Comment is free: April 2008 Archives

The LAPD is under pressure to overhaul its rules for dealing with immigrants, after an illegal alien allegedly killed a high-school football star last month. I've jotted some thoughts for Comment is free:

One Sunday afternoon last month, 17-year-old Los Angeles resident Jamiel Shaw was walking home from the mall when a white sedan pulled up next to him. Two Latino men leaned out and asked Jamiel - a clean-cut high school football star with hopes of winning a scholarship to Stanford - what gang he belonged to. When he couldn't give an answer, one of the two men shot him dead.

That terrible, senseless act of violence has catapulted LA's battle with street gangs back into the public gaze - and sparked fresh debate about the way the City of Angels deals with its huge immigrant population. That's because Jamiel's alleged killer, a 19-year-old named Pedro Espinoza, is believed to have been an illegal alien - and, to make matters worse, had reportedly been released from county jail just a day before the brutal attack.

Quite rightly, that's prompted soul-searching at the LA police department, most of it focused on the application of Special Order 40, a regulation prohibiting police officers from stopping people for the sole reason of learning their immigration status. A number of police officers - including one who moonlights as a National Review blogger - say the rule is confusing and leads officers to actively avoid discovering the immigration status of known criminals.

Read the rest here.

Haiti has got plenty of problems: violent crime and kidnappings are on the increase, the economy's gone to hell in a handbasket, and food prices are going through the roof. I've written a piece for the Guardian's Comment is free site asking why the US isn't doing more to help:

If the Bush administration isn't prepared to help Haiti on humanitarian grounds, it ought to consider the practical advantages of doing so. Calling a moratorium on deportations would spare the overstretched Haitian government the burden of dealing with returned deportees. More importantly, it would provide the country with a stable source of income from remittances. At present, cash sent home by immigrants makes up more than a fifth of Haiti's GDP. Making it easier for Haitians to work in the US without fear of deportation would be a cheap, easy way to further shore up the country's economy.

That would be good news for Haitians, who need all the help they can get. It would also be good for America. After all, Haiti is a poor, populous nation just a boat ride from Florida. The US has a vested interest in staving off its southern neighbour's collapse, if only to keep the current influx of refugees from turning into a full-fledged exodus. Offering protected status to those Haitians already in the US would, at least, be a step in the right direction.

Read the rest here.

With the Pennsylvania primary just a month away, Hillary Clinton has an imposing lead in the polls. Still, the game isn't over yet - I've written a piece for Comment is free asking whether Barack Obama still has time to turn things around:

Clinton's focus on running up a big popular-vote win in Pennsylvania has so far led both candidates to invest most of their energy in voter registration, scrambling to sign up likely supporters ahead of this week's deadline. Now, though, the gears are grinding as both campaigns switch tack to begin what will essentially be a month-long get-out-the-vote drive. From here on, both candidates are likely to focus on energising their base, looking to boost turnout in densely populated areas - even those where the math makes it unlikely that extra votes will translate into extra delegates ...

With the voter-registration dash out of the way, Obama can now switch to what he does best: introducing himself to the electorate. He's already rolled out a number of new TV spots in the Philadelphia media market, which covers both his core urban supporters and the crucial suburban swing vote, and has embarked on an Iowa-style bus tour of the ground between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He's still heading for almost certain defeat in the Keystone State - but if he can woo enough well-heeled suburbanites along the way, he should be able to keep Clinton's margin of victory down to a manageable level.

More here.