster. Okay, I’m back. 

All the sign says is

BEWARE OF EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE MOUNTAIN 
LIONS 

 Additionally the poster contains the helpful information that 
the lions can jump fifteen feet in the air and are capable of taking 
down a 600 pound elk. The poster also gave instructions on what 
to do if confronted by mountain lions.

 DO NOT APPROACH LIOINS. DO NOT RUN. YELL AND 
CALL 911.

 Sounds like pretty good advice. I think if you combine that 
advice with my wife’s suggestion that when in doubt it’s best 
to hug someone you love you will be well-prepared for most 
situations. Well so far nothing new has happened in Sierra 
Madre this morning. I’m going to try and attach a picture of the 
poster to this article and perhaps the poster will be seen in the 
paper. If you want to read my article about the bear getting into 
my house please check out the Mountain Views News archives 
(mtnviewsnews,com,) for May 5, 2012. If you look at my other 
articles in the archives you can read about the fires, earthquakes, 
windstorms, forced evacuations, arrests and the uncovering of 
a hidden meth lab all occurring in Sierra Madre, a place where 
nothing ever happens. 


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