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Here we go again.  The four page proposal below is presented here unedited and without comment.

January 28, 2013

From Senators Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Robert Menendez, Marco Rubio, Michael Bennet, and Jeff Flake

Introduction:

We recognize that our immigration system is broken. And while border security has improved significantly over the last two Administrations, we still don’t have a functioning immigration system. This has created a situation where up to 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows. Our legislation acknowledges these realities by finally committing the resources needed to secure the border, modernize and streamline our current legal immigration system, while creating a tough but fair legalization program for individuals who are currently here. We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited.

Four Basic Legislative Pillars:

1. Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;

2. Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families;

3. Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,

4. Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation’s workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.

1. Creating a Path to Citizenship for Unauthorized Immigrants Already Here that is Contingent Upon Securing the Border and Combating Visa Overstays

- Our legislation will provide a tough, fair, and practical roadmap to address the status of unauthorized immigrants in the United States that is contingent upon our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays.

- To fulfill the basic governmental function of securing our borders, we will continue the increased efforts of the Border Patrol by providing them with the latest technology, infrastructure, and personnel needed to prevent, detect, and apprehend every unauthorized entrant.

- Additionally, our legislation will increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment, improve radio interoperability and increase the number of agents at and between ports of entry. The purpose is to substantially lower the number of successful illegal border crossings while continuing to facilitate commerce.

- We will strengthen prohibitions against racial profiling and inappropriate use of force, enhance the training of border patrol agents, increase oversight, and create a mechanism to ensure a meaningful opportunity for border communities to share input, including critiques.

- Our legislation will require the completion of an entry-exit system that tracks whether all persons entering the United States on temporary visas via airports and seaports have left the country as required by law.

- We recognize that Americans living along the Southwest border are key to recognizing and understanding when the border is truly secure. Our legislation will create a commission comprised of governors, attorneys general, and community leaders living along the Southwest border to monitor the progress of securing our border and to make a recommendation regarding when the bill’s security measures outlined in the legislation are completed.

- While these security measures are being put into place, we will simultaneously require those who came or remained in the United States without our permission to register with the government. This will include passing a background check and settling their debt to society by paying a fine and back taxes, in order to earn probationary legal status, which will allow them to live and work legally in the United States. Individuals with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate deportation.

- We will demonstrate our commitment to securing our borders and combating visa overstays by requiring our proposed enforcement measures be complete before any immigrant on probationary status can earn a green card.

- Current restrictions preventing non-immigrants from accessing federal public benefits will also apply to lawful probationary immigrants.

- Once the enforcement measures have been completed, individuals with probationary legal status will be required to go to the back of the line of prospective immigrants, pass an additional background check, pay taxes, learn English and civics, demonstrate a history of work in the United States, and current employment, among other requirements, in order to earn the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residency. Those individuals who successfully complete these requirements can eventually earn a green card.

- Individuals who are present without lawful status – not including people within the two categories identified below – will only receive a green card after every individual who is already waiting in line for a green card, at the time this legislation is enacted, has received their green card. Our purpose is to ensure that no one who has violated America’s immigration laws will receive preferential treatment as they relate to those individuals who have complied with the law.

- Our legislation also recognizes that the circumstances and the conduct of people without lawful status are not the same, and cannot be addressed identically.

For instance, individuals who entered the United States as minor children did not knowingly choose to violate any immigration laws. Consequently, under our proposal these individuals will not face the same requirements as other individuals in order to earn a path to citizenship.

Similarly, individuals who have been working without legal status in the United States agricultural industry have been performing very important and difficult work to maintain America’s food supply while earning subsistence wages.    Due to the utmost importance in our nation maintaining the safety of its food supply, agricultural workers who commit to the long term stability of our nation’s agricultural industries will be treated differently than the rest of the undocumented population because of the role they play in ensuring that Americans have safe and secure agricultural products to sell and consume. These individuals will earn a path to citizenship through a different process under our new agricultural worker program.

2. Improving our Legal Immigration System and Attracting the World’s Best and Brightest

- The development of a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America’s future economic prosperity. Our failure to act is perpetuating a broken system which sadly discourages the world’s best and brightest citizens from coming to the United States and remaining in our country to contribute to our economy. This failure makes a legal path to entry in the United States insurmountably difficult for well-meaning immigrants. This unarguably discourages innovation and economic growth. It has also created substantial visa backlogs which force families to live apart, which incentivizes illegal immigration.

- Our new immigration system must be more focused on recognizing the important characteristics which will help build the American economy and strengthen American families. Additionally, we must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States.

- The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.

3. Strong Employment Verification

- We recognize that undocumented immigrants come to the United States almost exclusively for jobs. As such, dramatically reducing future illegal immigration can only be achieved by developing a tough, fair, effective and mandatory employment verification system. An employment verification system must hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and make it more difficult for unauthorized immigrants to falsify documents to obtain employment. Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers must face stiff fines and criminal penalties for egregious offenses.

- We believe the federal government must provide U.S. employers with a fast and reliable method to confirm whether new hires are legally authorized to work in the United States. This is essential to ensure the effective enforcement of immigration laws.

- Our proposal will create an effective employment verification system which prevents identity theft and ends the hiring of future unauthorized workers. We believe requiring prospective workers to demonstrate both legal status and identity, through non-forgeable electronic means prior to obtaining employment, is essential to an employee verification system; and,

- The employee verification system in our proposal will be crafted with procedural safeguards to protect American workers, prevent identity theft, and provide due process protections.

4. Admitting New Workers and Protecting Workers’ Rights

- The overwhelming majority of the 327,000 illegal entrants apprehended by CBP in FY2011 were seeking employment in the United States. We recognize that to prevent future waves of illegal immigration a humane and effective system needs to be created for these immigrant workers to enter the country and find employment without seeking the aid of human traffickers or drug cartels.

- Our proposal will provide businesses with the ability to hire lower-skilled workers in a timely manner when Americans are unavailable or unwilling to fill those jobs.

