Local police protect our borders: local police are finding themselves as the only line of defense against illegal immigration--even as the federal government increasingly strips authority from those same officials.(W. Garrett Chamberlain )

A police car carrying New Ipswich, New Hampshire, Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain and a fellow officer pulled a van over in July 2004 during a routine traffic stop. Inside were nine passengers who openly admitted to being illegal aliens, most from Ecuador. Chamberlain detained the illegals and immediately called the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service for the federal government to begin deportation proceedings. Federal officials told Chamberlain to simply let them go.

"We're 45 minutes north of Boston, it's two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, and the immigration police have no interest in detaining these people long enough to find out who they really are," Chamberlain told the Boston Globe. "It's kind of disheartening, in this post-Sept. 11 world, my guys are out there going the extra step to try to identify people who might be a potential threat to us, and they tell us we have to go ahead and release them." Although President Bush and many senior members of his administration have publicly stated that "everything changed after September 11th," one thing that has not changed is federal indifference toward America's porous border.

While federal officials dither on the issue of securing American borders from terrorists, drug cartels, and common criminals, local police officials have taken the lead with some innovative proposals to deal with the real security problem of unchecked immigration. Chief Chamberlain resolved to be ready the next time he pulled over a group of illegal aliens.

Chamberlain professes not to be an "activist" and says, "I am not against legal immigration.... I don't believe closing the border is the answer. Securing it is."

Chamberlain's opportunity came on April 15, 2005 when he stopped behind a red Ford Explorer with its hazard lights on, on the westbound shoulder of Turnpike Road. Chamberlain's officers asked the driver if he was all right, but he didn't initially respond because he was talking on a cell phone. After some further inquiries, they found that the driver, Jorge Mora Ramirez, was an illegal Mexican immigrant who had several fake identification cards, including a fraudulent Massachusetts driver's license and a Social Security card. The police chief of the tiny town of 4,200 charged Ramirez with "operating without a valid license" and "criminal trespass" under state statutes.

Chamberlain told the Concord Monitor, "We're applying a state law to illegal aliens, instead of federal law, because the federal government refuses to enforce its own laws. Someone needed to bring it, so I brought it."

New Hampshire has a broad trespassing law: "A person is guilty of criminal trespass if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any place." Chamberlain reasoned that if Ramirez had no right to be in the United States, he certainly didn't have the right to be in New Ipswich.