Illegal Aliens: Why “Deported” Should Mean “Deported”

From Front Page Milwaukee, student paper at UWM, a dandy piece of investigative reporting.

One hundred eighty eight previously deported felons identified as illegal immigrants by federal and local officials were booked into the Milwaukee County Jail on new criminal charges, municipal violations, and other violations in the past four years, a three-month Frontpage Milwaukee investigation found.

Many of the previously deported felons have a long history of police contact. For instance, Osvaldo “Shootout” Lares had at least 19 interactions with law enforcement officials for crimes involving drug possession, weapon charges, murder, and traffic violations. Some on the list are gang members.

On Nov. 11, 2004, when the Milwaukee police came to arrest Lares on the charge of Attempted Homicide, they found $1,465 and marijuana in a shoebox. The criminal complaint also reports that marijuana was found in a plastic baggie hidden within a white sneaker. Lares was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to the House of Correction for 9 months. In a criminal complaint filed Nov. 5, 2004, Lares told police that he was a former member of the Mexican Posse gang, which represents Southern Mexico on the south side of Milwaukee.

In total, the felons had at least approximately 388 contacts with police and have been charged with at least 497 offenses dating back in some cases to 1986. The number of past law enforcement contacts is almost surely higher since the tallies only include those that resulted in criminal charges or non-municipal issued traffic offenses.

In addition, about nine previously deported felons have reoffended yet again after the federal detain holds were placed on them by the Milwaukee County jail, the Frontpage Milwaukee student journalists found.

Alfredo Rebollo is one example. Having already racked up 11 contacts with police for traffic violations, driving while his license was suspended, and reckless driving, a federal detain order was placed on him in 2005 for soliciting a prostitute. The criminal complaint states that Rebollo offered to pay a female $20 for oral sex. Though the detain order was placed on him in 2005, in October 2007, he was arrested for parking or standing in a prohibited area and his third offense of driving with a suspended license. He was fined. It is not clear if he was deported in 2005 and reentered the United States, or if he never left Wisconsin.

Of the cases involving deported felons who landed back in jail:

• The criminals were in contact with the police at least 388 times prior to their federal detain holds
• The criminals were charged with 59 violent crimes, and six were sex offenders
• At least 52 were granted bail, 19 received work release in their sentencing, 23 were ordered to obtain work, 13 were told not to vote, 25 had their driver’s licenses suspended, 22 were ordered not to possess firearms or weapons, and three were ordered to have the Ignition Interlock system installed in their cars
• 14 used state taxpayer-funded public defenders, and 61 used translators

None of this is to suggest that Mexican immigrants -- or even illegal immigrants -- are criminals. The data simply don’t support that.

But when people violate U.S. laws, in addition to violating the immigration laws, they should be deported.

And they should stay deported.

Which is why the very first step toward reforming immigration policy is to control the border. When that is done, other problems tend to fall into line. For example, in five or seven or nine years, when all the illegal immigrants in the country have been here for that many years-- mostly working and obeying the law-- a humane “path to citizenship” will be politically possible.

But failure to control the border will undermine anything and everything else about immigration policy.

New Blog Roll Entry: Taking a Sharp Right

From UWM student and frequent writer for Frontpage Milwaukee Rebecca Kontowicz, a blog called Taking a Sharp Right.

Two recent posts of great interest:

• An account of how homosexual city workers in Oakland, California, got official city recognition and used the city e-mail system to promote “National Coming Out Day,” among other things. When a Christian group of city employees put up fliers opposing “all views which seek to redefine the natural family and marriage” a lesbian worker claimed this was discriminatory, and that she felt “excluded” and “targeted.” A court sided with the lesbian, although the Supreme Court may take this up, and hopefully overturn the decision. It is apparently alright to target and exclude Christians, but don’t you dare say anything that homosexuals object to!
  
  What we have here, quite simply, is an attempt by liberals to define as “discriminatory” the expression of any political opinion of which they disapprove.
  
  
• A new Federal policy calls for the removal of religious books from Federal prisons. Not all books, but the number available is now strictly limited. The policy is apparently aimed at radical Islamic texts that might incite violence on the part of inmates. Kontowicz approves of the policy, which we think is very shortsighted.

This is clearly a blog to watch.

Front Page Milwaukee Scoops Journal-Sentinel on Recruitment Center Investigation

When anti-war activists demonstrated in Milwaukee, some of them vandalized the Army Recruitment Center on Oakland Avenue near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Federal authorities are now investigating the incident, which might involve a violation of Federal law.

Just yesterday, Front Page Milwaukee, the web-only newspaper published in the Journalism Department at UWM, broke the story. Their article went online at 3:00 p.m.