Our legislation would:

- Allow employers to hire immigrants if it can be demonstrated that they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position and the hiring of an immigrant will not displace American workers;

- Create a workable program to meet the needs of America’s agricultural industry, including dairy to find agricultural workers when American workers are not available to fill open positions;

- Allow more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs, and fewer when our economy is not creating jobs;

- Protect workers by ensuring strong labor protections; and,

- Permit workers who have succeeded in the workplace and contributed to their communities over many years to earn green cards.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was passed during the 99th session of the U.S. Congress. This legislative act was also known as the also Simpson-Mazzoli Act, after Alan K. Simpson was a Republican senator from Wyoming and Romano L. Mazzoli was a Democratic representative from Kentucky who chaired their respective immigration subcommittees in Congress. During the 99th session of the U.S. Congress the U.S. Senate was controlled by a Republican majority and the House of Representatives was controlled by a majority of Democrats. The Simpson-Mazzoli Act passed through the Senate without any problems but the first version failed in the Democrat controlled House. Once the legislation had passed both houses it was signed into law on November 6, 1986 by the Republican president, Ronald Reagan.

The 1994 “mini-amnesty” passed by the Democratically controlled 103 session of the U.S. Congress was essentially a subversion of the authority exercised by U.S. consular officers and immigration inspectors at the ports of entry. Historically, the consular officers and immigration inspectors at the ports of entry were authorized with the responsibility of screening out potential immigrants with serious criminal records, communicable diseases, and those who were unlikely to support themselves and their family because of illiteracy or lack of job skills. The modification to Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act passed by the Democratically controlled 103 session of the U.S. Congress allowed individuals who entered the U.S. illegally or who came as non-immigrants to adjust their status to legal residency in the United States without having to go through the screening process of the U.S. consular officers in their home country. The ill-conceived 1994 legislation that resulted in this modification of the Immigration and Nationality Act was the primary cause for the overall breakdown of the U.S. immigration laws, the rapid escalation of immigration fraud, the significant increase in the number of criminal predators gaining entry to the U.S. and the exacerbation of disparity suffered by legal immigrants struggling in their efforts to go through the proper channels while their more criminally inclined countrymen are rewarded for violating U.S. immigration law. Ironically, the ill-conceived and entirely mismanaged 1994 mini-amnesty which has created so much havoc, disparity and confusion with respect to U.S. immigration law was the only legislative act, with respect to immigration, that has been passed by a session of the U.S. Congress in which both houses were controlled by a Democratic majority. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, The Extension Amnesty of 1997, The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997, The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998, The Late Amnesty of 2000, and The LIFE Act Amnesty of 2000 were all passed during congressional sessions that were dominated by a clear majority of Republicans in both the house of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate.

The historical evidence accumulated as a result of the seven successful legislative acts resulting in actual amnesty for illegal aliens, indicates that, while the Democrats are willing to dangle the amnesty carrot in front of this nation’s Hispanic population in the effort to gain their support during elections, they rarely follow through with what they have promised once they have been elected. However, the Republicans, who have come to be regarded as the primary opponents of immigration reform and amnesty for illegal aliens, have successfully authored, proposed and passed the majority of all amnesty legislation in American history.

Barack Obama successfully won the support of the Hispanic voters during his 2007 campaign by promising the speedy passage of an immigration reform act and a general amnesty for the nation’s estimated 15 million illegal aliens as soon as he took office. Despite the fact that the 111th session of the U.S. Congress was entirely dominated by a Democratic majority in both houses, and the Democratic Party fully controlled every aspect of the United States government from the first day of his term of office and through the completion of his second year as President, no immigration reform measure or amnesty proposal was authored, submitted, proposed, debated or voted on by the Democratic representatives and Senators in the U.S. Congress. Furthermore, despite his campaign promises, as the President of the U.S., Barack Obama failed to request the submission of any immigration reform measure or amnesty proposal by the U.S. Congress throughout the first two years of his term of office. The only logical conclusion that can be reached as a result of this failure is that Barack Obama used the lure of immigration reform legislation to secure the Hispanic vote in 2008 but he never actually intended to follow through on his campaign promises to them.

With the start of the 2012 Presidential election season Barack Obama once again feels the need to re-gather his supporters, and it comes as no great surprise that one of the first groups he feels compelled to address are the Hispanic-Americans. Obama’s El Paso immigration speech should be recorded in history as one of the great American presidential fantasies of all time. He implied a desire for immigration reform without actually promising to do anything about it. He ascribed his administration’s successful efforts to increase the number of illegal alien detentions and deportations to meeting the demands of the anti-immigration Republicans for increased enforcement despite the fact that no Republican demands have been made and the increase in enforcement, while marginal, was an option entirely authorized by Obama. While he took particular delight ridiculing the Republican congressional representatives with his ludicrous statement about alligators he failed to address the fact that his continuation of the lax immigration enforcement policies has exacerbated the abnormally high 30+% unemployment rate among Hispanics that has remained fairly constant since he first took office, or that the increase in the number of predatory criminal aliens preying on Hispanic communities across the nation is directly related to the lackadaisical immigration enforcement policies of his administration. Obviously, Barack Obama, like the majority of the Democratic politicians in Washington, believes that the Hispanics are too dumb to understand that the American job market is depressed by the influx of countless illegal aliens, and that the criminal element that so many Hispanics immigrated to the U.S. to get away from is now filling up their American neighborhoods and threatening the safety of their children and wives thanks to the Democrat’s continuing refusal to enforce immigration law. Up front, there is no indication that Barack Obama will be any more motivated to pass an immigration reform measure during his second term than he was during his first, and he is essentially demanding that the Hispanic voters in the U.S. buy the same pig in a poke that he sold to them in 2007. While it is nothing more than speculation on my part, I would have to guess that from the looks of things, Barack Obama must think the Hispanics in this country are dumber than a bag full of rocks, or at least, dumb enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridge twice. Whether or not the Hispanic voters are really this dumb or not may be the biggest mystery to be solved by the 2012 Presidential election because the biggest loser of that race is already well known. For anyone that hasn’t figured that one out I can tell you now that the biggest loser will be the American people, no matter who wins or what party takes over.

