So His Lordship Mr. Weiss wants our state certified police department to ignore Federal Law? What's next, have the Fire Department ignore sprinkler inspections or the building inspectors ignore electrical code violations if the person in question is PC enough.

Seven of the 19 hijackers held fraudulent passports and three had overstayed their visas. If Mr. Weiss’s goofy, illegal by-law were in effect seven years ago and our police department stopped one of those bastards in the wee hours of 9/11 driving to Logan Airport, they would be forced to let them off with a courteous “have a nice flight.”

I am undocumented Amherst voter. Since Amherst doesn't believe in following laws I plan to vote at every wpolling place in November. Vote early and often as they say.

It should be mentioned that Alisa Brewer said she hoped that both Town Counsel and the Police Chief would be asked to comment on Gerry Weiss' proposed article, and that Gerry Weiss said that it had already been submitted to Town Counsel.

That sort of puts the Police Chief between a rock and a hard place. Because even though Mr. Weiss is not the Mayor (and never would be) with the instant power to fire the Chief he is still his boss...sort of.

The town attorney will find this goofyness illegal (There! I just saved the town $500.)

Some of the most intelligent discussion of this topic, believe it or not, is coming from the mysterious "xenos" in the comments section of www.onlyintherepublicofamherst.blogspot.com. I take my insights where I can find them.

In my opinion, this issue is completely unnecessary.

I heard Mr. Weiss on WFCR this morning, presuming once again that he speaks for all the Town's residents, using the pronoun "we" to express "our" views on the constitutionality of federal immigration laws.

I don't presume to have all the answers here, but I think that some historical precedents need to be explored in some depth before we march into Town Meeting and adopt his proposed by-law:

1) John C. Calhoun and the question of nullification before the Civil War; and

2) the impact of federal civil rights legislation in the 1960's and 1970's on Southern towns and cities.

I think that this business of ignoring federal law by local cities and towns (as well as by entire states) has been attempted before in most of our lifetimes, by people that most of us would identify as "the bad guys".

I think that we have recourse to address our unhappiness with federal laws, and this by-law, by imposing on people sworn to uphold the law,is not the way. I think that this proposal has the potential to create quite a storm, and I'm sorry that Mr. Weiss cannot find something else to do.

These issues seem to come to the forefront in town as a function of the boredom of elected leaders with the mundane, nuts-and-bolts, day-to-day business of town government. To that I say, if you're going to get bored, don't run.

So on St. Patrick's Day Mr. Weiss champions the cause of immigrants in America--nice touch.

But the millions of Irish, Germans, Poles, Italians, and Jews who came streaming into our country thru a tiny gateway in New York Harbor knows as Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 did it legally!

U.S. economic and foreign policy has fueled migration and immigration, creating both economic and political refugees. Free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA have imposed on other countries such as Mexico practices that benefit corporations but devastate local governments and economies and force people to migrate. In many ways, The U.S. is actually creating migration around the world but then blaming people for migrating. Consider:

• After NAFTA came into force, more than 1.3 million Mexican farmers were driven out of business. US agribusiness, subsidized by our tax dollars, sold corn in Mexico at lower prices than farmers there could produce. Undocumented immigration from Mexico has risen 60% since the passage of NAFTA.
• Big corporations in the United States have also gladly taken advantage of cheap labor, sending labor recruiters into economically depressed areas of Mexico, Central America and elsewhere. This is a pattern of behavior that has existed since the formation of America.
The U.S. war on Iraq has created over two million refugees who have no homes. Wars in Africa, Latin America and Afghanistan have created similar situations.

In reality, the legal system doesn’t work. If you look at the history of the United States immigration law, you will see that our immigration system hasn’t been adjusted in decades to reflect the real needs of our economy. Our quota systems have not been revised upwards in any category. The result: immigration quotas that are capricious and often vindictive exacerbated by the current administration’s penchant for illogic and cruelty. Remember, this is the same administration that brought us the war in Iraq, No Child Left Behind, the undercutting of decades of environmental progress, the Patriot Act and on and on. Why would we try to embrace the same administration’s ideas about immigration? Consider these examples:

• The number of low-skilled workers who can legally come to the U.S. permanently is tiny—only 5,000 visas per year. .
• Even people married to US citizens or permanent legal residents sometimes have to wait years to join their spouses. For a child over 18 years, a Filipino mother may have to wait between 12-18 years.
• Today, it is nearly impossible for most people who don’t have immediate relatives or specialized skills to come here.

