The Arizona Situation
The Arizona Senate passed, and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law, Senate Bill 1070.
This is a state law which makes it illegal to be in the United States illegaly, in Arizona.
This is an attempt by the State of Arizona to usurp Federal Immigration Law.
This will absolutely be struck down by the Supreme Court. Federal law always supercedes state law. Like it or not, the Civil War effectively decided that question.
The main concern is that this new law will give self-promoting, show-boating, rascist ass-hatts like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio free reign to pull over any dark-complexioned person and start grilling them about their citizenship.
They claim that racial profiling cannot take place because the Po Po are only required to inquire about a suspect's citizenship if they are investigating another matter such as a traffic stop. They must have "probable cause".
But guess what? Olie Svenson who retired from the Minneapolis Department of Transportation and moved to Tuscon can call the police and say "Hey der. Hate to bodder you but ders dis Messican mowin' de lawn next door der, and I think he might be one o' dem 'illegal immigrants'. Ya might want to check him out! He looks pretty dark to me!"
Boom! Probable cause. Legitimate citizen report of possible illegal activity. Now the police can go question Olie's Mexican neighbor to if his "papers are in order" without any obligtion to see if Olie's "papers are in order".
That's bullshit.
The United States cannot have 50 different International Immigration Laws.
Can Arizona just make up their own foreign policy? Nope! They don't get to decide who gets into America (of which they are a part). Not their call.
Should The United States shit or get off the pot and decide how they are going to address and ENFORCE immigration on every border (not just the Mexican)? Absofuckinglutely.
If we are going to have a fence between the U.S. and Mexico we should build a fence between the U.S. and Canada. Immigration policy and border enforcement should be consistant, not conditional.
We need a comprehensive immigration policy which applies equally to all borders and is enforced with the same effort.
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8 comments:
Welcome to Arizona: The Police State!
"This is a state law which makes it illegal to be in the United States illegaly..."
I'm a bit confused, and I don't think I'm alone on that based on all the hubbub surrounding this issue. But - and forgive me if I'm stating this simply, and sound like a 'tard - they're here ILLEGALLY, correct? So why is there such a problem with having a law that gives the state more ability to do something about it when they find the illegal activity occurring?
To be clear, I'm not happy with the racial profiling aspect of it all. Not in the least.
It's just the confusion that's getting me. Maybe this was all done in order to make a point to the federal government about how out of hand the issue has gotten in the border states...I really don't know. Because, like you said, it likely won't hold up once it gets to the Supreme Court.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens...as usual.
Faith, that's because there is an immigration law and the border,but the law had been weakened by things like "you can't inquire about the immigration status if...(insert any situation here)".especially relevant when illegals are applying for social services which in border states eats up a lot of city and state budgets.so instead of making a law about rounding up mexicans,which will be struck down, they should've made a law about verifying the status at local schools,SRS,clinics etc,which should be happening anyway.I think the intent is to send the message that in this state illegals will be hassled,they usually move to the next state over.
Faith - Yes, it is illegal to be in the United States without the proper status (citizen, citizen of U.S. Territory, or legally visiting with proper documentation). But this is a Federal Law because only the Federal Government can determine the immigration policy of the United States.
But state, county and local officials do not have the authority to enforce Federal laws. Only Federal law enforcement officals such as border agents, Federal Marshals, FBI, etc can enforce those laws.
Subjects arrested would need to be tried in Federal Court by Federal prosecutors.
Although the Feds are making an effort to guard our SOUTHERN border, once that border is crossed the Feds have shown absolutely no interest in chasing down, arresting, trying and deporting the criminals (let's not sugar coat it. people who commit crimes are criminals.).
So Arizona decided to pass a STATE law that they WOULD have the authority to enforce.
But there are so many ways this law can be abused there is no way it will stand up to close scrutiny.
You can thank our own Republican Nut Job, Krazy Kris Kobach for this entire hot mess. He's the one who wrote this abomination.
