This may take a minute or two to read please skip this question if reading is hardship for U.Cindy Tracy is not impressed with proposed legislation from Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would make a third conviction for driving while intoxicated a deportable offense for an immigrant.
The man accused of killing her 16-year-old daughter, Kelly, in a November car crash in Gilbert had one prior DUI conviction. He admitted to police that he had been in the country illegally for 14 years.
“Three is way too many,” said Tracy, whose 17-year-old son was also injured in the crash near Guadalupe and Sossaman roads as he and Kelly were on their way to the Gilbert Days Parade as part of Highland High School’s marching band.
“You’re just waiting for him to kill someone or lots of someones,” Tracy said. “It doesn’t take much to kill a person in a car. It’s a weapon if you’re a drunk. I think three strikes and you’re out is way too lenient.”
Flake’s bill would make a third conviction for DUI a deportable offense under federal immigration law. It would apply to both legal and illegal immigrants.
Though the most significant impact of the legislation would be on legal immigrants, Flake couched it as an attempt to toughen laws against people in the country illegally in both a news release and an interview with the Tribune.
“People have a hard time understanding, justifiably so, that this doesn’t have immigration consequences and these people keep coming back,” Flake said Wednesday of multiple DUI convictions. “On its face, it needs to be corrected. This is one that people are justifiably very upset about, and it should be dealt with.”
Being in the country illegally is itself a deportable offense, said Vincent Picard of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix.
However, a Mexican national caught in the country illegally has the option of taking voluntary deportation rather than going through an administrative hearing process. Voluntary deportations do not go on a person’s record. Forced deportations do, and bar that person from legally entering the United States for 10 years, said Picard, stressing he is not familiar with Flake’s proposal.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/134116