Rev. Martin Luther King said: “An unjust law is no law at all.” Our current laws continue to allow workers to be exploited and manipulated. We need an immigration system that acknowledges our American values and our need for immigrant labor, allowing immigrants to come here in an orderly, legal way, so that they can fully contribute to our democracy.

The Hate Free Zone, in Washington, D.C., has issued a call to reform our immigration laws to include:

• Legalization of the current undocumented immigrants, with full labor and civil rights and a clear path to citizenship.
• Changes in the current legal immigration systems so that:
o The current backlog of over 8 million people who have applied legally can be cleared
o Families can be reunified without waiting years
o Changes in US visa policies so that ordinary working people who want to come here and live and work—at all skills levels—can do so without violating laws or risking their lives
• Rights for immigrant workers in any situation—including any temporary worker programs—so that they can join unions and move from job to job
• Protection of due process and civil liberties rights of immigrants and in the immigration system so that people have access to the same protections as those in the justice system
• Changes in U.S. trade and foreign policy that focus on developing economies of other countries and preventing migration from war or trade policies
• Coordinated state and federal strategies to support immigrant integration and the full participation of immigrants in our economies, communities and civic society

One more point. I meant to respond to Mr. Morse's complaint about my using the word "we". I didn't hear the interview on the radio, but I do know that when I was being taped, I made a point of saying that the "we" I was talking about were those that agreed with my position on this matter. I'm sorry if they left that qualifier out of the story.

So our guide in this discussion is "an unjust law is no law at all"? I would like to see that remark by Martin Luther King in its full context. It's ironic that Mr. Weiss has quoted him, given my point about the civil rights battles of the sixties and seventies, and the dynamic of confrontation between local and federal authority that resulted. Surely Mr. Weiss has not forgotten this.

We cannot have an ordered society based on such a principle. It's an invitation to lawlessness. What is clear to me, and I hope others, is that it is simply unfair to address this issue through directives to our town employees and the police, some of whom actually take an oath to uphold the law.

At the risk of being glib, this is a government of laws, not of Gerry. The folly of Mr. Weiss's proposed by-law makes it completely beside the point whether we agree with him or not on the substance. That's the good news in this latest tempest in the Amherst teapot.

Mr. Weiss is going to have to decide what he is trying to accomplish here, because , if he keeps on going, he risks driving a large wedge right into the heart of this community, at a time when we need to work together on some very thorny local problems.

I would have to resign my seat on Town Meeting, if that body passed a town by-law that directed Amherst police to ignore federal immigration warrants, or to make ad hoc judgements on which warrants to act upon.

I agree with Mr. Weiss's instinct (and I think that it's really no more than that) that there probably is a growing collective concern in town on this issue. It might take hours of Town Meeting debate to develop a consensus on how to address it. But there must be some other, more law-abiding way than this very bad proposal.

The King quote that Mr. Weiss used is from "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", and, yes, the entire discussion contained therein is important.

Once again, for the umpteenth time, the machinery of town policy-making is being exploited in order to make a statement to the rest of the country. This is where the nickname "Republic of Amherst" comes from. I hope that the advice of the town counsel will curb this particular adventure.

The recent experience of the European Union could offer a valuable lesson on the issues of immigration and nationality. For centuries, bloody wars were fought in Europe over territory and resources. Now borders have been effectively eliminated here, reducing obstacles to the travel of people (and not merely to the exchange of capital and trade goods), and enhancing the well-being of everyone.

A similar thing happened here with the founding of the United States on the American continent just over two hundred years ago (although for much of the next century, a large fraction of its population here was denied any freedom of movement - or was forcibly moved to "reservations").

Unfortunately, we seem to have ignored the European lesson and forgotten the American lesson. Any steps we can take - as residents of Amherst, and as residents of Earth - to
enhance the well-being of our fellows
would be steps in the right direction.

Mr. Weiss's proposed by-law seems like such a step, not merely to "make a statement to the rest of the country", but to offer some protection to those Earth-residents who also happen to live
in Amherst.

Of course there is also some truth, at least theoretically, to what Mr. Morse suggests. Let's grant that the law is, in theory, a valuable tool for an "ordered society"; nevertheless, in practice, US immigration law enforcement is (at best) arguably both quite arbitrary and very capricious, and (at worst) frequently ends up terrorizing yet another large group of its residents.

Why, Mr. Morse, should such "immoral" law enforcement be tolerated by any moral person, particularly you*?

