Tom Justice

Lock Haven

On July 21, our city council was set to hear a proposal making Lock Haven a “sanctuary city.” Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed, and the measure was withdrawn. Citizens should reflect on what was to be proposed. What were people thinking?

From a legal standpoint any “sanctuary” designation is a clear violation of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “the Laws of the United States…shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” All elected officials in PA and other states have taken an oath to “support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States” and all U.S. laws enacted under it. Any “sanctuary” statute is, therefore, unconstitutional.

This question, of course, has risen before. Have people forgotten?

In September, 1957 the Democrat governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, defied the U.S. Supreme Court and federal integration laws, and blocked black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. What was the federal response? President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10730 and sent 1,000 members of the elite 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. With fixed bayonets, the 101st ensured that black students could safely attend school. Integration was peacefully achieved. (Today, no doubt, some would accuse Ike, who defeated Nazi Germany in WWII, of being a “Nazi” or a “dictator” himself, but that is only an indication of how far removed such people are from reality.)

In 1957, local yahoos thought they could provide a sanctuary for racial segregation. They were wrong. Their Democrat forefathers were also wrong in 1860, when they thought they could provide a sanctuary for slavery. We fought a Civil War over that, and the point regarding sovereignty should not have to be made again.

Why, then, was it even contemplated? In answer, we need only ask, “Who would profit?” Who would benefit from sanctuary status and an influx of uneducated, impoverished workers from the Third World? Personal gain, not public benefit. And how does any resident of the Third World hear about Lock Haven to begin with? Answer: Someone is advertising. Someone wants to mine a large population of poor, desperate people for cheap labor. Meanwhile, the American taxpayer is expected to pick up the cost of transportation and resettlement and bear the burden of social dislocation, education and health care as ill-prepared immigrants attempt to assimilate into the most technically advanced society in the world.

That is wrong.

There is a right way to do things: As a coach at LHU, I recruited many foreign athletes. All were thoroughly vetted, and their academic credentials as well as their athletic abilities were thoroughly researched. When they arrived on valid student visas, I picked them up at the airport and drove them to waiting host families, who were great people. No one stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC at $500 a night, on the taxpayer’s dime. I took care of my people.

But I will give an example of one of my athletes who graduated from LHU and got a job in California as a fitness instructor. Her student visa ran out. Well educated, hard-working and law-abiding, her renewal application was denied. She was deported by the Obama administration.

I would simply demand that all immigrants follow the law, as my athletes had to, and that all employers follow the law, as I did. No one is exempt from the law.