Re the new Arizona "papers or jail" law: water is wet, the sky is blue...and conservatives lie.

[thatcrazycajun]

As the furor over the newly signed law granting Arizona's local and state law officers power to demand proof of citizenship or legal immigrant status from anyone under "reasonable suspicion," one of the more frequent and tiresome arguments from those on the right defending the policy is that Arizona simply had to act because the federal government, to whom the Constitution assigns the responsibility of securing our borders and controlling immigration, is "doing nothing" or "refuses to act" in the face of thousands of illegal border-crossers defying our national sovereignty and laws by the day.

Even that twerp George Will, who while being annoyingly obtuse, wrong and pretentious usually does not slide over into silliness or extremism, is hopping up on his hind legs here to defend Gov. Janice Brewer's and her legislature's actions on this basis. And this morning our own homegrown radio bloviator Neal Boortz, writing in the local paper, chimed in with the "government refused to act" routine, tossing on the charge that the furor is "fake" and really aimed at turning the Latino voting bloc against the Republican Party as icing on the cake.

Maybe it's just me having known at least a couple dozen Feds personally for decades now and being partnered for life with one, but I take an exceedingly dim view of anyone so cavalierly dismissing the efforts of US government employees, the vast majority of whom are honest, hard-working and conscientious. "Nothing"?!? "Refused to act"?! Here are some facts from Wikipedia's page on US Customs and Border Enforcement:

• More than 20,000 Customs and Border Protection Officers screen passengers and cargo at over 300 ports of entry.
• Over 18,000 Border Patrol Agents protect 1,900 miles of border with Mexico and 5,000 miles of border with Canada. (CBP officers wear blue uniforms; USBP people wear green ones.)
• Nearly 1,000 Air and Marine Interdiction Agents prevent people, weapons, narcotics, and conveyances from illegal entry by air and water.
• Nearly 2,500 employees in CBP revenue positions collect over $30 billion annually in entry duties and taxes through the enforcement of trade and tariff laws.
• The CBP Canine Enforcement Program conducts the largest number  of working dogs of any U.S. federal law enforcement agency. K-9 teams are assigned to 73 commercial ports and 74 Border Patrol stations throughout the nation.

And that's not even talking about the hundreds of miles of new fencing put up along the Mexican border in the last few years, or the work done on the so-called "virtual fence" to augment gaps in same. All told, Uncle Sam's annual budget for immigration enforcement exceeds $2 billion. (As TV pundit-wrangler John McLaughlin likes to say, "That's 'billion' with a B.") You can have a legitimate argument about tactics and/or strategy, or you can say that what is being done is not enough. But to say the government is doing nothing whatsoever, not even trying to stem the tide is an out-and-out, bald-faced, provable lie.

Oh, and as for the government trying to do more? They did try, just three years ago. The last Congress, pushed by the Junior Bush White House, attempted to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And it was kiboshed by a lot of the very same people now bleating about the legitimacy of Arizona's move...because it included a path to citizenship for illegals already here, which they railed against as "amnesty for lawbreakers."

The lawsuits against the state to stop this obscenity are already flying thick and fast, and Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department is also looking into a legal challenge of its own. Bet on Brewer and her people pushing this all the way to the Supreme Court if the lower courts rule against them, with blowhards like Will and Boortz cheering them on the whole way...and pray that at least one or two of the right-wing justices will have some semblance of sense when it does reach them.

Comments

[metaphorsbwithu.livejournal.com]

Some facts:

1) RE: "the furor over the newly signed law" - From whom? Over 70% of Arizonans and Americans agree with the law, including 60% of Hispanics in Arizona, despite a barrage of media diatribes led by the POTUS misrepresenting the law.

It'd probably be higher if the propagandists weren't repeating ad nauseum phrases like "Show me your papers!" and describing the good people of Arizona as Nazis, racists, bigots, and telling people who don't know better that police will be snatching people out for ice cream cones off the street and sending them across the border.

