All North Carolinians should be concerned about the arrests of 27 airplane mechanics and repair workers March 7 at Piedmont Triad International Airport at Greensboro. The arrests on immigration charges made a joke of federal efforts to tighten the nation’s security against terrorists.
All of the illegals possessed fake documents, including North Carolina driver’s licenses.
Most Americans don’t think the arrests are a laughing matter. Part of the joke was on the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles, Gov. Mike Easley, and legislators — who continually refuse to tighten the requirements for the issuance of state driver’s licenses. At this late stage of the war on terrorism, their refusals can only be construed as rooted in complicity — ostensibly for the sake of political correctness or political pandering —or in gross negligence.
The workers either worked for TIMCO or were clients of a labor broker who supplies the aircraft maintenance company. Incredibly, they worked in supposedly secure parts of the airport where a terrorist strike could be carried out. They came to America from Chile, Laos, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Sudan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
Authorities said none of the immigrants was a terrorist. Is that statement supposed to make us feel safer? The point is, it would have been simple enough for any terrorist to have slipped among the workers’ ranks and sabotaged or hijacked a passenger jet.
Seven of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had fraudulently obtained driver’s licenses in Virginia. North Carolina’s lax licensing law makes the state a haven for illegal immigrants and poses a threat to the nation.
Now a new study comes along, by the Pew Hispanic Center, that says North Carolina’s illegal immigration population grew to an alarming 300,000 in 2004. That gives the state the eighth-largest population of undocumented immigrants in the nation, the study says. The increase of 43 percent from 2000 to 2004 was nearly twice the rate of the nation as a whole, the study says.
Wayne Hurder, director of driver’s license certification at NCDMV, agrees with Latino activists who say the state would only worsen the problem if it cracked down on illegal immigrants. The illegals would be more of a hazard, Hurder said, because they would drive without being licensed.
Hurder’s line of reasoning would make even Daffy Duck scratch his head. Why should anyone bother to apply for a driver’s license if DMV officials feel that way? Anyone could drive without a license and worry not a second that he would be caught. Why should North Carolina bother to enforce any of its laws?
Supposedly President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox are working on federal measures to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
In North Carolina, three bills that would prevent illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses had been filed in the General Assembly as early as January and as late as March 3. All three lie dormant in committees.
What will it take before North Carolina officials break the logjam and do something about illegal immigration? Or will it be too late?
Richard C. Wagner is the editor of Carolina Journal.