- Resident of Earth

*Mr. Morse is a professional prosecutor (duty-bound to uphold the laws of the land) and a deeply moral person. One senses that he's terribly torn over this issue, and sincerely hope he will find a way to channel this moral tension into something constructive (rather than just threatening to resign).

I appreciate this discussion. Dissent, whether if be in the form of a by law suggestion such as mine; or the dissent of Mr. Morse about such a by law, is the essence of our society, and our only hope that we can remain a true democracy. As for the by law; I'll keep you abreast of my conversations with Town Counsel.

I would like to quote at least two paragraphs of Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail, which Mr. Morse correctly identifies as the source of my quote:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.... Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

In 1999 bar owners in Amherst printed posters and flyers using Dr. King’s quote about unjust laws to rail against the smoking ban in bars. Didn’t do them a much good.

Just because you can quote the man does not mean he would agree with you.

I'm sorry; I didn't want this to be about me. My comment about having to resign from Town Meeting was only intended to convey how unacceptable this proposed by-law would be for certain people. As a prosecutor, I believe that I am no different than the police officers in town: I took an oath to uphold the law. And I don't see any line between the personal and the professional here: I could not continue to sit in a Town Meeting that had decided to defy or ignore the law.

It's no more "threatening" than that. And there might be others who feel the same way. I bet it won't be just me.

I have been motivated to reread King's writing that Mr. Weiss quotes at greater length above. But I think that we are talking past each other in this discussion.

I am not addressing the wisdom or lack of wisdom of federal immigration law, or its morality or immorality. Quite frankly, I don't know that much about it. I am questioning the legal or even moral basis an elected official, or even a body of elected officials, has in binding an entire community in what would be an act of civil disobedience, a decision to defy federal law at least as to the execution of certain warrants. I think that there's a problem with the consent of the governed in doing that; it's considerably different than passing a budget, for example. There's some extremely shaky ground for representative democracy there that no amount of King quotes can move you off of.

I've told Mr. Weiss that I am quite certain that many encounters between individuals and law enforcement occur without records checks. So the perceived problem that he cites seems a bit exaggerated to me.

I am not in any way denying the value of acts of civil disobedience by individuals or groups of individuals, all of whom have consented to engage in the act and suffer its consquences. It's one way to confront the inevitable injustice and moral blindness embedded in our laws. There will always be problems throughout our legal system that need to be addressed, because it's a human, flawed system, and civil disobedience is one mechanism for doing so.

Mr. Weiss quotes Dr. King on segregation that "distorts the soul and damages the personality". And in the 21st century we've reached some moral consensus on that point. But we were far from that consensus at the beginning of the 20th century. There's an ongoing process going on here.

At the risk of being called unpatriotic, I actually agree with Mr. Weiss that much of recent American foreign, trade, and economic policy has served to increase the desperation of people both within and outside of our borders. But when he says, "in reality, the legal system doesn't work", I think that one has to ignore a whole history of effective moral suasion affecting and changing our laws to make that statement. And that's what I wish we would wave the flag about in Amherst (but alas).

I am not being complacent in noting the inevitability of injustice in our legal system. There are laws that I would change in a heartbeat if I could. I think that, at any given time, any legal system disserves certain people. But, having said all that, I do not subscribe to "the sovereignty of the self" that seems to rule in our town (and which I think damages the legitimacy and credibility of government here).

So I have no complaint about Mr. Weiss and friends speaking and acting out against injustice. I don't even care if he does it as "Select Board Chair Gerry Weiss". But, callous as it may sound, I think that he should do it on his own time, and not in his capacity as an elected official, because in doing so, he drags other people, including cops, along for the ride. And that specifically, I believe,is what's not right.

Editorial (NYTimes, Published: March 27, 2008)

A Foolish Immigration Purge

Leave it to the Bush administration to throw thousands of law-abiding American workers and companies off a cliff in perilous economic times.

That would be the effect of its decision to press ahead with a bad idea: to force businesses to fire employees whose names don’t match the Social Security database. The purge is part of a campaign — along with scattershot workplace raids and the partial border fence — to make a show of tackling the broken immigration system.

The plan rests on the assumption that people with Social Security glitches are illegal immigrants using fake identities. Companies that receive “no match” letters warning of database discrepancies are given 90 days to clear them up. After that, they must fire the affected workers or face stiff penalties.

A federal judge blocked the plan last year, warning that it would create havoc in the economy and lead to serious due-process violations for victims of clerical errors. The Social Security Administration’s inspector general has estimated that about 17.8 million of the agency’s 435 million records contain errors that could lead to a “no match” letter. Seventy percent of those 17.8 million records belong to native-born Americans.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to the judge’s objections by resubmitting its proposal last week essentially unchanged. Americans anxious about keeping their jobs should raise a stink and hope that the court rebuffs the agency again.