Of course left-wingers are masters of language and misinformation despite their attempts to brand anyone who disagrees with them as such. Understandable since they can rarely discuss issues rationally and are forced to engage in name-calling, misinformation, demonization and personal destruction ... and believe me, I know from both academia and the real world.

2) RE: "power to demand proof of citizenship or legal immigrant status from anyone under "reasonable suspicion" - Nope! The the law simply empowers police to ask for ID from persons stopped for legal infractions, traffic violations, etc. and, if there is no ID and a suspicion the person stopped might be an illegal immigrant, THEN the matter can be referred to the federal immigration service AS REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW.

3) RE: "aimed at turning the Latino voting bloc against the Republican Party" - Come on. The Democrats, La Raza and other Amnesty proponents have as much as said Amnesty will pad Democrat rolls. Obama pulled "Immigration Reform" off the table this week because he knows they're going to get killed at the polls in the mid-term November and his advisors have determined it is better to just PROMOTE reform and brand Republicans as racists instead so that they'll (they think) get more Latino and Hispanic voters.

4) Yep. Most boots on the ground immigration agents, etc. are good people but they are hindered by politicians and bureaucrats from doing their job.

But the fence? Janet Napolitano, an open borders advocate and former governor of Arizona, stopped building the virtual border fence just last month. Why? Was it actually helping to stem the tide?

5) The Kennedy/McCain "Amnesty" bill was justifiably squashed by an overwhelming majority of AMERICANS 3 years ago because it was a horrible bill and they tried to cram in through in the dark of night.

Bush ALWAYS supported immigration reform and guest worker programs were a priority in his second term. McCain eventually he'd never read the bill he "co-sponsored" and, now that he's on the ropes and facing defeat at the polls, has finally seen the light.

I could go on but, like with most of my liberal friends, I'm assuming all of this is going in one year and out the other. Maybe not.

Suffice it to say that the cramming down the throat of the American people legislation that does not reflect their will, and the Democrat Party's insistence on ruling from the far left detached from any understanding of middle America, id why they're facing a political tsunami at the polls in November.

And no amount of the media/politicians, celebrities/pundits misepresenting the facts will change that. In fact, it is making them even more determined to kick these rascals out.

Btw, if you haven't actually read the law and don't understand how it merely repeats FEDERAL LAW and instructs law enforcement how to enforce it, here it is:

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

From one "full blooded Cajun" to another. ;-)

Btw, you might be interested in how Mexico treats "foreigners":

http://www.ilstu.edu/class/hist263/docs/1917const.html

[nightface.livejournal.com]

Matt, everybody lies. Especially politicians. Republican and Democrat both, they lie like rugs.

There is a great deal of exaggeration on this issue from both sides.
For instance, the police can pull you over and demand your drivers license and proof of insurance. So "Papers, please"?
For another instance, Arizona has benefited from the copious cheap labor it gets and appears to be disturbed now because people on the other side of the border are treating the poor and indigent there worse.

So "obscenity" - that might be a bit strong.

[maverick-weirdo.livejournal.com]

I'm just imagining what census employees in Arizona are going to face.

[cellio]

Politicians lie; it's part of the job. :-(

I haven't read the law. I assume that the liberal press will paint it more negatively than justified, just as I assume the conservative press will paint a liberal law more negatively than justified. So after reading liberal criticism of this law, but not the law itself, I don't see what the problem is. If someone is found to be breaking the law, shouldn't law-enforcement people and processes deal with that?

Clearly a claim that the feds are doing "nothing" is bogus. But we seem to be running a catch-and-release program, and I do wonder why we don't deport illegals when we encounter them.

Our immigration laws might be broken (I don't really know), but I think it is morally wrong to grant perks to people who have already broken the law, particularly in preference to people who haven't. I know several people, including a family member, who went through the process to become US citizens, including facing quotas along the way. The failed law from a few years ago would have had people like that waiting in line even longer as the law-breakers cut in line. That's just not fair -- law-breakers should at minimum go to the end of the line, if not be sent home. The citizenship oath includes an affirmation about following the law, yet we would administer it to people who have gotten away with not doing so? What message does that send?