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On Tuesday Barack Obama hit the campaign trail in El Paso, Texas with one of this campaign season’s first made-to-be-broken campaign promises directed at the nation’s fastest growing, least informed, and overly gullible minority voting bloc, the Mexicans (aka Hispanics/Latinos).   In repeat play from his 2007 campaign, Obama blatantly sought to secure the votes of this rapidly growing group dangling the amnesty carrot before them while making reform noises, and blaming the Republicans for obstructing the liberal’s efforts to pass an amnesty bill.   He neglected to mention that the Democrats ruled the House and the Senate with a clear majority from January 4, 2007 until January 3, 2011, and that they could have forced an amnesty bill down the throats of the American people if they had wanted to, or that the Republicans only became the majority in the House four months ago, and there has been no immigration reform measure or amnesty bill in the last four months for the Republicans to oppose.   Then again, why muddle up the minds of the easily confused with peripheral facts.   He also neglected to mention how granting amnesty to some 30 to 40 million illegal aliens now in the U.S. would benefit the American citizens who are already suffering from a record-breaking unemployment rate, or how the 30 to 40 million illegal aliens will help the American economy since the majority of them are unskilled, semi-literate, and according to federal statistics, will pose a burden on our welfare system for two decades. Who needs facts when hollow campaign promises are so easy to ignore later?

Obama took time to encourage everyone present, legal and otherwise, to sign up to help him at the White House website, but a good portion of his speech was dedicated to blaming the Republicans for any perceived wrong that has been suffered by the nation’s Hispanic population for the last fifteen or twenty years.

As a demonstration of his sincere regard for the issue of immigration reform, Obama declined to offer any reform bill himself, or to call on Congress to send him one by a particular deadline.   After all, like his fellow Democrats, Obama wants the votes, not the Hispanics.   He may be willing to sweep a few crumbs off the table for them to gnaw on, but he’s not about to give them his dinner.

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Months ago the administration of Barack Hussein Obama solicited innovative ways to implement amnesty for this nation’s estimated 20 to 40 million illegal aliens in the event that the United States Congress failed to pass amnesty legislation. The strategy he received in response from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services explains that Barack Obama can exercise his discretionary powers as president to issue new guidance memorandums and redefining portions of existing immigration regulations currently in effect; according to the memo sent to Obama’s administrative staff by USCIS this strategy would allow the American immigration authorities the ability to legitimize the presence of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of illegal aliens. Furthermore, as the memo continues, additional recommendations for executive action could essentially gut most of the United States immigration laws simply by re-defining specific legal terms, and the deportation of illegal aliens could become more costly and drawn out than the implementation of a death sentence.

The fact that this would be an unconstitutional usurpation of congressional authority does not seem to be an obstacle to Barack Obama, and even if it were overturned later, the millions of illegal aliens granted permanent resident status as a result of his action would remain permanent residents. In simple terms, once the damage is done, it cannot be undone; it can only be stopped from that future point forward.

An overwhelming majority of American citizens have repeatedly voiced their opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens and those American citizens have stopped the United States Congress from passing amnesty legislation twice already, and if given the opportunity, they would step in and stop it again. Barack Obama has irrefutably proven that he does not care what the American people want. He has conspired to find ways to overcome the checks and balances inherent in our nation’s form of government and force amnesty down the throats of the American people against their will. This goes far beyond simple bad policy decisions by an individual who was considered by many to be unqualified for the office of President; this is the willful act of a tyrant.

The Strategy To Force Amnesty

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SB1070 provisions blocked:

The provision that required local and state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of those individuals that law enforcement officers had a “reasonable suspicion” were illegal aliens;

The provision that required state officials to check the immigration status of anyone in custody in Arizona before they were released from jail;

The provision that made it a state crime for any foreign resident of Arizona to fail to carry federally-issued immigration documents at all times;

The provision that made it a state crime for any for any illegal alien in Arizona to solicit, apply for, or perform work.

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With respect to the first two items blocked Judge Bolton stated that the increased number of immigration status checks emanating from Arizona as a result of the implementation of those two sections would overwhelm the federal immigration officials who are pursuing different priorities. Roughly translated this means that Arizona’s attempt to enforce already existing federal immigration laws could end up being so effective that the federal immigration officials might actually have to do the job they were hired to do. At the present time the officials in charge of enforcing the existing immigration laws have been directed to selectively enforcing a few immigration laws against illegal aliens who are also violent felons. This is somewhat paradoxical to many because the government ignores the presence of these illegal trespassers until they murder, rape or beat someone half to death and then, if the immigration authorities discover they are illegal aliens they can deport them. The fact that every illegal alien breaks the law by entering the country without authorization, breaks the law by soliciting employment in violation of federal law, fails to register their presence as required by federal law, falsifies documents in order to secure employment and irrefutably poses a great burden on the American economy leaves some measure of doubt regarding their intentions. The willful violation of 20 or 30 federal laws is not a sufficiently clear demonstration of the illegal aliens total lack of respect for American law to warrant the attention of the immigration department. Illegal aliens are released from American prisons and jails every day after committing violent crimes and they are frequently released onto American streets because the immigration authorities are too busy doing something else to be bothered with them. Even when they are deported they simply turn around and come back. Violent predatory illegal aliens are picked up after committing additional crimes in the United States every day. The Obama administration has said its priority is to focus on those illegal aliens who engage in crime or are otherwise dangerous; however, while that may be the stated position of the Obama administration, it is far from accurate. The job of the president is to ensure that all federal laws are enforced equitably, not selectively.

Aside from the general lack of logic demonstrated by Judge Bolton in her decision to block the Arizona state officials from checking the immigration status of anyone they have in custody, her ruling is patently illegal in that it puts the Arizona law enforcement personnel in a position of having to violate the federal statute under Title 8 > Chapter 12 > Subchapter II > Part IX > § 1373 which states “Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” Furthermore this provision requires “The Immigration and Naturalization Service shall respond to an inquiry by a Federal, State, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information.”

The third provision of SB1070 that Judge Bolton decided to block; the provision that made it a state crime for any foreign resident of Arizona to fail to carry federally-issued immigration documents at all times, is a federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1304 subsection(e)), which reads as follows:

“Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.”