The Social Security Administration was set up to administer benefits, not to enforce immigration laws. There are many illegal immigrants who use fake IDs, but the sheer abundance of errors — the result of name changes, misspellings and other mix-ups — preclude their use for an immigration crackdown. Native-born workers will pay the price for these mistakes, but the foreign born also will suffer, because they are especially at risk of errors from inconsistent spellings, mistranslations and other language issues.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit have warned, with good reason, that a Social Security crackdown would lead to countless unjust firings and discrimination against lawful immigrants by companies that cannot be bothered to help clear up their bureaucratic entanglements.

The burden on law-abiding companies would be great: thousands of dollars to comply with the rules, and thousands more to fire and replace workers. An honest employer who does things by the book would face an excruciating choice — to keep good workers despite dubious “no-match” letters and face harsh fines, or to fire them and face discrimination lawsuits.

All this churning, meanwhile, will be a boon for the unscrupulous businesses that hire off the books and have no use for W-2s. It’s a law-and-order strategy that undermines law and order.

I promised updates so here is one:

Town Counsel has done an extraordinary job researching this issue. And no, it did not cost the town a penny. Our contract is prix fixe plus litigation. (Thank you Larry Shaffer). Also remember, that Kopelman and Paige serve 120 towns/cities in the Commonwealth and have to do similar research for them.

The results are fascinating. Federal law (Section 434 of the Welfare Reform Act and Section 642 of the Immigration Reform Act) prohibits state and local governments from restricting cooperation and the the sharing of information by law enforcement officers with federal authorities relative to the immigration status of individuals. It appears this law was enacted to prevent towns/cities from doing exactly what I proposed we do.

However, after "extensive research", Town Counsel was "unable to locate any provision of federal law which explicitly addresses the issue" of whether local police must enforce federal immigration laws. This presents an interesting legal conundrum. It would be illegal for Amherst to enact legislation restricting local officials from cooperating with federal immigration laws, but there is no law requiring local officials to report to the feds information they have regarding the whereabouts of someone who may be listed with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement as being here illegally.

One way around this is to do what other towns in Mass have done (Orleans, Chelsea, Brewster, Boston, Cambridge and Lexington); pass resolutions similar to my proposed by law, but as resolutions, that are not binding but convey to the police and to the community the sense of, in our case, Town Meeting. Passing such a resolution allows the Town to make a statement about its opinion regarding the federal law without violating that federal law.

Yeah, like the non-binding, decriminalize pot resolution that Amherst passed (with significant Umass student input). I could not help but notice in the Amherst Police blog a mention of some nitwit in my South Amherst neighborhood busted for “intent to distribute” marijuana. That was Czar Awad’s folly and His Lordship’s is immigrations. And so it goes.

Mr. Weiss is preoccupied with high-minded concerns about morality of federal law and would choose to spend his time and his offices resources on that issue rather than pressing town governance issues like the budget, cost management, our schools and even fair compensation for Amherst Schools employees who make and serve school lunches.

Maybe Mr. Weiss has outgrown the select board position and should run for US Rep. where he could apply himself to correcting the injustice in a more practical way and one that that doesn't put town police in a legal and moral bind.

Latest update: I've decided to pull the article from the warrant. In my mind, it is not ready to go, and I'm not interested in using Town Meeting time fighting over a document that is not ready. This is too important to allow that to happen. I've been in touch with lawyers from ACLU as well as immigration lawyers who will help craft this into something that will be ready for Fall Town Meeting; or not at all.

Mr. O'Reilly, do you have data confirming your statement that the police in Cambridge, Lexington, Brewster, and Chelsea, Mass, as well as officers in Tacoma Park, Maryland, Trenton, N.J., Richmond, California and Cicero, IL feel themselves in a legal and moral bind because of very similar ordinances? That is important to me and I would be interested in seeing the information you have on that subject.Of course I'm assuming that the police in those communities are not dissimilar to the police in Amherst.

I welcome a continuing discussion on the merits and faults of such legislation for the Town of Amherst.

Mr. Weiss: [D]o you have data confirming your statement that the police in… [other towns] feel themselves in a legal and moral bind because of very similar ordinances?

Mr. O’Reilly: “…correcting the injustice in a more practical way and one that that doesn't put town police in a legal and moral bind.”