Note that if someone had a plausible claim of needing to break immigration laws in pursuit of asylum, that would be completely different. I'm well aware that this has been necessary at times, here and elsewhere. I'm not hearing that claim being made about the 12M illegals already here.

Do not interpret this as any sort of complaint against immigrants. I've got no beef with anyone who demonstrates basic respect for the country he wants to live in. I favor open opportunities for all; anyone who wants to come in and who accepts the obligations of doing so is welcome. The problem with the phrase "illegal immigrant" is "illegal", not "immigrant".

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Questions for those who see all foreign nationals in the U.S. without proper paperwork as lawbreakers:

A lot of our "illegal" immigrants were brought here as babies or small children and have lived here there entire lives and gone to school here. They often speak English without an accent, and there is a huge population of them aged roughly 15-25. They have difficulties in this, the only country most of them know or remember, obtaining employment, higher education, driver's licenses, bank accounts and other such things. What, again, was the crime they committed, and where does it say in our laws that children should be persecuted and prosecuted for the crimes of their parents?

How many undocumented people have you met and conversed with? Over the past few years I've interviewed about 3-4000 of them regarding details of their finances and medical needs. I've also worked alongside them, and encountered them often in the 6 years I spent working in debt collection. The majority of them are good, decent, hardworking and generally law-abiding people who love America and what it stands for, have strong family values, are deeply religious, and pay their debts even when they don't have to. They're the kind of folks that poem on the Statue of Liberty is talking about: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me"

The Federal government offers them Medicaid for life-threatening medical emergencies, and for labor and delivery. Their children are allowed in our public schools. Many are able to receive some assistance for medical care. If their children are born here, they are granted citizenship. For the most part, although our government knows there are around 10,000,000 of them here, we don't do very much about it at all, and probably couldn't even if we wanted to. They are very much aware of that. The benefits we offer for coming here far outweigh the likely penalties for crossing the border. The message our country sends to them is, "Get here whatever way you can, and we will offer you a better life for yourselves, your family and your children." Isn't it kind of like a combination of hypocrisy and entrapment to shine our beacon of freedom and opportunity, encourage and entice them to break the law, then get all on their case when they do? Do you understand the difference between de facto and de jure?

They serve us our fast food, wash our dishes, clean our hotel rooms and build our buildings. Most are productive members of society, many working twice as hard as us "soft" citizens while earning half as much. It could just be that we need them as much as they need us. Have you begun boycotting the industries that employ them yet? You'd have to give up things like restaurants, lettuce and other US-gown vegetables, hotels and going inside buildings. If you patronize these industries, your money goes to support the "illegal" workers. Your taxes pay for their medical care. Are you ready to go live in the wilderness and eat wild game you catch yourself in order to stop encouraging them?

I do not think most of the anti-immigration people are racists, or even that the policy in Arizona is racist. Technically, Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. I do think many of the people behind this law in Arizona are suffering from various degrees of fear and ignorance. Yes, they have a problem with organized crime coming up from south of the border, but I don't think indiscriminately violating the constitutional rights of Hispanic people is a great way to solve that problem, and considering that undocs are able to obtain legal drivers licenses in New Mexico, as well as several other states I don't know how asking for a driver's license will tell the police who is or is not undocumented. Thus, I see this law as ignorant, ineffective and probably more an attempt to make a statement and scare people out of Arizona than to actually accomplish anything productive.

And by the way, Matt, I thought you made some very good points, particularly the one about taking Federal employees for granted.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The police, justice system, and immigration system are mistrusted for good reasons.

If you want to see why (mostly focus on the first two, try reading The Agitator for a while, not just for what some of the police do, but what the rest of the police and the justice system refuse to make any effort to control.