Bolton’s decision to block the provision making it a state crime for any for any illegal alien in Arizona to solicit, apply for, or perform work will have little or no effect on the state of Arizona. Some years ago the state passed a law requiring all employers to use E-Verify to ascertain the immigration status of prospective employees. That law established stiff penalties for businesses that failed to comply. Inasmuch as that law is separate from SB1070, and has been in effect for quite a while, its provisions are beyond Bolton’s extensive reach. Additionally, she could not touch the SB1070 provision prohibiting the adoption of sanctuary policies anywhere in the state because there is no federal law in this regard and the provision that allows Arizona residents to sue local leaders for refusing to cooperate with federal officials, prohibit the transport of illegal aliens, and restrict solicitation of illegal alien day laborers will go into effect along with the remaining provisions of SB1070.

Ironically, any Arizona communities that participate in the federal government’s 287(g) and Secure Communities programs can still do so despite Judge Bolton’s decision. The number one, most enthusiastic participant in the federal government’s 287(g) program is Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio whose industrious police department was responsible for the deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007. With all the celebrating illegal aliens in town he may double that number before the end of the week.

While the opponents of SB1070 may be celebrating what they dimly view as a victory, Judge Bolton’s decision will certainly increase the animosity for illegal aliens in the state of Arizona and things could get very ugly in the days to come as the residents realize that they have been sucker-punched by a presidential administration that is going all out to curry political favor with the criminal element that plagues their state.

On a national basis, this decision is one more indication that Barack Obama’s ultimate goal is to destroy the United States by devastating the American economy and dividing the people into warring factions.

The decision reached is available below as a PDF file

Judge Bolton’s Decision

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Obama’s incompetent assassins might have a tough time killing Arizona’s new immigration law without looking like totalitarian despots out to micro-manage every attempt at self-preservation by state governments, but despite how it might appear, the Democratic Party has no choice but to fight a futile battle if they want to remain in power.

A 2002 memo written by former Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel Lawyer Jay Bybee asserted that state police officers have the inherent power to arrest illegal aliens. This memo has never been rescinded and is still in effect today. This one memo could pose a serious problem to the current administration’s attempt to scuttle the Arizona law. Of course, the current administration has their own appointee serving as Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, so it is no beyond their ability to find fault with Bybee’s declaration and overturn it with or without significant legal justification. As far as they are concerned the simple fact that the memo was written during the Bush administration should be sufficient justification to eliminate it. However, that is not the only problem the current administration must overcome to destroy the Arizona law.

California, the biggest whiner about Arizona’s recent legislation has far harsher provisions in their state penal code than Arizona with respect to illegal aliens. California Penal Code Section 834b requires that any police officer suspecting that an individual may be in the United States illegally shall contact and fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to verify the individual’s immigration status. There is nothing in California’s version of the Arizona immigration law regarding reasonable suspicion, the prohibition of racial profiling, or any of the other safeguards built into the Arizona law. The California law was approved by the voters and is still in effect. Curiously enough, the California statute includes a provision expressly prohibiting any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit a California state law enforcement officer’s full and complete cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The California law not only requires law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally, it also prohibits any city, county or police agency from interfering with that obligation. In simple terms, the state of California has a law prohibiting the establishment of sanctuary cities and the adoption of policies such as the LAPD’s Special Order 40 which prohibits police officers from asking individuals about their immigration status and/or cooperating with federal immigration authorities. If the state chose to enforce penal code section 834b, the population of the state of California would drop by around 8 million overnight, school overcrowding would disappear and teachers would be able to teach again, the California budget crisis would cease to exist, crime rates would plummet, gang membership would be cut by 75% in many cases, the overstuffed prisons would eventually regain a measure of effectiveness, and the state’s unemployment rate would return to a low single digit. As long as the state government remains securely under the heavy thumb of Democratic incumbents in gerrymandered voting districts largely comprised of sanctuary cities whose open arms welcome all illegal aliens and the support they give to their liberal protectors, there is little fear that 834b will be enforced. 834b is the axe held over the neck of California’s Hispanic population and it guarantees their continued support of the Democratic blackmailers who would rather see the state financially destitute and inundated by hordes of criminal invaders than risk losing their white knuckled grip on the reins of power. While California’s self serving liberal politicians may choose to ignore and violate their own state penal code, the law is still in effect and could be enthusiastically enforced if the Hispanic community failed to support the state’s Democratic power brokers. The Democratic Party’s support for immigration reform and amnesty for illegal aliens is not a position they have adopted as a result of their overflowing tendency towards compassion, it not a matter determined by moral debate about what is right and what is wrong, it is simply a clever maneuver by the party’s adept political strategists to gain support.

The hysterical reaction coming out of California with respect to Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law is not a demonstration of moral outrage by any means. The race baiting Democratic politicians of California are spinning the opportunity for their own political advantage, and the race baiting Democratic politicians in Washington D.C. know a good thing when they see it. Whether or not they can overturn the Arizona law is irrelevant; they could honestly care less about the issue, but the outlandish show of overblown emotional outrage and the continual deluge of rhetorical condemnation will be worth their time and effort either way if it motivates the Hispanic voters in sufficient numbers to overcome the groundswell of popular opinion that now threatens to dismember the Democrat’s control of all three branches of the American government.

The Immigration and Nationality Act passed in 1952 contained a provision to authorize federal officers and “all other officers” to enforce sections of the federal immigration laws. The inclusion of the words “all other officers” allowed state and local law enforcement officials to actively enforce federal immigration law within their jurisdictions. The authority of local police to enforce federal immigration law, as established under the provisions of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act was challenged when the local police of Peoria, Arizona took an aggressive stance towards immigration enforcement in their effort to reduce the high crime rate in several areas of the city. In the late 1970′s, after individuals were questioned about their immigration status by Peoria police officers responding to calls by citizens reporting criminal altercations, during the citation of traffic violators and as part of interviews conducted with suspects in felony investigations, the officers detained individuals suspected of immigration violations and called the federal immigration authorities to investigate further. During this period of time, an unknown number of American citizens of Mexican descent were also questioned about their immigration status. Subsequently, these citizens filed suit against the city of Peoria and its police department on the grounds that the cities involvement in immigration matters led to violations of their civil rights. The primary lawsuit against the city and the police department that was filed in 1978 was Gonzalez v. City of Peoria. After bumping around through the American legal system for five years, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the police officers and the City of Peoria. The decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals validated the immigration enforcement policies of the Peoria Police Department and determined that state and local police officers have the authority to enforce federal immigration law. For additional details on this decision the full citation has been included at the end of this posting.

