We rubbed our eyes in disbelief yesterday when we scanned the Tribune and found Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran appealing for comprehensive immigration reform. For those who don't know much about him, Curran has been under fire from immigrant-rights advocates for years for his shameless fearmongering as he pursued federal deportation powers. Why the sudden change of heart? This line in the article caught our attention (emphasis added):

"It's morally the right thing to do," said Curran, said who faces a tight re-election bid in November in a county that has seen a sharp increase in immigrant voters.

It appears that Curran finally got the message that the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) has been driving home for sometime now: Lake County immigrants vote. Unfortunately for him, those voters might not be so quick to forgive and forget. "The growing Latino electorate dislikes politicians who grandstand about deporting their friends and family members," ICIRR's director Josh Hoyt tells us, "or who act as if every dishwasher is a criminal." But what they may dislike even more, he points out, is how Curran used their own tax dollars to do so.