Tag Archives: Illegal immigration

A Mixed Decision On The Arizona Immigration Law

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The U.K. Daily Mail posted a story today on the the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold part of Arizona’s immigration law and to strike down other parts.

The article reports:

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona  hailed the immigration verdict as a victory because it  cleared the way for the officials to start enforcing a provision that allows law enforcement officers,  when making lawful stops, to check the immigration status of people.
 
The Supreme Court struck down the part of the law that made it a state crime for illegal immigrants to apply for jobs or to not carry immigration papers. It also struck down a provision that gave the police authority to arrest immigrants for crimes that may lead to deportation.
 
I am not a lawyer, but I fail to see the logic in what the Court decided to strike down. It should be a state crime illegal immigrants to apply for jobs–they are illegal! Shouldn’t immigrants be arrested for crimes period? (Just like any American citizen would be.)
 
The article also reports:
 

In a blistering 22-page opposition to the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:  ‘to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind,” Scalia wrote. “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State’

He charged that the Obama administration ‘desperately wants to avoid upsetting foreign powers’ and accused federal officials of ‘willful blindness or deliberate inattention’ to the presence of illegal immigrants in Arizona.

I agree with Justice Scalia.

 
 
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A Mixed Blessing

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I am the first one to admit that the American immigration policy does not work. It is too long, expensive and cumbersome for those people trying to come here legally, and it does not successfully deal with those who come here illegally just to find a way to earn a living. However, it is unfortunate that because of the politics of an election year, decisions regarding immigration are being made on a political basis rather than a practical basis.

On Friday the Washington Post posted an article about the impact the changes President Obama has announced to the immigration law will have on the unemployment rate of Americans.

The article reports:

“I see a tidal wave coming,” said Brad Botwin, president of Help Save Maryland, a group that opposes legalization for undocumented immigrants. “Half of our college graduates today can’t find jobs, and the unemployment rate for high-school-aged Americans is extremely high. This is unfair to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who are out there struggling to get ahead.

He does have a point. One of the reasons for the change is the belief that by putting these workers on the books instead of under the table, new tax revenue will be generated. That may be true, but if the illegals immigrants with work permits are taking jobs from Americans and legal immigrants, what have we actually accomplished?

The article concludes:

But Steven Camarota, a researcher with the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said that the Obama administration was not taking into account the new measure’s probable impact on competition for jobs at the low end of the economic scale, where chronic unemployment is highest. Among Americans with less than a high school education, he said, the jobless rate is 13 percent.

“It doesn’t seem the administration is considering the cascading consequences,” Camarota said. “What does this mean for unemployed Americans who will be competing for jobs with a million-plus people who can now apply for work authorization? Is this really a good idea?”

This was a political decision–not a practical one. What we need is for Congress to get along long enough to come up with a practical, legal solution to immigration. That solution should include cutting the red tape for those who want to come here legally (and shortening the length of time it takes to come here legally) and finding a fair way to deal with those who are here illegally through no decision of their own.

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Inventing Terms To Circumvent The Law

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On Monday, Judicial Watch reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will grant “unlawful presence waivers” to illegal aliens who can prove they have a relative that’s a U.S. citizen. What the @#$# is an “unlawful presence waiver?”

The new procedure is wrapped up in legal terms, but basically it means that illegals would not be required to return to their home countries and wait in line to enter the country legally.

There are a few things I would like to mention here. What part of illegal does the DHS not understand? The other thing I need to point out is the dirty little secret regarding making illegals legal and putting them into the work force.