The 1996 immigration control legislation that was passed by Congress further substantiated state and local law enforcement agencies ability to enforce federal immigration laws. The 1996 legislation sought to eliminate the potential for error by requiring local officers to undergo federal immigration law training, but that requirement is far from being a difficult obstacle to any state law enforcement agency. Furthermore, compliance with that simple requirement provides state and local cops as much leeway as federal immigration authorities’ exercise in the pursuit of their duties. The 1996 legislative modification of what was first established by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act is minimal and further serves to support the understanding that state and local law enforcement personnel can enforce federal immigration law as part of their routine duties, including full authorization to “detain an individual for a brief warrantless interrogation where circumstances create a reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the U.S.;” furthermore, it specifically states that “reasonable suspicion” can be concluded from “evasive, nervous, or erratic behavior; dress or speech indicating foreign citizenship; and presence in an area known to contain a concentration of illegal aliens.”

The 1996 immigration control legislation passed by Congress contains nothing to mitigate or prohibit “racial profiling” such as the provisions in the Arizona law. And regardless of the shrill hysterical expressions of acrimonious outrage, state and local law enforcement personnel can legally enforce federal immigration laws in the same manner as federal immigration officers, up to and including the full authority to snatch up anything that looks even remotely like a Mexican, with or without reasonable cause, and shake them down for proof of citizenship which the suspect must produce to avoid detention and further investigation and possible deportation.

The laws enacted as a result of Arizona’s legislative act SB 1070 provide a model of compassion when compared to the federal government’s immigration provisions which afford federal immigration authorities with the authority to arrest and indefinitely detain individuals, who may or may not be illegal aliens, without the necessity of warrant, “just cause,” or “reasonable suspicion” Federal immigration law provides it’s enforcement officers with the ability to conduct warrantless searches of random individuals and contains extensive provisions allowing the seizure of any or all assets, including bank accounts, homes, vehicles, business establishments, merchandise and personal belongings of anyone suspected of violating U.S. immigration law. There is nothing in the ten pages of Arizona’s SB 1070 that can be even remotely construed as to allow for more draconian measures already codified into the U.S. Code by congressional legislation.

The U.S. Constitution, Article 1, § 8 spells out the specific duties of the United States Congress, and there is only one provision in this section of the U.S. Constitution in which the US Congress has exclusive power and that section has nothing to say about the enforcement of immigration laws. If the U.S. Congress claims the exclusive authority to establish and enforce every provision listed under Section 8 then the states would be prohibited from enforcing any laws related to the subjects mentioned in this section of the Constitution, and it is seriously doubtful that this is a road that anyone wants to take because the consequences would be wide, sweeping and entirely disastrous. Section 8 establishes the authority of congress to enforce the laws prohibiting counterfeit money and the argument that state law enforcement agencies do not have the authority to identify and detain illegal aliens because that is the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress, can be logically extended to counterfeit currency. If the U.S. Congress has exclusive jurisdiction, following the same argument, the states can’t enforce federal laws against the manufacture and use of counterfeit money. Every taxpayer in the state of California could print their own currency and pay their taxes with it and the state wouldn’t have the authority to even state that the money was counterfeit because that ability would be restricted to federal authorities. While this may seem somewhat extreme, there is no more weight to the Section 8 provision regarding the naturalization of immigrants than there is to the enforcement of currency laws and counterfeiting. Ironically, Section 8 provides only that Congress establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization. Immigration enforcement and the establishment of immigration laws beyond the scope of Naturalization are not mentioned in Section 8. Furthermore, the congressional claim to have exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of immigration is not stated in the U.S. Constitution, it is implied, and that implication is subject to debate, especially where the US Congress makes the claim that it has the exclusive power to regulate immigration to such a point that they can deny the individual states the ability to establish immigration enforcement measures similar in every respect to the measures enacted by the federal government. The federal proponent’s ability to deliver a credible argument is also hampered by the well substantiated fact that the U.S. Congress has failed abysmally to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, and as a direct result of their failure the citizens of the affected states have been burdened with the costs directly attributed to the federal government’s failure. Article 1, § 8 also obligates the United States Congress to protect the individual states against foreign invaders and provides them with the ability to call up the state militia to repel all invaders. All things considered, the states have been rather good natured about the government’s failure to protect them against being invaded by an estimated 20 to 40 million foreign invaders. It is actually fairly surprising that the states haven’t sued the U.S. Congress for their failure to fulfill the obligations of their office.

Regardless of the numerous obstacles to the Democrat’s desire to wage war over the Arizona law, it is a war they are going to have a tough time avoiding. The American news media has failed to convince the American people that illegal aliens are good for the nation and we can’t live without them. The growing disgust of the American people, fueled by a failing economy, irresponsible government spending and high unemployment rates is a confluence of deficiencies obvious to most of the voting public, and a direct threat to the Democratic Party’s ability to retain their current level of government control. In order to overcome the immediate threat resulting from their incompetent management as well as their failure to represent the best interests of their constituents, the Democratic Party must solidify and motivate the labor unions who bankroll their efforts and the Hispanic voters whose rapid growth in numbers provides the edge necessary to save the liberals worthless hides in the mid-term elections. Since the Democrats have failed to produce on the numerous promises made to both groups back in 2008 they must be very convincing in their futile fight against the Arizona law while adding incentives to the phony promises they have already failed to keep. Why anyone with an ounce of brain matter would trust them is beyond all comprehension but it should be an interesting diversion for the American people as well as an apt demonstration that the current administration is more interested in pandering to the minority special interest groups like La Raza than it is in doing what is best for the American people. If actions speak louder than words, the elitist despots controlling Washington D.C. are giving the American people a good view of a corrupt administration’s propensity for tyranny.

