Dunphy vs. Navarette: Should local cops enforce immigration law?

First of all, Mr. Navarette has erected and attacked a straw man, for neither in the Pajamas Media column to which he responded nor in any of my National Review Online columns on the subject of illegal immigration (here, here, and here) have I advocated for the notion that local police officers should conduct the type of mass roundup he describes in his piece. Rather, I simply argue that once an illegal immigrant has, through some misdeed beyond unlawful entry into the country, found himself in the clutches of local police officers, it seems entirely reasonable that he should be deported upon completion of whatever sentence he might serve on the local charge. Had such a system been in place and consistently applied in Los Angeles last year, Pedro Espinoza would have been deported to Mexico upon completion of his county jail sentence. Instead, he was set free to roam the streets of Los Angeles where, the day after his release, he allegedly shot and killed Jamiel Shaw.