One Brick Short

The web is so tangled that the spider’s getting seasick.

Between knee-jerk federal policies cracking down on undocumented aliens and the right side and knee-jerk local officials providing sanctuary for all undocumented workers on the left side, the American body politic appears to be doing some sort of twisted immigration St. Vitus Dance.

Consider this case involving heavy traffic, an assault weapon and possible gang involvement.

Paul Elias, of the Associated Press, writes about a nasty incident on the streets of San Francisco in which a man, upset about bumper-to-bumper traffic and blocked intersections, took out his trust AK-47 assault rifle and blasted to death three men in a car. Here’s a synopsis of Mr. Elias’s story:

Edwin Ramos has been charged with killing Anthony Bologna, 49, and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, at a city intersection. Bologna and his older son died in the intersection on June 22. His younger son succumbed to his injuries days later, Mr. Elias reports.

As if blasting your neighbor with 7.62 millimeter projectiles at high rates of speed because traffic was going to slow wasn’t bad enough, Ramos suddenly became the poster child for forces opposed to undocumented aliens. It seems Ramos, 21, is an illegal immigrant who managed to avoid deportation despite previous brushes with the law. Police claim Ramos, a native of El Salvador, is a member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Pretty tough, pretty violent hombres.

Ramos has pleaded not guilty. His attorney claims someone in the car with Ramos pulled the trigger. That hasn’t cleared the political storm clouds, however. Thanks to itchy trigger fingers, San Francisco’s liberal politics is on the hotplate because its sanctuary law shields undocumented immigrants from deportation.

The twisted deaths have put pressure on San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris to seek the death penalty against Ramos, although Harris campaigned on an anti-death penalty platform and has never pursued capital punishment during her more than four years in office.

“This case has been charged as a special circumstance case,” making it eligible for the death penalty, spokeswoman Erica Derryck said. “No additional announcement has been made about this aspect of the charging.”

The victims’ family learned that Ramos had been arrested at least three times before the shooting and evaded deportation, largely because of San Francisco’s sanctuary status. The policy, adopted in 1989 prohibits local officials from cooperating with feds deporting illegal immigrants. At one point, the law was interpreted as preventing officials from turning over underage felons, although that changed a couple of months ago.

Ramos was arrested in late March with another man after police discovered a gun used in a double homicide in the car Ramos was driving. The district attorney’s office decided not to file charges against Ramos, and he was released April 2 even though he was in the process of being deported after his application for legal residence was denied, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

San Francisco Sheriff’s Department spokesman Eileen Hirst said jail officials faxed the feds asking if Ramos should remain jailed. Ramos was freed after Hirst said immigration officials didn’t respond. Fed spokesman Timothy Counts said his agency did not receive word of Ramos’ arrest in March. He said the only communication received about Ramos was an “electronic message” from the sheriff’s department three hours after his release.

Nobody’s owning up to the bad.

The case has garnered national attention, Mr. Elias wrote. U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and an anti-immigration group called Californians for Population Stabilization are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to take over, alleging San Francisco authorities have mishandled it.

“Because San Francisco’s political leaders have already demonstrated their willingness to act in flagrant violation of federal law, I do not believe that local judicial institutions can be trusted to fairly try the case or mete out an appropriate punishment,” Tancredo said in a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller hadn’t the foggiest notion regarding Tancredo’s request, but said the attorney general routinely responds privately to such requests.

Naturally, those opposed to undocumented aliens are fitting over the sanctuary policies and calling on cities and communities that have them to give them up. San Francisco says the concept is sound, but it may have been too liberally interpreted.

Here’s how we could resolve this issue: Let the federal government make federal immigration policy.

Of course, that’s too easy. For those who want sanctuary for undocumented workers, go ahead and provide it. Those undocumented workers who commit crimes are prosecuted. If convicted they become illegal aliens and are turned over to federal authorities, jailed or deported or both.

Undocumented workers who live and work hard can be given sanctuary when they report crimes or come in contact with authorities through no fault of their own or for minor infractions.

In reality, not all undocumented aliens are unwanted but neither are all of them welcome.