But in Cook County, Ill., county board President Toni Preckwinkle is standing by her guns, insisting that county officials didn't screw up when they implemented a new policy saying that Cook County Jail officials will not automatically make calls to Immigration and Customs Enforcement so that a hold can be placed on any inmates who may also have questionable immigration status.
SHE HAS BEEN coming under fire recently for a case involving a Mexican citizen involved in an auto accident that killed a man. The inmate had bond set, and was able to post it -- allowing him to be free while charges were pending. But he's not showing up to court anymore, and there is evidence that he skipped out of the country.
Which may please the nativist element of our society in the sense that a Mexican went back home. But they were more interested to vent in a "law and order" fashion and punish him severely -- perhaps even more harshly because he was a "foreigner."
Preckwinkle says that the case doesn't justify flawed cooperation with Immgration, and that county officials aren't going to be pressured into giving in just because the xenophobic element of our society knows how to scream at a particularly loud decibel level.
Anyone wanting to know more about this moment of political "courage" by an elected official (which truly is rare) should read the relevant commentary published at this site's sister weblog, the Chicago Argus.
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