I make no claim about what the aforementioned police “feel.” I assert that by advancing the bylaw you are, as a point of fact, putting the local police in a legal and moral bind. They are sworn to uphold the law. Your bylaw requires them to make a choice, uphold the bylaw or uphold the Federal law. Thus my suggestion that you work to correct the Federal law rather than put local police in this bind.

If it is a matter of moral principle that compels you to stand against it, then you should consider assuming the personal risk of civil disobedience rather than requiring our local police to be in that position with or without their consent. Then there is the matter of the residents you represent. There is no unanimity in position that says Amherst stands against Federal immigration law as a matter of principle… to the point that we all would choose civil disobedience as a remedy.

The more time I spend thinking about this issue, the more inappropriate I feel it is for town government to spend its time and resources addressing it. The “constituency” you feel a moral obligation to insulate from federal law, as enforced by ICE, has the legal status of foreign alien. Even they would agree their legal status is… well, illegally in this country. They are not your constituency.

I’m all for helping people who want to be in our country, and our town, to come here legally or even to obtain legal status after they’ve come here illegally. What I think is inappropriate, is using the power of local government to foil federal law enforcement activity. What makes this country different is that we purport to be a nation of laws.

The founders of the Republic defined authorities of Federal and state government. Immigration and boarder security is a Federal authority. For municipal government to spend its time and resources legislating in opposition to federal law and the policies defining how the federal law is enforced is a misuse of civic authority. While your initiative is high-minded, it is ill conceived. Municipal government is not about the adjudication of moral issues resulting from Federal authority and Federal law. Those issues must be dealt with directly.

Amherst has many pressing problems that affect the lives of Amherst residents, including citizens and legal aliens. These are the problems the select board must focus its attention on.

here, here. i am continually amazed by the paradoxical use of town government by those like mr. weiss - on the one hand, it's evil and worthy of suspsciion; on the other, it's a personal protest vehicle. buy a big white horse and head south, my friend.

I’d like to try to respond to O’Reilly’s concerns and comments.

Pardon my use of the word “feel”. What I meant was that you believe that the actions I was proposing would have caused the local police to be in a bind. Since at least 4 cities in the US (Tacoma Park Maryland, Cicero Illinois, Trenton, N.J. and Richmond, California) have enacted ordinances very similar to the one I proposed, I was assuming that you had knowledge that the police in those cities were then in a bind. I was asking for how you came to have this belief.

“Your bylaw requires them to make a choice, uphold the bylaw or uphold the Federal law.” I think you missed a point I made earlier that there is no Federal or State law requiring local police to volunteer immigration information to the Feds;(this information is from the State AG’s office, town counsel, and the ACLU) thus the local police would in fact not be in a bind, which may be why the 4 cities were able to enact their laws. It is illegal for a town to enact a law that would try to supersede a federal law, plain and simple. We cannot and will not enact a by law that would be illegal. One of the reasons I’ve pulled the proposed by law out of the warrant is so that I can research how those laws are affecting the police and the communities of those 4 cities, as well as to thoroughly study the language of the ordinances in those cities, to see how they were able to legally and logically craft them.

As for the pressing problems affecting our residents; this is one of them – it just doesn’t affect you or me or most, if not all the people in our daily lives. The unnecessary and cruel deportation of Crista Zavala’s mother has made this mostly invisible problem, quite visible and real.

Perhaps you would be willing to sit down with Crista Zavala and tell her that Amherst has more pressing problems; or maybe tiredamherstpol would be willing to sit down with Crista and tell her that the people in Amherst attempting to prevent another unnecessary deportation are evil and suspicious.

The question is whether the bylaw proposed by Mr. Weiss would have prevented the deportation of Ms. Zavala. If not, then it is entirely symbolic and that is where the debate should focus. From the surface, it appears to be a case of looking for your lost car keys under the street light, you are doing something but not the "something" that actually solves the problem.

In his latest post, Mr. Weiss lets his usual affable, statesmanlike demeanor slip and we see his other side when we get to the self-righteous tone of the last two paragraphs, the "guilt trip" that he usually decides to put us on if we dare to disagree with or question him.

Abbie is right on target here, and how much Mr. Weiss actually knows about the specifics of Ms. Zavala's particular situation remains unclear. In addition, I have yet to hear anything that indicates that Mr. Weiss has consulted with and listened to, not just the ACLU, but the Amherst Police Chief on this topic. So this appears to be yet another venture in which Mr. Weiss has gone off again a little half-cocked in his official capacity. Is this about solving a problem or is it about making a statement?

