Anyone requiring further explanation why the Georgia General Assembly adopted its own laws against illegal immigration during the last session of the General Assembly need only to consider the recent nationwide round-up by duly appointed officers with Immigrations and Custom Enforcement. Of the hundreds of nonregistered aliens taken into custody by the federally empowered agency, more than 1,600 had felony convictions.
And that’s just the ones who had the unfortunate luck to get caught. No telling how many others are out there.
The convictions of those picked up this time around were not for minor offenses, understand.
Their crimes included manslaughter, kidnapping, armed robbery and drug trafficking, as well as sexual acts against minors. Of the total captured by ICE, 42 were members of gangs and 151 were sex offenders.
Even more telling and alarming is that more than 600 of those netted by ICE during a roundup that included the Peach State had been ordered to leave the country. Ordered? Come on, they should have been forcibly deported or at least sent back to their native soil under the watchful eyes of immigration officials.
Then again, who knows how well that would have worked. Federal officials say that 386 of the 1,600 caught by ICE were criminals who actually had been deported.
Men, women and children who are in Glynn and the state’s other 158 counties legally should not have to wait until ICE decides to make a move to clean house, an operation that barely skims the surface of the number of illegals actually in this country. States, in the absence of federal action or concern, should be allowed to do what is necessary to protect the law-abiding from convicted and dangerous felons, people who are not even supposed to be here.
In this country, citizens have a right to protect themselves. So do states.

— Online: www.thebrunswicknews.com