Put this under the category “Bound to Happen”, as two separate liberal activists “happen” to announce separate, individual plans of seeking Sanctuary City status in their respective Eastern Iowa cities of Iowa City and Cedar Rapids . The Cedar Rapids Gazette article reports the motivation of the two movements being different (separate but equal?), but the reasoning is quite obvious (look at any 2010 Congressional Election map): The Liberal leaning Cedar Rapids – Iowa City Corridor will be Iowa’s “Ground Zero” for such Progressive political targeting.
Beyond the Gazette article, let’s just say the “good money’ is on the Iowa City strategy, with Mennonite pastor Karla Stoltzfus Detweiler at the helm. She is, at least, spouting typical Sanctuary City propaganda, with concerns about, “reports of undocumented residents not reporting crime, even when they are the victims, for fear of deportation.” Though the last thing sanctuary status guarantees is open cooperation between police and illegal immigrants, demonstrated in a story from American Thinker about a hit and run case in Austin, TX, where, even after being told the victim was dead, the suspects questioned were “minimally cooperative”, and “in response to specific questions…they cooperated just enough to stay out of trouble. In such cases, it’s a typical reaction”.
But in Cedar Rapids, Marlon Pierre-Antoine, a Haitian-American for Illegal-American justice, is using the ole’ “class struggle” ploy. That’s right, Comrade, put on your red-starred Che beret ’cause Marlon “Guevara” says “The working class cannot win the struggle against the ruling class unless it is united”. Seriously, how many Cedar Rapidian’s will grab the torches and march to the Tree of Five Seasons for the “right” of the CR Police to ignore the law for illegals, but keep enforcing all the others on the rest of us.
Here is a video of our “revolutionary” on another subject, thanks to “State 29” for finding it.
As far as the sanctuary issue is concerned, remember that Hispanics make up 11% of the population, but make up nearly a third of prisoners in the federal prisons. This is not because Hispanics are prone to commit crimes, it is because the United States attracts criminals from Mexico looking for “greener pastures”; opportunities in all areas of crime beyond what they could achieve back home.
So, if the CR – IC Corridor adopts sanctuary status, where Hispanics cannot be questioned like the rest of us, the term “Green pastures of Iowa”, at least in Eastern Iowa, will definitely have another meaning indeed!