I was able to contact Mayor Steve Womack's Assistant, Wendy Shumate about the situation in Rogers. I called the office by phone after several emails. There were stories that he may or may not make the illegal immigration control proposal at the last city council meeting. The Mayor decided to have 6 officers of the Rogers Police Department take part in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program, which provides state and local law enforcement with training and authorization to identify, process and, if needed, detain illegal immigrants. As part of that process, the mayor wrote a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Julie Myers asking to approve the training for the six Rogers police officers. According to Shumate, there are over 50 towns across America passing similar legistlation. She also states that there has been overwhealming support for Womack's actions.
As usual, the biggest objection to the mayor's effort to control illegal immigration is that it is racist. This is of course the same worthless claims made by defenders of welfare fraud, racial quotas, and other leftist agendas.
Martin Montes, a Rogers resident, suggested the city not take such drastic action that might ignite racial tension in the city. Instead, he said, the city should "promote understanding" and "proactive discussion." He also encouraged the city to address specific problems by cleaning up neighborhoods, enforcing parking regulations and other code enforcement issues.
Don Bland, representing Just Communities of Northwest Arkansas, which he said had "a mission of promoting understanding and respect between all people," encouraged positive and collective solutions to the immigration issue. His organization is planning what he called "dialogue for solutions" meetings soon and will provide a report to the city by the first of the year on the results of those discussions.
Manny Gomez, representing the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, encouraged city leaders to sit down with diverse groups in the city and come up with solutions to the problems rather than training police officers in immigration law.
Ann Baker of Rogers said she voted for Womack because he pledged to do something about illegal immigration when he ran for office. Baker said those here illegally have "no commitment to this community, to this state, to this country."
The next city council meeting will be at 11/28 at around 7:30pm. You can see some of the public comments made at the last city council meeting by citizens of Rogers at this link:
"http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2006/11/16/
news/111506rzrogerscouncil.txt"
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Also, Keep Arkansas Legal will have a meeting Saturday 3:00pm at Bobbie Warner's house: 17000 Lawson Road, Little Rock. We will discuss what to do about the Mexican Consulate in Little Rock as well as what we can do in Rogers, Arkansas. We'll also have various stories and plan how we can stop illegal immigration legistlation in the democrat dominated governments.
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