Now to be fair, they are simply agreeing with Hillary Clinton, who made the same statement about those who call the authorities about known lawbreakers. And besides, they are only referencing those who call the authorities over those who break laws that the Boston Globe dislikes (except when they can use them to play “gotcha” with a GOP politician).

During a radio debate Tuesday in Iowa, Democratic candidates were even asked whether individual Americans should turn in people they know to be in the country illegally.

Thankfully, the answers were mostly no. Hillary Clinton said turning "every American into a suspicious vigilante" would do grave harm to the fabric of the nation. And in last week's debate, even Romney seemed to agree, asking Giuliani heatedly if he was suggesting that Romney should demand to see immigration papers whenever a person speaks with a "funny accent."
Give these candidates credit for rejecting what would be a civic nightmare. Encouraging individuals to act like border-control vigilantes would create a chaotic flow of true and false charges that could overwhelm immigration officials. The country would end up detaining and deporting thousands of service workers, upending the economy, and creating humanitarian crises for workers' children.

Of course, similar arguments could be made about other crimes. Imagine the disruption of educational and child care services if every child molester were reported, arrested and imprisoned? There would be a crisis! A similar argument could be made about crooked cops and accountants. Even if the person making the report was 100% certain about the facts, the impact upon America would be astounding. Better to let law enforcement find the perpetrators without the amateur vigilantes dropping a dime on lawbreakers – that way it won’t overtax the system. Besides, imagine the humanitarian crisis that would be created for the children of all these lawbreakers if their crimes were properly punished.

Oh, and about that “funny accent” comment. I do believe that recent reporting by the Boston Globe implies that Romney is supposed to do precisely that – demand the immigration papers of any individual who doesn’t speak English perfectly. After all, that is what they did – having spent more time at Romney’s home than Romney has over the last few weeks. And it appears that the Globe has not bothered to reveal the answers to my questions from the other day:

1) Are all three employees actually here illegally?
2) Did they present fraudulent documents or engage in identity theft to get these jobs?
3) Did the employer know that these workers were illegal?

Until we get those answers, we really don’t know if Romney did anything wrong – and we don’t know if Ricardo Saenz was a victim of the illegal workers providing fraudulent documents, or if he knowingly and willfully continued to hire illegal workers after being caught before.

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