Rochester Post Bulletin editorial: Leadership needed on immigration

The editorial board of the Post Bulletin weighs in on last Monday's immigration meeting in Austin, and finds little to applaud in State Senator Dick Day's presence at the meeting. In part:

. . .when dialogue ends and people start shouting "The constitution is being taken away from us," or "This is going to be a Third-World country soon," then the potential for accomplishing anything meaningful disappears. And when someone suggests violence and vigilantism be used against illegal immigrants, then it's time for anyone with an iota of sense to denounce such statements and try to steer the conversation toward something constructive. . . .

. . .Clearly, the current immigration "system," such as it is, isn't working. Stronger borders are needed, and we need to identify who is working in the United States, where they're working and how long they've been here. Companies should make every effort to hire workers who are here legally, and the federal government should monitor companies that consistently ignore the law.

But meetings like the one last week do little or nothing to solve the problem. In fact, claims of free speech notwithstanding, it was an embarrassing display.

We asked Sen. Day for his reaction to the event, and it was somewhat mixed. "I get uncomfortable any time people start getting personal," he said regarding the comments to Sylvestry. "If I'd been putting on the meeting, it would have been 40 minutes of explaining the issue. Instead, the people just kind of took over."

Despite that, he said he'd attend such a meeting again and didn't denounce the sentiments that were expressed.

"If anybody thinks this was just a bunch of kooks, they're wrong," he said. "But I would hope that meetings in the future wouldn't be as vigorous."

"Vigorous" might be an overly polite term. . . .

. . . People don't react well when they think their jobs, neighborhoods and way of life are threatened.

But mean-spirited pep rallies will only make things worse.

In a related story, the Austin Daily Herald has published Mayor revises statement on immgration.