Once again, I don't believe that every encounter by a person with a law enforcement official requires a record check of that individual. The focus for any local police department is on fighting crime, not rounding up people. Mr. Weiss's premises always seem to involve the existence of faceless, heartless others, whom he has to do battle with.

So let me try to focus the inquiry even further: was there an arrest warrant for Ms. Zavala? The word "warrant", that I used in my earlier post (not Town Meeting warrant in this context, but arrest warrant), seems to have disappeared from the discussion. Obviously, the existence of an arrest warrant for a person standing in the presence of a police officer creates certain imperatives.

I can't guarantee that the process that Mr. Weiss has undertaken will lead to a TM article that I would oppose, but I'm not hopeful. Like Mr. Weiss, I want every person who is in our town to be encouraged to seek out the assistance of law enforcement if he or she needs it. But, given his obviously long-standing, unfavorable assumptions about how the police operate, and the now accompanying assumption that every illegal immigrant is somehow "an innocent", I worry that he's going to be like a bull in a china shop on this issue.

I include myself among those who are very tired of the relentless drumbeat of demagogues like Lou Dobbs and Mitt Romney on the immigration issue. I agree that the personal experience of these forced deportations, and the desperation that drove people here in the first place, is largely invisible to most Americans. But I think one has to be clear about what one does and does not know in deciding how to respond. I'm still not clear that Mr. Weiss is talking beyond his ideological comfort zone on this topic.

Abbie, the whole point of this was to craft a by law that would prevent such an event from happening again. If such an ordinance had existed in Northampton, then it would have been illegal for the Northampton police to have reported Ms. Zavala to ICE, and she would likely still be here. It is exactly why this is being done around the country.

Trenton, NJ, for example, has an executive order that deems immigration status confidential and prohibits city employees from disclosing such information without written authorization by the individual, or unless disclosure is required by law. The order makes clear that disclosure of immigration status is permitted only in cases for suspicion of criminal, illegal or potential terrorist activity unrelated to mere undocumented status. In the City of Richmond, Calif., there is an ordinance requiring that a police officer receive specific authorization from the city manager or the chief of police before sharing information with ICE. Other provisions limit the use of status checks with ICE, such as in Cicero, IL, which restricts police officers from initiating status checks unless the individual is a gang member, or arrested on felony charges or a sex offense. Remember, Ms. Zavala was not stopped for any infraction, civil or otherwise; she had been in a minor car accident and needed medical attention.

I did have a meeting with Chief Sherpa, which was very useful for me to get his point of view. He brought up the very issues that Cicero has included in their law and it is why I want to read their ordinance as well as the others to be sure that Chief Sherpa’s concerns are addressed. I was delighted to find out about Cicero, because it exactly matched the Chief’s primary concern. It has been my goal all along to work with the Chief and try to reach common ground. I just ran out of time to do it right. I hope this also addresses some of your concerns Rich.

I need to comment on one other item in Mr. Morse's note: "But, given his obviously long-standing, unfavorable assumptions about how the police operate". Could we keep this a discussion without making unfounded charges about other people? Why does this have to get into name calling, character assassination, and motive derision? How does that help us discuss the laws and how we want to respond to the laws and what responsibilities we have as citizens to look at how laws affect us?

I understand that Mr. Weiss wants to use his definition of politeness to silence people in the public debate. My comments about Mr. Weiss are based on reasonable inferences drawn from his public record and his public utterances over the years regarding police matters. I have been watching him carefully over the years. This is politics, and this is one public official potentially thumbing his nose at federal law. So, whether Mr. Weiss likes it or not, this is serious business, since he wishes to involve all the citizens of the town in it.

Regarding any proposed by-law: if the Chief ends up being on board about it, then that alleviates many of my concerns.

Its not about politeness. Its about the value of discussing the merits of an issue vs. the character of the people in the discussion. I have never found the latter to be of much value in a discussion.

Do you want to discuss federal law as it affects the people of the US and the world; how my proposed by law addresses federal law and human rights; the impact of such a by law on the residents and police department of Amherst; or my character?

On April 10, 2008, Mr. Weiss wrote in response to O'Reilly and tiredamherstpol: "Perhaps you would be willing to sit down with Crista Zavala and tell her that Amherst has more pressing problems; or maybe tireamherstpol would be willing to sit down with Crista and tell her that the people in Amherst attempting to prevent another unnecessary deportation are evil and suspicious."