California Penal Code Section 834b

United States Constitution Article 1, § 8

Gonzalez v. City of Peoria

Gonzalez v. City of Peoria, 722 F.2d 468 (9th Cir. 1983) concluded based on analysis of the legislative history of 8 U.S.C. 1324 by People v. Barajas, 81 Cal. App. 3d 999, 1004-07, 147 Cal. Rptr. 195, 198-99 (1978) that the phrase “all other officers” in 8 Sec. 1324(c) gives state and local officers authority to enforce 8 Sec. 1324, 1325, and 1326 (1324, harboring illegal immigrants; 1325(a), illegal entry of aliens; and 1326, reentry)

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I am quickly coming to the opinion that a good portion of the Democrats in Washington D.C. and in the Los Angeles city government are just about as dumb as dumb gets, and their high pitched whining over Arizona’s immigration law (SB 1070) has become so irritating that I have decided the only way to soothe my ears is to go to Tucson and drop a ton of money in the Desert Diamond casino, preferably sooner than later.

Los Angeles city councilman Ed Reyes was quoted today as saying, “As an American, I cannot go to Arizona today without a passport. If I come across an officer who’s having a bad day and feels that the picture on my ID is not me, I can be . . . deported, no questions asked. That is not American.” As if that were not bad enough, his fellow council members have compared Arizona’s law to Nazi Germany and to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Los Angeles City Council seems to be trying to out-stupid the comments made by Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Chief, and US Attorney General, Eric Holder who have both made a slew of comments about how the Arizona law is unconstitutional and will lead to racial profiling before each of them admitted that they had not even read the ten page Arizona law. I could be mistaken but weren’t these individuals appointed to these high positions on the basis of their intelligence? Then again the character that appointed them has made even dumber statements about the Arizona law and he probably didn’t bother to read it either.

Why are these politicians so desperate to convince people that this law is such a horrible thing? Is it possible that Arizona might prove that immigration enforcement can really work and that the federal government has been sitting on their butts doing nothing while millions of illegal aliens flood into this country unopposed?

It seems that since Article 4, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides that, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence,” and Arizona fits the description of a “State,” as it is used in that provision, which is not being protected against invasion, then Arizona would have every right to protect itself against foreign invaders. Inasmuch as section 287(g) of The Immigration and Nationality Act grants local and state jurisdictions the ability to enforce immigration law, I fail to see the point behind the outrageous rhetoric flying around like shrapnel and I am beginning to think that there is another agenda at play here.

The LA Time carried an article this morning about Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico coming up here especially to discuss Arizona’s discriminatory new law with Barack Obama. When did Mexico start having a voice in how the United States treats the criminal invaders sneaking into our nation? The fact that most of Arizona’s illegal aliens are from Mexico, Central and South America where individuals tend to be a tad bit darker and speak the English language with an noticeable accent, if they speak it at all, may be an generalized assumption to which there are numerous exceptions, but when Arizona law enforcement stops an obvious drunk driver who has no identification and speaks English very poorly or not at all, it is not discriminatory to check his or her immigration status. Entering the United States without proper authorization or intentionally overstaying a tourist visa is a violation of U.S. law. There is no sense in having a law if it is not going to be enforced. If Felipe Calderon wanted to do something positive for his people he should take care of the problems in Mexico that make it nearly impossible for Mexican citizens to earn a decent living at home.

Prostitution is illegal in most of the United States and the vast majority of people arrested for prostitution are females. When the cops go out to crack down on prostitution in their area they are not looking at guys hurrying down the sidewalk wearing suits and carrying briefcases, they scrutinize the slinky looking females standing on street corners for no apparent reason. The suspects the cops are checking out are the result of gender profiling. The balding guy with the paunchy gut hurrying down the sidewalk with his wrinkled suit and overstuffed briefcase has all the sex appeal of a soft-boiled egg. Why would anybody waste their time considering him a possible hooker when there are six scantily dressed women standing along the street waving at men in cars as they drive by? Gender profiling is no different than racial profiling but nobody gets too worked up about it despite the fact that it happens everywhere and it is blatantly discriminatory by every definition of the term. If a blond, white guy about six and half feet tall snatches ten or twenty thousand from a bank and takes off down the street in a beat-up car the cops in the area don’t start looking for black guys in beat-up cars. Is it possible that the description of the suspect as being a blond, white guy leads the cops to dismiss the blacks in their beat-up cars as potential suspects? Racial profiling significantly narrows the number of potential suspects. If only 11% of the population is blond, and 45% of those blonds are females, why would the cops bother pulling over a silver haired, geriatric black female putting along in a brand new Mercedes? The most obvious reason is that she does not fit the racial profile, the gender profile, and the car is expensive and new so there is the added distinction of her being ruled out by the simple fact that she is probably more affluent than the suspect. This is racial profiling, gender profiling and class distinction; where is the outrage, the protesters, the civil rights attorneys screaming about the discriminatory behavior of law enforcement? Does the U.S. Constitution mandate that this black old woman be pulled over, jerked out of her car by the cops, and bounced off the hood of her new Mercedes a few times while the big blond, white guy cruises by unnoticed. Profiling individuals by race, gender, ethnic origin, accent and numerous other distinctive factors is inevitable and useful. It is a valuable tool for law enforcement because it enables them to reduce the number of suspects they have to look at when a crime is committed. We hire people to work in law enforcement because we obviously feel that our laws need to be enforced to maintain order. Profiling is an important tool for law enforcement and it would be idiotic to believe that the use of such an important tool should be abolished.

Obama already has his Attorney General looking into various ways to scuttle Arizona’s law despite the fact that 70% of the state voted for it and most American polls are showing that 69% of the American people in this country are not only in favor of it but wish it were harsher and spread nationwide. The remaining 31% are California’s liberals and dumber than a bag of hair. Obama has publicly appealed to the leaders of special interest groups, African-Americans, Hispanics, Gays, the pro-abortion groups and others in his effort to stem the growing dissatisfaction threatening to upset the precarious hold the Democratic Party now has over this nation during the 2010 mid-term election. His statements about Arizona’s recent immigration law and his promises to attempt having it scuttled are clearly motivated by his desire to appease groups like La Raza who worked hard to put him in office because he promised them the passage of a general amnesty bill once he was elected. He could care less about the majority of American citizens opposed to any sort of amnesty for illegal aliens, he could care less about the growing financial burden illegal aliens have placed on the American taxpayers, he could care less about the fact that the federal government’s failure to enforce immigration laws has inundated this nation with millions of unskilled, semi-literate illegal alien workers who have replaced the laid-off American citizens now facing foreclosure and bankruptcy. He is less concerned about the welfare, safety and prosperity of the American people than he is about maintaining the current imbalance of power favoring the Democratic Party’s destructive agenda.

