April 28, 2008

Is U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie a corruption supporter? (downplays illegal immigration then "clarifies" remarks)

From this:

...U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie [District of New Jersey] surprised many at a Dover [NJ] church public forum [at the First United Methodist Church of Dover] when he said sneaking into the United States is not a criminal act.

"Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime," Christie told more than 60 residents and town officials. "The whole phrase of 'illegal immigrant' connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime."

Being undocumented may be a civil wrong, but it's not a criminal act, Christie said.

"Don't let people make you believe that that's a crime that the U.S. Attorney's Office should be doing something about," he added of entering the country illegally. "It is not."

After touching on the usual topics of his corruption-busting career...

While Christie told the audience it doesn't take a "genius" to see there's a "serious immigration problem" in this country, he stressed an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal unless that person re-enters the country after being deported.

If I had been there, I would have questioned his "corruption-busting" credentials, pointing out that illegal immigration is a multi-billion dollar "industry", with very power forces such as the banking industry trying to profit from money that was earned illegally and with cheap labor employers basically paying off politicians.

He was invited to speak by the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey. Their president (Martin Perez) said this:

"The issue of undocumented people didn't start with the Mexicans, the Colombians and the Guatemalans... It started with the Mayflower -- none of those people had any documents."

Now, Chris Christie's office has released a "clarification" (link), saying in part:

He did not say, nor did he mean, that entering this country through any means other than the appropriate immigration channels is a lawful act. It is not.

The "clarification" needs its own clarification, because while his earlier comments noted that reentering and remaining here after having been deported is in fact a crime, the "clarification" does not.

The first link also alludes to a previous incident with Christie taking the illegal immigration side. In 2007, Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello had called some pro-illegal immigration protesters Marxists and socialists. Christie called that "hyperbole and grandstanding and demagoguery"; the mayor says he was referring to people who had identified themselves as Communists, waving red flags and holding signs that bore socialist slogans.

Christie was appointed by Bush; whether he's just a loose borders hack, on the take for either money or votes, or just doing what his boss wants isn't clear, but it's one of those three.

UPDATE: Cresitello is now calling for Christie to resign. In the report, Rob Jennings notes only first part of the bit above about Marxists, without noting Cresitello's response.

Posted to Immigration2008a at April 28, 2008 01:03 PM