Illegal Immigration Roundup 080607

This is finally getting some national attention--
"This is going to be my new hobby from now on. I'm going to see what I can do to send every single illegal alien back home."--Bruno Kirchenwitz, ex 7-Eleven employee, who claims to have been fired because of his stance on illegal immigration. Who was responsible for shooting the 7-Eleven?

Police issued an arrest warrant for one of the men, Richard Ramirez, an illegal alien who had been deported before by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Basalt Police Chief Keith Ikeda said the department identified the second man, who is living in Colorado legally, though no warrant is issued for his arrest.

7-Eleven continues to maintain that Kirchenwitz was terminated for violating company policy, not his political views:

"They said that because of an 'egregious customer interaction,' we've decided to terminate you," he said. "My store manager didn't even know. Now they're saying I provoked retaliation that night."

Margaret Chabris, spokeswoman for 7-Eleven, said Mr. Kirchenwitz was fired for breaking company policy the night of the shooting, as well as for "other issues that we learned about as we were going through the process."

"He violated 7-Eleven's non-confrontation policy. He was trained in not confronting customers, in treating customers with respect," Mrs. Chabris said. "It had nothing to do with the First Amendment or immigration or any of those things."

Opposing illegal immigration is a dangerous proposition these days, as the good people at Freedom Folks found out this weekend--and have the broken camera to show for it.

And then there's the dragging deaths Americans won't do, as one defendant claims "mental retardation" and pleads not guilty to murder:

Defense attorneys filed a motion Friday to ask that a man accused of dragging his girlfriend to death behind a truck be classified "mentally retarded."

At Jose Luis Rubi-Nava's arraignment in Douglas County Court he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in the death of 49-year-old Luz Maria Franco Fierros.

Franco Fierros' mangled body was found early Sept. 18 in a quiet subdivision near Castle Rock, 20 miles south of Denver. An autopsy report said she died from strangulation and massive head wounds.

At Friday's arraignment, the defense team asked the judge to classify him as mentally retarded, saying Rubi-Nava has an IQ of 66.

Being given this classification will remove the possibility of being given the death penalty.

And finally, ex-Post columnist Jim Spencer decries the "racism" of denying in-state tuition to students whose parents are here illegally:

Charging citizens and state residents out-of-state tuition because their parents are undocumented “is the academic equivalent of the poll tax. It disenfranchises a certain group of people.”

That doesn't just make the practice wrong. It makes it intolerable.

If American families must provide similar proof of residence in order to qualify for in-state tuition, why should families whose presence in the country is illegal--even if their children are citizens by birth--be given a break that Americans can not also use? David Skaggs, former Democrat Representative and now executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, seeks a clarification from Attorney General John Suthers and plans to seek redress in the state legislature if in-state tuition is not granted to these students.