The simple fact is that the American people, the United States of American and the American way of life, a way of life that is based on the freedom to achieve the highest level of educational and financial attainment possible, regardless of race or gender, through hard work and perseverance, is currently closer to extinction than it has ever been in the entire 233 year history of this nation. The beacon of hope that America has been for more than 200 years is now the last tattered refuge of liberty existing anywhere.

Years ago I worked with welder who escaped from a Soviet work camp with his brother, walked nearly a thousand miles, surviving on hope, persistence and very little food until he and his brother found their way into a refugee camp. They applied for immigration to the United States and after 11 years of waiting for approval, it was granted. By the time I met this Romanian welder he had become a naturalized American citizen and found employment in a small welding shop where he was earning more than twenty dollars an hour. He described his life in the Soviet Union as being similar to living in Hell and he was overjoyed to be in the United States. When I remarked that most American citizens don’t know how lucky they are to have it so good, he responded by saying, “You people think that you are lucky, I am lucky, I had a place to escape to.” That conversation took place more than thirty years ago but it succinctly states a very vital point.

When the light of liberty is extinguished here, when the sovereignty of the people succumbs to the dictates of a centralized totalitarian government that limits your basic freedoms in the effort to attain financial and societal equilibrium for the citizens as opposed to letting individuals achieve through their own merits the highest level possible, then freedom in American is over, the concept of liberty is abandoned, and the desperate individuals living in the ant-heap totalitarian nations where intellectual elitists feel they can plan the lives of their citizens better than the citizens can plan for themselves, will have no place to escape to, and the United States will become just another place to escape from.

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Starting next month, the San Francisco County Jail must begin participating in an automated reporting system set up by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The program, Secure Communities, automatically links the fingerprint databases of state justice departments with a database used by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Eventually all city jails across the nation will be compelled to comply with the DHS program and single this will effectively deal a death blow to every so-called “sanctuary” city in the nation. It is long overdue.

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As a candidate for office in 2008, Obama said that immigration would be a ‘top priority in my first year as president,’ and yet while speaking at the Cinco de Mayo reception held in the White House Rose Garden last Wednesday, he resolutely avoided setting any sort of time line to begin working on an immigration bill. Obviously Obama is finely attuned to the disastrous consequences for the Democratic congressional incumbents that will inevitably result if any attempt is made towards immigration reform and amnesty prior to the mid-term elections later this year. In a later speech Obama demonstrated his continued ignorance regarding the recent Arizona state immigration enforcement measure by parroting the unwarranted criticism of groups like La Raza who have been wearing out the false claim that Arizona’s new law will result in rampant racial profiling and the persecution of Hispanics. Maybe Obama ought to sit down and read the thing before shooting his mouth off about something he obviously hasn’t looked into himself.

Since 1940 federal immigration law has required immigrants to carry copies of their immigration papers with them at all times. The Arizona state law reiterates that federal requirement. Arizona legislators did not create that requirement out of thin air for the sake of persecuting Hispanics; that has been a federal law for seventy years. Federal immigration authorities can stop anyone, at any time, and for any reason to demand proof of immigration status and the federal immigration authorities are not required to prove “reasonable cause” when demanding documentation. Under the provisions of Arizona’s new state law, the Arizona police must be able to prove “reasonable cause” for demanding proof of citizenship or legal immigration status. “Reasonable Cause” is not a catch-all loosely defined phrase as many individuals and groups have claimed. It is a strictly defined legal term established through many years of legal precedence and intense scrutiny by courts all over the nation.

There is no compelling logical justification for the false claims that Arizona’s new law will result in an increase in racial profiling. The term “Racial Profiling” suffers from an anemic definition in all fifteen states where it is prohibited and none of those state laws provide legal recourse to individuals claiming to be victims of racial profiling. From utilitarian theory to Kant’s categorical imperative, no ethical framework can justify subjecting everyone to suffering in the interests of farcical equality. The welfare of our nation and the American citizens must be guarded, even at the cost of racial profiling when and where it is necessary. The Department of Homeland Security openly acknowledges the use of racial profiling by airport security and the pragmatic use of racial profiling as one factor among the many others needed to identify criminal behavior has enabled law enforcement personnel to avoid a repeat performance of the disatrous attacks suffered on September 11, 2001. Abusive racial profiling is easily identified and rectifiable through civic action; used properly, racial profiling is a valuable tool for law enforcement and it should not be prohibited where it can be used to benefit the safety of the public.

The federal government’s abysmal failure to strictly enforce immigration law has resulted in an overabundance of illegal aliens. The estimates of this nation’s illegal alien population range from 15 to 40 million and while the exact number may be impossible to calculate, the financial impact these criminal invaders have had on our nation, on the individual states, and more importantly on the American taxpayers is very obvious. Hundreds of millions of American tax dollars are being wasted every month on these criminal invaders. The increased cost of health care in the United States and the subsequent increase in medical insurance rates can be directly attributed to illegal aliens. The overcrowding of American prisons and jails, and the high costs associated with both can be directly attributed to illegal aliens. The rapidly dwindling quality of public school education across the nation can be directly attributed to illegal aliens. The increase in street gang related homicides, violent assaults, rape, illegal drug sales and property crimes in American cities can be directly attributed to illegal aliens. The astronomical unemployment rates across the country are exacerbated by the flood of illegal alien workers and unethical American employers who take advantage of the cheap labor they provide. Certainly, if a justifiable measure of racial profiling in conjunction with reasonable cause can be used to eliminate a large percentage of these serious problems and restore financial stability, public safety and social sanity to this nation then our elected representatives should quit playing political power games with each other and make these necessary tools available to all law enforcement personnel so that these problems can be resolved quickly and effectively.

The federal government’s inability, or rather, their unwillingness to represent the best interests of the American people has forced the state of Arizona to implement protective measures that should have been implemented and strictly enforced by the federal government. North Carolina, Oklahoma, Maryland, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Utah, Nebraska and several other states are considering taking similar steps to ensure the protection of their citizens because the politicians in Washington have failed to fulfill their oath of office and protect the American people from foreign invaders. Voters in Florida and North Carolina are pressuring their state legislators to implement a similar law.