The Journal-Sentinel finally got a Regional News Brief on the issue posted at about 9:00 p.m.

It seems the student journalists at UWM are ahead of the monopoly dead tree outlet yet again, just as the blogosphere was ahead of the paper in reporting the offensive comments of Michael McGee, Sr.

Upstart Student Media: Getting Recognition

Day before yesterday, we posted about how “upstart” student media in Milwaukee have been making some waves.

Yesterday morning, we got our regular e-mail from Milwaukee Magazine announcing Bruce Murphy’s current column.

Murphy’s lead story is about the fact that the crime rate at Southridge Mall is in fact lower than the crime rate at Mayfair -- which has been getting a lot of bad publicity in the wake of several incidents.

Murphy credits Front Page Milwaukee, one of the student outlets we blogged about, for breaking the story.

The idea for the story came from Jessica McBride, Faculty Advisor of the online newspaper. Matt Hrodey, the author, followed up and got the facts.

So we have a student journalist, writing an article for a brand new online-only outlet, which gets picked up by a mainstream (if local) glossy magazine.

Upstart Student Media: Kicking Some Butt

College journalism has long been dominated by rather staid, official publications, subsidized by universities and often under the control of journalism faculty or administrators.

But lately, two “upstart” student media outlets have been making some waves.

We are talking about, of course The Warrior (right here at Marquette) and Front Page Milwaukee (over at UWM).

The two publications are quite different. Indeed, about all they have in common is that they show what some journalistic enterprise, outside the confines of traditional outlets, can accomplish.

Front Page Milwaukee

One could argue that Front Page Milwaukee is actually a sort of “official” publication, since Journalism Department Lecturer Jessica McBride is the Faculty Supervisor, and appears to have quite a lot of say about what’s in the publication.

But McBride, a former Journal-Sentinel reporter, is also a conservative, has a radio talk show on WTMJ radio, and is critical of the mainstream media. Not, in other words, your typical journalism professor.

Many of the stories are written in McBride’s journalism classes, and others are independent submissions to her.

Front Page Milwaukee goes after “scoops” and exposés, and the very young publication has gotten an impressive number.

• The paper revealed a series of highly questionable expenditures by local school districts.
• It exposed the fact that numerous Milwaukee police officers have criminal records.
• It broke the story when a robbery near the campus resulted in an e-mail to all students. With the suspect at large, several details of his appearance were listed, but not the one that would have been most effective in helping identify him: his race.
• Along similar lines, when an entire crew of robbers accosted five people in the campus neighborhood, the Journal-Sentinel refused to list their race. Again, these were suspects still at large, whom citizens needed to be on the lookout for.
• At a time when reports of crime at the Mayfair Mall were occupying the local media, Front Page Milwaukee reported that Southridge Mall actually has a much higher crime rate.

Being in McBride’s journalism classes must be an exciting experience. Do a really good piece of investigative reporting, and your story will appear on the web, be talked about by Charlie Sykes and McBride herself, and echo across the blogosphere.

The Warrior

The Warrior is in may ways a lot more conventional than Front Page Milwaukee. It has a print edition, and a web site that essentially mirrors the print edition. It specializes not in “scoops” but in in-depth reporting of campus events, front-page feature stories of interesting people at Marquette, and political commentary. Of course there is the usual student newspaper coverage of food, entertainment and the arts -- as the undergraduate culture defines these things.

But it’s not just a clone of the official Marquette Tribune. Perhaps the most significant difference between it and the Tribune is the paucity of journalism majors on the staff.

Listing all the majors represented, we see Journalism/Political Science, English, Marketing / Operations Supply Chain, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Science, Broadcast & Electronic Communication, Advertising, Biomedical Sciences, Public Relations, Spanish Language & Literature, Pre-Law/History, Computer science/ Theology, Law School, International affairs, English literature, Civil engineering, Accounting, Finance, Studio Art.

A listing of majors supplied by Editor Diana Sroka shows a majority of the staff not to be journalism majors.

Just what sort of journalism can these dilettantes produce?

When the Milwaukee Press Club handed out their 2006 journalism awards, The Warrior won four in the Collegiate category -- twice as many as any other student paper in Wisconsin.

This doesn’t automatically make The Warrior better than the Marquette Tribune (which won two). Newspapers, like major league batters, have great years and not so great years.

(The Tribune won several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, but The Warrior wasn’t eligible for any awards from either of these groups, in the former case because they haven’t paid the expensive membership fee, and in the latter because they are not the official school paper. But where they competed head-to-head, The Warrior won more awards.)