In stating this, Mr. Weiss completely misread the meaning of tiredamherstpol's post (he/she was pointing out the inherent contradiction in Mr. Weiss's thinking about government) and then suggested that those of us who disagree with him are inhumane and insensitive. But this is the kind of argument that has been used for years, not just by Mr. Weiss, to shut off debate. The form of the argument is "You mean you don't care about X? Perhaps you'd like to tell that to X!"

What you are seeing there is a form of moral blindness, an unwillingness to see the value and the sincerity in both sides of an argument. And that moral blindness, stemming from a deeply held sense of personal superiority to others, is brought to bear repeatedly in town, whether it's about swimming pools or human service budgets or by-laws about illegal immigrants.

This is what I object to, and I object to it publicly because, since at least the sixties, this approach to debate has served to intimidate people and silence them.
The argument is "you mean you don't care as much as I care?"

If we dare to assert that there's a far more complex set of moral considerations in the illegal immigration issue (and in a town by-law restricting the police on the issue) than just the terrible anecdotal experience of one person deported out of Northampton, we face being shamed by people who choose to argue like Mr. Weiss.

But he says that's fair. And if it is, no discussion on the substance of issues is possible.

Would a town by-law that essentially declared Amherst a "sanctuary town" result in an influx of illegal immigrants?

If yes, how would such an influx
1) affect working conditions of low-wage workers in Amherst and the surrounding area, especially in restaurants and on farms?
2) affect wages for similarly situated workers?
3) affect efforts to unionize among such workers?
4) Where would new illegal immigrant arrivals live?
5) How might they affect homeless services?
6) How might they affect people in town already more dependent on town services than either me or Mr. Weiss?
7) Would there be a resulting strain on our schools and town services?
8) How might such a strain be borne by property-tax payers, people less able to meet their property taxes than either me or Mr. Weiss?

Now I'm not going to say that Mr. Weiss hasn't thought or doesn't care about the folks who are already here, who might be disproportionately affected by illegal immigrants who decided to find refuge here.

All I'm saying is let's take the blinders off here, and get away from the Tyranny of Selective Compassion I can see developing on this issue.

Mr. Weiss:

Your implied criticism of my presumptive lack of compassion for Crista Zavala and her mother is out of line, as is your attempt to stake out the morally superior position. Is there room in your worldview for people of equal compassion and moral standing to disagree with you? How about to disagree with you on the merits of using municipal government to subvert federal immigration law? Are you able to engage in debate without discrediting the values of those with whom you disagree? Instead, please take issue with the merit of my ideas. That argument is the fallacy of moral superiority, which you raised in response to a question about the relative importance of this issue as compared to the other pressing issues on the slate of town government. I take it from your answer, that in your judgment, this issue is of the utmost importance. I also note that the question instigated your judgmental response, so please clarify on the relative importance of this issue if you will.

Since you brought it up, would you mind treating the facts of Crista Zavala’s case as a study to illustrate your proposed Amherst Immigration Policy? Please explain how you think local government should act that is different than federal law in the case of Crista’s legal status and in the case of her mother’s legal status. Identify the aspects of the federal law you deem reasonable to subvert with a town bylaw and your justification for it if you will.

I gather from this article (“Immigrant buoyed by support after mother is deported.” by James F. Lowe, February 01, 2008) that Crista lives with a family in Shutesbury, answered the reporter’s questions in Spanish, is enrolled in the high school, wants to go to medical school, doesn’t want to return to El Salvador where her mother lives now; entered the country illegally to join her mother who had previously entered the country illegally; faces a deportation hearing in March; is a citizen of El Salvador; was separated from her mother (for a second time) when her mother was detained and deported to El Salvador after a car accident brought her whereabouts to the attention of Federal authorities.

I assume you believe we are a nation of laws. I assume you do not advocate people enter the United States illegally and that you do not encourage people who entered the United States illegally to remain here illegally. I assume you take issue with the way immigration law enforcement can cause illegal aliens like Crista and her mother to be separated, (although it appears in this case Crista is free to return to El Salvador.) I assume you take issue that illegal aliens can be detained for unreasonably long periods of time and detained in poor conditions, and that if illegal aliens do not have money for a lawyer, they may have no one advocating their rights.

What then is the Town of Amherst’s role and responsibility in this issue?

Do you advocate Amherst withhold information from ICE we’re required to report by law?

Do you advocate Amherst educates school age children who entered illegally and have not obtained legal status?

Do you advocate Amherst allocates tax dollars to fund Alliance to Develop Power, the ACLU?

I’m asking these questions because I want to know what you are advocating.

