Marshal Plan Faulty Analogy

This is the Op-Ed that both the L.A. Daily News and the L.A. Times refused to publish.

- By Hal Netkin

In 2006, the Advancement Project, a consulting firm was hired by Los Angeles to make a study on the causes and remedies to the city's gang problem. According to project director Constance "Connie" Rice, whose report was completed in January, 2007, Los Angeles' gang problem is so big, so pervasive and so dangerous that nothing short of a "Marshall Plan" can correct it.

In 1947 following the Second World War defeat of Nazi Germany two years earlier, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed the plan which was later implemented known as the "Marshall Plan."

The Marshall Plan analogy is flawed. What Rice misses is that the Marshall Plan was not a strategy to win the war. It was a plan to aid war torn Europe in recovering from economic chaos and poverty after Germany's defeat.

No costly Marshall-like recovery plan will by itself significantly reduce L.A.'s ongoing gang crime unless gang crime is first contained in the "here and now" -- and that can't be done without addressing the effect of illegal immigration on gang membership. This does not mean that Rice's recommendations should be ignored, but if this is a question of public safety, gang members should be removed from our society now by any legal means.

According to a 2003 report by Senator Dianne Feinstein (Combating the Spread of Gang Violence), "membership in the 18th Street gang is estimated to be 30,000 to 50,000 in California with an estimated 80 percent of the gang's members being illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America." Extrapolating these figures, there is strong reason to believe that out of the 21,882 Hispanic gang members reported on the LAPD's website, there are over 17,000 deportable gang members in Los Angeles alone.

Worse than Rice's omission of illegal immigrant gang membership in her 131 page report , is her omission of the reasons they are here in such large numbers in the first place. She failed to show how Los Angeles leaders virtually extend an invitation to alien criminals to come to L.A.

Of course it is not against the law to be a gang member, but we can all agree that gang members are predisposed to committing crime. That's why City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has court ordered injunctions on gang members who are not even charged with any crime. But unfortunately, Delgadillo opposes cooperation with the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- formerly INS).

In June of 2002, Delgadillo announced that should the Bush Administration ask local governments to help enforce federal immigration law, L.A. wouldn't cooperate. And according to a 2003 news Report, the city council (which at the time included now Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa), voted 13 to 0 for ex-cop Councilman Dennis Zine to go to Washington to lobby against HR2671, the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act (known as the "CLEAR" act). The act, if it would have been made into law, would have withheld federal funds if Los Angeles refused to cooperate with the federal government in identifying and deporting illegal alien criminals and gang members (and terrorists masquerading as illegal aliens). If the council were really concerned about gang crime, it should have lobbied the feds in favor of the CLEAR act!

Leading the list of the city's invitation to alien criminals, is Special Order 40.

Special Order 40, is not a law. It is a police mandate that originated in 1979 by former Police Chief Darryl Gates at the behest of the L.A. City Council to prevent police from randomly inquiring about the immigration status of anyone including gang member suspects who are not charged with any crime. The LAPD argues that without Special Order 40, innocent undocumented immigrant witnesses and victims would lose the trust of the LAPD and would not report crimes for fear of being deported. While this policy may put "law abiding illegal immigrants" at ease, it serves more as a free "don't get deported" pass for illegal alien gang members. But if the LAPD is worried about the immigrant community's trust, Police Chief William Bratton can modify Special Order 40 so it applies only to Victims and Witnesses -- but not to gang members.

But Police Chief William Bratton doesn't see it that way. At a town hall meeting in Encino on December 16, 2002, I asked Bratton why he didn't repeal Special Order 40. He replied that the city council wanted it and he could work around it.

When a caller to the Ken Minyard Show on KABC-Radio on August 23, 2003 referring to Special Order 40 said to Chief Bratton who was a guest on the show, "They're here illegally -- his (Bratton's) job is to uphold the law," Chief Bratton replied: "In as much as California has pretty much indicated that they don't want us involved in that issue, we're out of that business. If you don't like it leave the state."

Second on the city's list of invitations to alien criminals, is the city's official recognition of foreign consular identification cards.

In March of 2004, then Mayor Hahn signed the " Foreign Consulate Identification Cards" ordinance making into law L.A.'s official recognition of foreign consular identification cards including the Mexican Matricula Consular ID. These sham IDs do not have a fingerprint requirement nor is there any criminal background check done on the card's holder by either the LAPD or the Mexican Consulate. There is absolutely no way for the LAPD to do a "make" on someone who presents the card, and the Mexican government does not have any history database on Matricula Card holders available to law enforcement agencies. The only persons needing Matricula IDs are those in the U.S. illegally. The IDs allow illegals who are already gang members, criminals and deadbeat dads in their own country to come to L.A. to be rewarded with a new identity and clean record making them untraceable.

It seems that over the last 20 years, L.A.'s leaders have tried nearly every anti-gang remedy except cooperation with the federal government; which would rid L.A. of a significant amount of its gang members overnight. With mounting pressure to do something about L.A.'s gang problem, the city council has passed the tax payers' bucks to Connie Rice with the comfort of knowing that if they ever funded her "Marshall plan" that any future failure to halt gang crime could be blamed on her.

Of course Connie Rice may never have to admit failure because she knows that L.A. cannot afford to bankroll her "Marshall Plan".

Learn More about Special Order 40

Learn More about the Mexican Matricular Consular ID

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Connie Rice's Marshall Plan for Los Angeles