Further, The Warrior has a history of being ahead of the Tribune in certain ways. The Warrior started running feature stories, accompanied by large color photos on the front page, before the Tribune moved in the same direction.

At a minimum, the upstart paper is a challenge to the guild mentality of mainstream journalism. It seems you don’t have to be a journalism major, don’t have to identify with the mainstream media and don’t have to have liberal political opinions to produce good journalism.

Getting Competitive

Saying that The Warrior is a bit “conventional” isn’t to say that it lacks competitive drive.

On Monday, January 29, The Warrior rushed the web version of the paper online to “scoop” the Tribune (which was coming out the following day) on two stories: the rejection of Students for Academic Freedom by Office of Student Development bureaucrats, and the decision to perform “The Vagina Monologues” on campus.

Normally, the web version of The Warrior would have appeared online on Tuesday evening, before the paper hit the streets on Wednesday.

The following week, we talked to Tribune Editor Ryan Nilsson, and he disclaimed any concern with competitive pressures. He insisted that the Tribune staff “don’t play games of scoopsmanship or one-upsmanship” and that getting beaten on a story is “not something I worry about” and that his staff was “not checking the Warrior website every two minutes.” He was more concerned, he said, that there “weren’t any inaccuracies” in material run in the Tribune.

But other sources suggest that at least some Tribune staffers were more interested in what The Warrior was doing than Nilsson suggests.

On the Monday night in question, the Tribune was apparently checking The Warrior website regularly, since a Tribune staffer e-mailed comments to Diana Sroka by 1:45 a.m.

On a different issue, when The Warrior was the first campus paper to report the retirement of Athletic Director Bill Cords, one Tribune staffer told Sroka “they were all wondering” how The Warrior got the story so fast.

However the Tribune scooped The Warrior on the “Vagina Monologues” story -- getting confirmation from the Administration before The Warrior got their calls returned.

The advertising department at the Tribune apparently feels the competition too. They appear to routinely e-mail a solicitation to advertisers whose ads appear in The Warrior. Our colleague McGee Young got such an e-mail after placing a free notice about the Truman Scholarships competition in The Warrior.

Conclusion

In their hearts of hearts, people who are in -- and identify with -- the mainstream media like to inhabit a cozy monopoly. After all, they think they know what is important and what is not. They think they know how events should be interpreted. They are fully convinced they know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

Their Golden Age was during the 60s, 70s and early 80s, when a single newspaper dominated most markets. On TV, ABC, CBS and NBC presented a pretty uniform picture of what was happening in the world. There were no bloggers. Talk radio wasn’t much of a force.

But things have changed.

Mainstream media types have been distinctly grumpy about having their monopoly challenged. Their attitude toward conservative talk radio has ranged from contempt to downright detestation. They don’t much like independent bloggers (even while starting their own corporate blogs). They hate Fox News.

But they can’t have the old days back.

Given this fact, it’s part of a journalist’s college education to have to work in an environment where there are pesky competitors.

Or, with The Warrior or Front Page Milwaukee, to be the pesky competitors.

Online Newspaper at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

We passed on posting about the first issue, but it now has to be noticed.

Front Page Milwaukee is an online project of journalism students at UWM, and the Faculty Supervisor is Jessica McBride, blogger and talk show host on WTMJ.

McBride explains:

I am the editor-in-chief of this paper, which is produced by students at UW-Milwaukee’s Journalism and Mass Communication Department. Many of the stories and columns are produced in classes. The paper launched today. The goal of the paper is to enrich the public debate by providing stories that aren’t being told elsewhere. The paper also will offer a rich mixture of opinion voices. You can find everything from liberal to conservative voices in this paper, and everything in between.

Our first response is “wait a minute, this isn’t a student paper!”

Our second thought is: “students do reporting for journalism classes, why shouldn’t their work appear on the web?”

We have served as a source for countless reporting assignments in Marquette journalism classes which never appeared in any public venue. Some of this probably resulted in “C” grades -- so nothing was lost. But some probably deserved a wider audience.

The UWM journalism students appear to have done some pretty decent muckraking in their first two issues, revealing quite questionable spending by local school districts, and the criminal records of Milwaukee city cops.

The web-only format is clearly the wave of the future, given that the circulation of print newspapers is steadily declining, while the readership of the web (including the web sites of traditional papers) is headed upward.

When Marquette students founded The Warrior, they chose to go with the now-traditional pattern of a print newspaper with an online version essentially identical to the print edition. This certainly has advantages. But web technology has radically reduced barriers to entry in journalistic enterprises.

Are there faculty or students at Marquette who should follow the lead of the public university across town?