Perhaps you would be willing to sit down with Crista Zavala and tell her that Amherst has more pressing problems; or maybe tiredamherstpol would be willing to sit down with Crista and tell her that the people in Amherst attempting to prevent another unnecessary deportation are evil and suspicious.

Can you explain your meaning of the phrase "unnecessary deportation"?

Is it your position that Mrs. Zavala's deportation was unnecessary? If so, how do reconcile that with your knowledge that Mrs. Zavala's entered the country illegally, and lived in the country illegally? (I assume, maybe I'm wrong.)

I’m sorry for the amount of time that’s passed since my last posting. Now that this issue is off the table for Spring Town Meeting, I’ve been focusing my time on the budget and Town Meeting articles.

I like the direction this discussion is now going. It is all I've been asking for all along. Mr. Morse and O'Reilly are bringing up many valid points to debate, which to me is the point of debate. I had been seeing some of the entries as talking more about me than about the issues. I apologize for reacting to those entries; if I practice what I preach, I wouldn't do that.

The main point I want to make regarding Federal Law is that THERE IS NO FEDERAL OR STATE LAW REQUIRING LOCAL POLICE TO VOLUNTEER INFORMATION TO FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES. Why has my proposal been deemed to be subverting federal law when there isn't one? While I think the Federal Immigration Laws are unjust, I can't do anything about them except lobby my Congressmen to change them. It is up to Federal authorities to enforce Federal Law.

My idea is to enforce the non existence of Federal law in regard to the role of local police’s obligations. That is where the legal debate should, in my mind, reside. The questions Mr. Morse raises about possible outcomes of making Amherst a safer haven for undocumented immigrants deserve full consideration and researching what has happened in Cicero, Trenton, Tacoma Park and Richmond might be very instructive in this regard.

O’Reilly, what I hear you saying, and I could have it wrong, is that “illegal is illegal, so why go to any lengths to protect people who are breaking the law?” I think I understand this view and clearly I don’t see it that way. I’ve tried to speak to that issue in other entries I’ve made above. (See my first and third entries)

I’d like to say a word about my “perhaps …..would like to sit down with Crista Zavala……” comment. It certainly did come off holier than thou and that wasn’t my intent. I heard two people making statements about the value of what I was attempting to do, and I was wondering if those people believed in what they were saying enough to sit down with a person affected by what happened and say to that person what their belief was. I think that is fair. If someone in town lobbies me to take up an issue of theirs, if I don’t think it is important for the SB to take it up, or that it is not high on my priority list, I have to tell them that to their face. In Town Meeting, people often vote and have that vote recorded for all to see. They are putting their name next to their belief and putting it out for all to hear. That is all I was trying to say and I apologize for saying it so poorly and offending people.

Specifically, to O’Reilly’s questions:
What then is the Town of Amherst’s role and responsibility in this issue? I think I’ve staked out my position on what I think our responsibility is. I know not everyone will agree.
Do you advocate Amherst withhold information from ICE we’re required to report by law? The police should not be told to not do anything they are required to do. However, as I keep saying in this blog, they are not required to voluntarily report immigration information; nor are any public officials, which would include me.
Do you advocate Amherst educates school age children who entered illegally and have not obtained legal status? Yes. Undocumented immigrants pay rent. Landlords pay taxes. Undocumented immigrants buy products in Amherst and pay sales tax. In many cases they pay SS taxes that they will never get back. It is estimated that undocumented immigrants contribute $7 billion a year into Social Security and are ineligible to benefit from that money.
They live and work and contribute to our economy, to the diversity of life in our town and therefore in my mind enrich our children’s lives, as well as mine.
Do you advocate Amherst allocates tax dollars to fund Alliance to Develop Power, the ACLU? No
I have to go. I very much want to get back to Mr. Morse’s list of possible affects and have us spend time there…………..to be continued.

How does an illegal immigrant pay SS taxes? Are they using fake SS numbers? But, wouldn't that be ... illegal?

The Cato Institute has a nice summary of answers to the larger immigration questions, at:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-immig.html

Richard Morse's questions about whether or not a bylaw will make Amherst an Immigration Magnet Town are interesting. Personally, I tend to fall on the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" end of the debate-- I believe people should be free to go where they like (as long as they're not trespassing, squatting, or hurting anybody else). And I'm brave enough to face whatever consequences arise from granting other people that freedom.

But it's a moot point, anyway. A town bylaw isn't going to cause a flood of immigrants to move here; real estate is too expensive for the typical poor immigrant. Now if we had a high-tech industry going to attract wealthy immigrants...