Many thanks for publishing Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin's spot-on commentary ("Measure 105 would restore respect for law," Sept. 20).
Oregon's sanctuary law, writes Sheriff Bergin, undermines respect for law by telling illegal immigrants "that Oregon considers immigration-law violations so inconsequential as to be unworthy of police and sheriffs' attention." He's right. How, indeed, can the existence of a sanctuary law do anything but attract illegal immigrants to our state?
The purpose of immigration law is to protect our nation's sovereignty— our right to self-determination as a free, autonomous people. That sovereignty is undermined when foreign peoples are permitted to violate that law on a routine basis. And it is undermined even more when state and local governments — like Oregon's — purposely thwart that law with policies that give safe haven to those who break it.
To conceal their unlawful presence, illegal immigrants routinely commit identity theft and other crimes that wreak havoc on innocent Oregonians — crimes, notes Sheriff Bergin, that "are well within local police and sheriffs' purview." But thanks to the sanctuary law, the very fact that illegal immigrants are here illegally is what can render them off-limits to further scrutiny. What kind of warped, Alice-in-Wonderland logic is this?
Restore respect for law, for sovereignty — and for sanity. Vote yes on Measure 105.