Maybe they do need their stinking badges

The People's Republic of Sonoma County have figured out a novel way of getting around those pesky immigration laws.

In Sonoma County, a California driver's license is accepted as valid identification -- but so is a card issued by the Mexican consulate.

Mexican nationals will be able to give their country's state-issued identification cards as valid ID to Santa Rosa police officers and Sonoma County sheriffs, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported.

The idea is to reduce the immigration-related duties of local cops, the newspaper reported. Accepting Mexican consulate-issued cards will reduce the number of people booked into jail for lacking ID, and ergo, will reduce deportations from Santa Rosa County Jail, the newspaper reported.

"Today is a great day," Sonoma County Assistant Sheriff Lorenzo Dueñas said. "We're now going to accept the matriculár consular ID."

Yaaaaaay....

So, we assume the logic employed here is that the sheriff's force can spend more time catching the bad guys, right? Everyone's cool with that, right?

Advocates for immigrants point out that almost half of the 921 immigrants turned over to ICE authorities by the jails had not committed a crime, and another third had committed minor offenses, the newspaper reported.

Talk about turning the half-full glass on its head - that has to be one of the most fantastically-written paragraphs we have come across in some time. We'll go to our graves trying to figure out just how it is that a demographic of which over 50% has committed a crime will now be out on the street because they carry a foreign ID can be touted as a positive public policy/safety development.

Besides, shipping out crime-committing illegals can be such a drag for.... Mexico...

... warning: high irony content ahead...

After Arizona passed a mandatory E-Verify law in 2007, lots of illegal aliens left the state and headed back across the border. Mexican officials were outraged at the burdens imposed on them by these immigrants:

A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to say Arizona’s new employer sanctions law will have a devastating effect on the Mexican state.

At a news conference, the legislators said Sonora – Arizona’s southern neighbor, made up of mostly small towns – cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers here return to their hometowns without jobs or money.

Stings like a bitch, don't it?

The news items above give a full representation of why the whole comprehensive immigration reform debate is such a colossal waste of time: on one hand, you have authorities here on this side of the border who not only are not interested in enforcing the law of the land, they actively seek administrative ways to skirt the law of the land, in the name of stopping crime, no less. Additionally, our neighbors to the south are shocked... shocked that we would have the gall to involuntarily oblige their citizens the right of return to the country of their origin.

Given these set of circumstances, how can any pol flapping his gums about comprehensive immigration reform be taken seriously?