Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday to pass a resolution in support of limiting immigration into the country, borrowing wording from a similar resolution Supervisors approved in 1994.
Wendell Peart introduced the draft resolution in early February, and this week said that people who support immigration control are called racists and xenophobes. He said people who are pro-immigration try to “create a sense of guilt” in opponents. Peart said there are “$200 billion in suppressed wages caused by illegal aliens.”
The resolution supported reducing “total legal immigration to 300,000 per year,” similarly approved in the 1994 resolution.
In public comment, Leroy Carlin said he agreed with most of Peart’s resolution, and the Mexican border is “out of control.” Supervisor Brian Oneto agreed, saying he had seen a DVD showing a sign in Arizona, 8 miles from the border, in U.S. territory. The sign warned people to keep away from the area, due to high speed vehicles, drugs and guns.
Oneto said he called a phone number on the sign, and the Department of the Interior answered, and a woman verified that the sign was serious, saying: “we have major issues down here.”
Supervisor Richard Forster said the resolution was pretty much on target, but he believed the original language was better regarding water issues. Peart’s wording noted the “ongoing struggle for more water from Mountain Counties to supply water to the Bay Delta.” Forster said he liked more broad terms. The former resolution’s wording was used, saying that the California “population growth has already outstripped the state’s finite water resources.”
Forster said he was “leery” of supporting a “$1,000 fine a day to the employer for every illegal alien found to be employed.” He said some people think they have hired legal workers, only to find that they had been given forged credentials. Supervisor Brian Oneto said the fine is subjective. He also moved to strike a reference to a “temporary nine month guest worker program.” The program reference was removed, and the $1,000 fine was changed to a “reasonable financial penalty,” wording suggested by Supervisor Louis Boitano.
It was also moved to remove verbiage supporting the securing of “U.S. borders by the employment of all branches of the military in cooperation with the Border Control and all other agencies in said enforcement of the law.” Boitano suggested it be replaced with “whatever means necessary.” Instead, it was replaced with the 1994 resolution wording, which supported securing U.S. borders “through legislative authorization.”
Supervisor Ted Novelli disagreed, saying he is “not a big fan of taking power away from the Governor,” which controls the state’s military Reserves.
Forster, Boitano and Oneto voted in the affirmative, and Novelli and Chairman John Plasse dissented. Plasse said he voted no because he “would like to see the military clause in there.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
