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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Proceed with care

An Indiana legislator wants to introduce a bill to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. The Indianapolis Star weighs in with an editorial urging the General Assembly to be cautions:

Rather than rushing the legislation through a short session, lawmakers should charge a summer study committee with the task of measuring how similar laws are affecting other states. Various groups, including business interests and local police agencies that would have to enforce Delph's proposal, also would have the chance to help shape a solution.
There's nothing wrong with a "please study the options" editorial. I've written them myself when I didn't know what else to say, especially if I hadn't made up my own mind yet. But sometimes a piece will have readers screaming, "Yes, but what do you think"? This is one of them. "Undocumented" workers are breaking the law, as are the companies who hire them. Does the Star reaally mean to say that if it is shown that similar measures in other states have bad economic effects, then the Star will endorse breaking the law here? Unless the point is clarified, that certainly seems to be what the editorial is saying.

Comments

Mitchell Surface
Tue, 01/15/2008 - 1:20pm

Wouldn't something like this have been a good idea before the smoking ban? Oh wait, I forgot, government loves me and wants to keep me safe.

C. Heyes
Wed, 01/16/2008 - 10:00am

It is time, past time, for Indiana lawmakers and the media to stand up for law and order. My local paper not only dodges the topic of illegal aliens in Greater Lafayette, Indiana, it hides the facts and buries the stories it does cover on the back of the sports section.

Why does our legislature need a committee to "study" the effects of enforcing the law? If our police departments, justice systems and newspapers were doing THEIR JOBS we would have the facts and statistics readily available on the impact of illegal aliens on each community.

Taxpayers bear the financial burdens and personal risks of having these illegal aliens among us, while companies benefit from their "slave" labor. Our local medias have abandoned truth and public service to join a conspiracy of silence and coverup that benefits corporate interests, not Indiana citizens.

Even the repeated use of the term "undocumented workers" shows that the media is trying to deceive, rather than inform it's readers. The children of illegal aliens who we are feeding, housing and educating with our every increasing property taxes aren't "undocumented workers", nor are the gang members who are thriving here. Indiana citizens deserve the truth, not Orwellian doublespeak. We deserve news sources who stand up for the interests of Hoosier taxpayers.

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