Recent polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of American voters are sick and tired of carrying the financial burden that illegal aliens are putting on our schools, hospitals, and social services and 70% of the voters in the southern states and 66% of the voters across the Midwest feel the Arizona law doesn’t go far enough to combat the problem of illegal immigration that Washington has too long ignored. A new poll by Rasmussen indicates a solid 60% of the respondents across the U.S. support the Arizona law, and the approval ratings for Arizona’s Governor went up 16% right after she signed the bill into law.

Immigration enforcement by the federal government has been pathetic and the citizens of this nation have been forced to carry the burden of their failure for far too long. It is high time the federal politicians quit pandering to special interest groups and business lobbyists who are pushing for less enforcement, amnesty and relaxed immigration laws. The American people, the citizens who hold the power to vote every Washington politician out of office, are fed up with the political correctness, the lies directed at them through the media and the lack of representation by the liars we voted for.

Democrats and Republicans supporting amnesty and less immigration enforcement might get the contributions of special interest groups and lobbyists but that money will not keep them in office when the American voters have their say in November. The United States is facing financial collapse and the American middle class is rapidly going under because of your actions. The threat is clear, unequivocal, and 100% guaranteed; the American voters have a death grip on your ankle and we are taking you down with us.

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As a result of the widespread media hysteria over Arizona’s recently adopted new immigration law I have decided to post this reprint of an article recently released by the Center For Immigration Studies.   Since the new law went into effect, the Los Angeles Times has gone completely haywire painting verbal pictures of Jack-booted Nazi thugs kicking in doors and dragging off old women and sleeping babies in the liberal propaganda rag’s attempt to fuel the outrage of California’s 8 million illegal aliens and the state’s numerous pro-illegal alien advocacy groups.

Like many other liberal dominated California cities, Los Angeles has called for a financial boycott of Arizona which is fairly hilarious when you consider the fact that the city politicians have spent so much money on illegal aliens that they are laying off cops and fire fighters and closing down public parks just so they can continue to keep the welfare checks and food stamps rolling.   Furthermore, most of California’s businesses have already moved to Nevada and Arizona so the pain that Arizona feels from L.A.’s so-called boycott is the equivalent to what you would feel if you were seriously gummed by a garden slug.

Hopefully, the state of Arizona will not back down from the hysterical reaction of all these liberal cry babies.   It is nice to know that some people in this country still have the huevos to do what is right.

Reprinted From The Center for Immigration Studies

WASHINGTON (April 29, 2010) – The new law recently signed by the governor of Arizona, SB 1070, makes it a state crime to violate some federal immigration statutes. While the law is extremely popular in the state, with 70 percent of Arizona voters approving of it and just 23 percent opposed, it has raised controversy. Below is a brief summary of the relevant information on illegal immigration in Arizona, followed by a short analysis of SB 1070’s major provisions.

Illegal immigration in Arizona:

The federal government estimated that Arizona had one of the fastest growing illegal immigrant populations in the country, increasing from 330,000 in 2000 to 560,000 by 2008.

Arizona has adopted other laws to deter the settlement of illegal immigrants in the state in recent years. The federal government estimates that the illegal immigrant population dropped by 18 percent in the state from 2008 to 2009, compared to a 7 percent drop for the nation as a whole. This may be evidence that the state enforcement efforts are having an impact.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has found that 22 percent of felonies in the county are committed by illegal immigrants.3 Illegal immigrants are estimated to be 10 percent of the county’s adult population.

Analysis of data from State Criminal Alien Assistance Program showed that illegal immigrants were 11 percent of the state’s prison population. Illegal immigrants were estimated to be 8 percent of state’s adult population at the time of the analysis.

Approximately 17 percent of those arrested by the Border Patrol in its Tucson Sector have criminal records in the United States.

The issue of illegal immigration and crime is very difficult to measure, and while in Arizona there is evidence that illegal immigrants are committing a disproportionate share of crime, it is not clear this is the case nationally.

In 2007, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 12 percent of workers in the Arizona are illegal immigrants.

In 2007, the Center estimated that illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) comprise one-fifth of those in the state living in poverty, one-third of those without health insurance, and one out of six students in the state’s schools.

In 2007, the Center estimated that one-third of households headed by illegal immigrants in Arizona used at least one major welfare program, primarily food-assistance programs or Medicaid. Benefits were typically received on behalf of U.S.-born children.

The new law (SB 1070) is extremely popular among Arizona voters. A Rasmussen poll found that 70 percent of voters approve of the new bill, and just 23 percent oppose it.

Among the new law’s provisions:

The new Arizona law mirrors federal law, which already requires aliens (non-citizens) to register and carry their documents with them (8 USC 1304(e) and 8 USC 1306(a)). The new Arizona law simply states that violating federal immigration law is now a state crime as well. Because illegal immigrants are by definition in violation of federal immigration laws, they can now be arrested by local law enforcement in Arizona.

The law is designed to avoid the legal pitfall of “pre-emption,” which means a state can’t adopt laws that conflict with federal laws. By making what is a federal violation also a state violation, the Arizona law avoids this problem.

The law only allows police to ask about immigration status in the normal course of “lawful contact” with a person, such as a traffic stop or if they have committed a crime.

Estimates from the federal government indicate that more than 80 percent of illegal immigrants come from Latin America. Thus, there is concern that police may target only Hispanics for enforcement.

Before asking a person about immigration status, law enforcement officials are required by the law to have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal immigrant. The concept of “reasonable suspicion” is well established by court rulings. Since Arizona does not issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, having a valid license creates a presumption of legal status. Examples of reasonable suspicion include:

A driver stopped for a traffic violation has no license, or record of a driver’s license or other form of federal or state identification.

A police officer observes someone buying fraudulent identity documents or crossing the border illegally.

A police officer recognizes a gang member back on the street who he knows has been previously deported by the federal government.

The law specifically states that police, “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” when implementing SB 1070.

When Arizona’s governor signed the new law, she also issued an executive order requiring the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to provide local police with additional training on what does and what does not constitute “reasonable suspicion.”

Anyone interested in reading the full article can find it at the Center For Immigration Studies

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