Deporting Sex Offenders Is Not "Immigrant Bashing"

Here at the Curmudgeon, we're not too happy with Virginia's immigrant bashers, particularly those in Prince William County, whose objection appears more to Latinos in general than to whether someone is in the country legally.

But we can't agree with the assessment in today's Washington Post that a program to deport more than 170 immigrants convicted of sex crimes in the Commonwealth somehow "marks another step in Virginia's escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants, part of the broader debate over immigration that has roiled the nation and the presidential campaign." (See "Convicted Va. Sex Offenders Deported.")

Instead, what this program evidences is Virginia's crackdown on sex offenders, which we're all in favor of. We note that not all the deportees are undocumented aliens--some are legal immigrants. In any event, there is nothing wrong with deporting immigrants who are convicted of a sex crime. Indeed, we'd think other immigrants would just as soon see these criminals out of their communities (and we'd bet that many of their victims were other immigrants).

In short, don't label deportation of sex offenders "immigrant bashing."