I predict that when this goes before the SCOTUS, all 9 Justices will be laughing out loud as they declare it unconstitutional and tell tell Kobach to go back to law school.
Arizona has been begging the federal government to do their job and enforce the law by protecting our borders, but they only make a half-assed attempt. Let's be honest here. The dems want the Hispanic vote and they don't want to upset them. Therefore, we are run over by illegal immigrants and worse, drug and human smugglers. Violence is out of control. Phoenix is the number 2 city in the WORLD for kidnapping, second only to Mexico City. The Mayor of Juarez is so friggin scared to be in his own city, he moved to El Paso, USA.
What Arizona's law has done is force the issue of border security. Maybe now something will be done.
JOOLS - I can't find much to disagree with except this:
"Let's be honest here. The dems want the Hispanic vote and they don't want to upset them. Therefore, we are run over by illegal immigrants and worse, drug and human smugglers."
1. The Dems don't WANT the Hispanic vote, they HAVE the Hispanic vote.
Now, I understand that the Hispanic community is not a monolithic block to be taken for granted.
But for the most part, they will vote for the people who want them here over the folks who don't want them here.
Latinos will form the American majority voting population very soon. If Republicans ever want to be in power again, they need to lure more Hispanic voters than Democrats.
How are they going to do that by taking a hard line against nebulous, hard-to-define-without-profiling "illegal immigrants"?
I don't see anyway that the Republicans can capture the Hispanic vote without losing their conservative, right-wing base.
It's a Lose-Lose situation.
2. Don't lay the reluctance to enforce immigration laws soley on the doorstep of Democrats. Not to put to fine a point on it, but without illegal immigrants, those much-lauded "small business owners" credited with being the backbone of American capitalism wouldn't have anybody to hire.
These "small business owners", a majority of which are conservative Republicans, don't pay a living wage, they don't offer any health benefits and they will fire their employees at the drop of a hat because they aren't unionized and they can!
The only thing that seperates these "small business owners" from slave owners is the patina of legal documents.
The life blood of many of these "small business owners" is illegal immigrants.
The vast majority of the conservative, Republican, right-wing opponents to illegal immigrants RELY on illegal immigrants on a daily basis to replace their roofs, mow their lawns, change their jizz-covered sheets in their 4 star hotel rooms after cheating on their wives with high-priced hookers, landscape their exclusive country club golf courses that exclude minorities, be a nanny to their neglected children, and chimmy down their Lexus dry after a car wash.
"A Day Without a Mexican" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377744/) should be required viewing for anyone chiming in on immigration policy.
I realize full well that the Republicans turned a blind eye to business owners who hired illegal immigrants until Bush relented (and I know he only did this under citizen pressure - not cause he wanted to) and started sending ICE into meat packing plants, etc. Right in my home town a plant operates with illegal immigrants. Why do I know this? ICE has made a couple of trips there and arrested some illegal immigrants with stolen identities. There are Americans working side-by-side the illegals so it's not a job an American won't do. This is a machinery production facility with headquarters in Canada, not a minimum wage sweatshop.
We have some choices to make in this country. Are we sovereign or not? Are our legal immigration policies too harsh and need to be changed? Maybe they are but certainly not as harsh as Mexico's or most of the rest of the world. What are we going to do with the millions of illegals already here?
Right now I don't believe that either party in Washington can fairly answer the above questions or solve the situation fairly because all they care about is where their next $$$ is coming from.
And now I read big sis is going to send drones up and down the Texas border. What? The first thing we need to do is get rid of her.
My fave guys over at Airing of Grievances have a post up about this issue today. I don't know how to tiny URL (that site has never worked for me), but here's the link to the post: http://aofg.blogs.com/the_airing_of_grievances/2010/04/douchehole-with-che-guavara-shirt-alert.html
The writer made two very good points about what the law doen't do. That is:
- Supercede federal immigration law
- Allow state law enforcement to turn over detained illegal immigrants without judicial consent
Just thought those were very good points to be observed on the whole issue.
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