By Bill Johnson
The Denver Post
12/11/2009
Here is a concept: What is right can still be wrong. I think it goes back to the way I was raised.
You likely know nothing of the case of Estrella Jacquez-Quiroz. It likely will not surprise you, either, that a jury took only a couple of hours Tuesday to convict the Longmont woman.
The baseline story is a familiar one. The woman, now 26, was brought to the U.S. from Mexico by her family about 10 years ago. She enrolled in and graduated from Fairview High in Boulder.
She becomes pregnant and has a son. What does she do?
She goes out and gets not one, but two jobs, "to provide a better life for her baby," her public defender, Matthew Connell, would later say.
And then came the very familiar part of the story: You cannot get a job without a Social Security number, and you for sure cannot get a Social Security number if you are a citizen of another country.
On the witness stand, Jacquez-Quiroz testified she hadn't the money to go down the proper legal avenues to become a citizen. There was a baby to feed. So she bought a fake Social Security card.
Her employers never bothered to check, simply telling her to get to work.
The woman broke the law. No way for a jury to get around that. It convicted her on two felony counts, criminal impersonation and possession of a forged document.
The judge gave her 90 days of probation, forgoing any jail time because this woman — obviously a clear, deep and present danger to our republic — had already spent 105 days behind bars.
Yes, 105 days in jail.
To rid us of this threat, Jacquez-Quiroz has been handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings.
All of the above, no question, is legally proper. So why does it reek to me of unfairness? Maybe it is just me.
There must be a better way.
She was not rounded up in some big ICE raid. A busybody on her street called police to complain that Jacquez-Quiroz's now-8-year- old boy was walking the couple of blocks from her home to his third-grade class alone.
The cops waved away that nonsense but upon further investigation discovered Jacquez- Quiroz was in the country illegally and working with a fake ID.
The illegal-immigration crackdown nuts on their radio shows and in their living rooms are cheering what is happening to Jacquez-Quiroz. As if it were moral, much less that it actually means anything.
The immigration-reform story I could really get behind is one that does not end with her arrest, but the arrest of those who employed her.
If they did not know about Jacquez-Quiroz, they did not want to know.
We could end illegal immigration in this country tomorrow if the same cops who slammed the cell door on her immediately started going after those who employed her.
Let them defend themselves before a judge and a jury.
But that will never happen. Not in this country, where finding cheap labor and making a profit is king, where a person's legal status is all wink-wink and "Get to work."
When the cops do arrive, of course, it is all: "I didn't know! I was hoodwinked!"
The American way is they all go unpunished and on their merry way, letting it be known there is an opening for Jacquez-Quiroz's old job.
You tell me: Whom do you think they are going to get?
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13973579#ixzz0Zav4rSHm
