Thumbs up for strike force

Our position on illegal immigration has not always been popular, but it has been consistent: Find a pathway for decent folks to stay and work here, but purge society of the thugs and felons who contaminate it.

That's why we offer high praise to the state Secure Strike Force headed up by Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The strike force — a band of eight — has confiscated everything from dental tools to drugs in its four months of existence. Some 76 violent gang members are now gone from Utah streets.

The Utah state Legislature created the strike force and funded it with $1.8 million in stimulus money. The project is slated to run for two years. It has been so successful it is being praised not only by law enforcement officials and lawmakers, but by law-abiding undocumented families who fear the wrath of drug and weapons dealers as much as anyone.

Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, who sponsored the legislation, says he will look for ways to fund it after the initial seed money is gone.

We hope he finds a way.

When it comes to labels and people, there is no "one size fits all." The term "undocumented" covers the same variety of individuals — with various goals and attitudes — that can be found in any group of American citizens.

Instead of simply dumping out the barrel of apples because of the bad ones, we congratulate Shurtleff and others for using a surgeon's touch in slicing away the diseased portion of immigrant society and leaving the hardworking and honest alone.

It is the kind of approach we'd like to see more in other aspects of our world — that ability to discern between the positive and negative elements of a group. It's all too easy to lump an entire segment of society under the heading "undesirable" and treat them en masse.

But that's the way despots go about it.

People in a democratic country must learn to see others — ultimately — as individuals.

Given that, we'd like to see more money go to the Secure Strike Force. Kick out the crooks.

And we'd like to see more people think in a case-by-case manner, as the people behind the project have been so adept at doing.