What price the rule of law? The BBC has a story that few others are telling:
The US city of Baltimore is turning to immigrants to help reverse its dwindling population.
While several states and cities across the US have instituted strict and sometimes controversial laws – particularly aimed at undocumented aliens – Baltimore is actively inviting immigrant families to settle here without questioning how they came into the country.
Critics question whether the policy will encourage illegal immigrants to flock to the city.
The answer to that seems pretty obvious to anyone but the most wilfully myopic. From NBC:
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has told Latinos that they are critical to meeting her goal of reversing the city’s population decline. The city’s population peaked at 950,000 in 1950 and has been declining for decades. The most recent census estimates pegged its population at 650,000, the Post reported.
In March, Rawlings-Blake signed an order prohibiting police and social agencies from asking anyone about immigration status. The order also says no city funds, resources, or personnel shall be used to investigate or arrest people solely for a civil violation of federal immigration law. And it asks U.S. immigration agents to tell people they arrest that they are from the federal government, not the city.
Those who want to introduce voter-ID regulations, tighten up checks on employers, and ensure that the states are not flagrantly violating federal immigration law? Paranoid racists.