DWI Death Prompts Myrick To Propose Immigration Changes
Source: WRAL.com
Reacting to the death of a North Carolina man in drunken driving accident involving an illegal immigrant, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick on Monday unveiled a proposal that she said would make local police more responsible for tracking illegal immigrants, Myrick said.
Myrick named the “Scott Gardner Act” after the Mount Holly resident killed in an apparent drunken driving wreck July 16 in Brunswick County. Ramiro Gallegos of Mexico, convicted of driving while intoxicated three times but never deported, faces second-degree murder charges in the wreck.
Gardner’s family attended Monday’s news conference but did not speak. Gardner’s wife, Tina, was critically injured and remains hospitalized. Their children, 5-year-old Jackson and 2-year-old Avery, suffered minor injuries.
The legislation would require all state and local law enforcement agencies to report immigration status, deportation orders and failures to appear to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database within 30 days of the incident. Officials would also have to enter all driving while impaired convictions into the database. DWIs, a misdemeanor, would become a deportable offense and judges would have access to national data for better sentencing, Myrick said.
“No more excuses,” Myrick said. “No more endless appeals. You’re drunk. You’re driving. You’re illegal. You’re deported. Period.” [Text continued at site.]
I have news for Rep. Myrick. White males are the most frequent drinkers in our society. Hispanic males are arrested more often than white males for drunken driving[1], but I could not find any statistics differentiating legal immigrants from illegal immigrants. That’s because citizenship status and drunk driving have nothing to do with each other. Drunk driving is caused by having enough drinks to become impaired and then getting behind the wheel of a car. Nothing else.
Scott Gardner was not killed by the driver’s lack of legal status in this country. He was killed because the driver was too drunk to safely operate a motor vehicle.
Rep. Myrick has long seemed to “have it in” for illegal immigrants. Using this situtaion to push that political agenda, however, is a rather sickening red herring. It obscures the real problem in this state, which is that habitual drunken drivers are repeatedly allowed to drive again. The solution to this problem is to crack down on repeat offenders, beginning with making the third offense a felony even if the driver doesn’t cause a fatal crash and ending with real sanctions instead of slaps on the wrist and 90-day license suspensions that can be waived “because I need to drive” far too easily.
[1] Anecdotal evidence I’ve seen suggests that white males in this state are far more likely to be acquitted of a drunken driving charge than Hispanic males. Among some groups of my own acquaintance, a DWI charge is considered little more than a joke.