A tale of two hotlines

News today from Santa Ana California that immigrants rights groups are setting up a hotline to report immigration raids in progress. The Front Against Raids and Orange County Alliance for Immigrants Rights held a press conference yesterday and announced that they were setting up a hotline to warn illegals of imminent or in-progress raids.

They would also offer support to the families left in the dark in the wake of the raids and, of course, provide legal advice regarding their rights.

This in the wake of raids earlier this year. According to the Orange County Register, “During five days of raids in June, 175 people in Orange County were arrested on suspected immigration violations. The raids arrested 27 suspected criminals, including a man wanted for murder and a convicted child molester.”

An ICE spokesman said that detainees already have due process, including the opportunity to prove they are indeed here legally.

My Utah friends may recall that there is a group in Salt Lake that created a nice brochure about what to do if you or a loved one is caught here illegally. Here’s a link in case you want to keep one in the glove box:
http://www.kcpw.org/media/other_files/PDFs/Raid.information.kit.pdf
I was unable to find a version in English. How insensitive of them!

Enough of that…Hotline number two comes from Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County Arizona. You might recognize him as the Sheriff with the tent city jail and pink underwear for the inmates.

Well, Sheriff Arpaio has set up a hotline to report illegal aliens in his county and the Latino activists are just livid. They claim he can’t do that. Here’s his answer to that:

"There's nothing unconstitutional about putting up a hotline," Arpaio said, pointing out that U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have similar hotlines. (From AP report 26 July 2007)

So, how’s it going’, Sheriff? Well, they had 300 calls in the first week. And what did the calls consist of? “Tips about family and friends, employment, day laborers, drop houses and crank calls.” (ibid)

You can’t lose if you buy stock in the phone company.