In the 1960’s, money from the Social Security Taxes was raided and put in with other tax money and spent in the general fund. There has not been a separate Social Security tax ‘lockbox’ for at least forty-five years–the money was used to pay for President Johnson’s expanding social programs. Until the baby boomers began to retire, that was not a problem as there were so many boomers that the Social Security taxes they paid kept the program solvent. Well, that was then, this is now. Our population is aging and the boomers started retiring a few years ago. Because of the impact abortion has had on the growth of population (since 1973–almost thirty years ago), there are not enough workers in the workforce to pay Social Security for the boomers. If there is a sudden increase of workers paying into Social Security (such as illegals suddenly becoming legal and paying Social Security Taxes), the demise of Social Security could be kicked down the road until the President is out of office and most of the present Congress is no longer in office. That way, no unpopular steps need be taken to fix the program and federal spending in general might not have to be cut.

Illegals are illegal. It’s a rather basic concept. It may not be practical to send all illegals home, but we should begin to deport those who break our laws and we should secure our borders. The porous southern border is a security risk. Having no idea who is in the country because we have no idea who has entered the country is a recipe for disaster. Do we think for one minute that those who wish us harm who have set up terrorist camps in South and Central America are not taking advantage of our porous southern border?

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The Need For New Immigration Policies

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Yesterday Fox News in Boston reported that a five-year-old child is recovering after being injured in a crash involving and illegal alien who was driving drunk.

The article reports:

Officers arrested Luis Parraga, 37, of Roxbury and charged him with OUIL, leaving the scene of a crash causing injury, and operating without a license. An ICE detainer has been requested for Parraga as authorities claim he is an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

The male passenger, 25-year-old William Gomez, is charged with allowing through wanton or reckless conduct, substantial bodily injury to a child, and allowing an improper person to operate a motor vehicle.

Gomez is identified as the owner of the vehicle and legal guardian of the child.

This is one more reason we need to keep track of who is in the country and who is on our roads.

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Governor Jan Brewer Speaks Out On Immigration

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Great Seal of the State of Arizona

Image via Wikipedia

The following statement was posted on Jan Brewer’s facebook page today:

The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress, so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat. There’s simply no other description for today’s announcement that the federal government will not pursue the deportation of individuals who are in the country illegally but meet certain criteria.

This plan amounts to backdoor amnesty for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of illegal aliens. Especially disturbing is that it comes in the wake of the Obama administration sanctioning the sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels – even as border states such as Arizona come under threat from those same illicit organizations. With this announcement, the President is encouraging more illegal immigration at the exact moment we need federal focus on border security.

Just last month in speaking to the National Council of La Raza, President Obama rejected the idea of bypassing Congress and imposing immigration reform. He said, “Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. And believe me, right now dealing with Congress, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting … But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”

President Obama got it right last month and got it really wrong today.

Over the next 15 months, I’m certain we’ll hear a lot of talk from the Obama administration about its concern for border security. Those of us who truly care about the rule of law will remember the President’s actions of today. We need to remind President Obama that we elected a president that serves beneath the law and did not anoint a king that is above the law.

Arizona has led the fight to secure America’s borders. In the age of terrorism, our national security requires that we keep tract of the people who are entering our country. The Border Patrol uses the expression OTM’s (Other Than Mexican) to describe the illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border from countries with close ties to terrorism.

A website called examiner.com reported in March of this year:

On Wednesday, a Washington, DC-based public interest group announced it acquired disturbing documents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection directorate detailing Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 apprehension statistics for illegal alien smugglers…

* U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 59,017 “Other Than Mexican” illegal aliens through October 7, 2010.

* Among the nations represented in apprehension statistics are the four countries currently on the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,”  Cuba (712), Iran (14), Syria (5) and Sudan (5), as well as Somalia (9), Afghanistan (9), Pakistan (37), Saudi Arabia (5) and Yemen (11).
* Overall, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 663 “Aliens from Special Interest Countries.”  These countries are deemed “special interest” because of their suspected ties to terrorism.
* The countries yielding the highest “Other Than Mexican” apprehensions include:  Guatemala (18,406), El Salvador (13,723), and Honduras (13,580).
Please follow the link above to read the rest of the Examiner article. Numbers don’t lie, and these numbers have not been easily available to the general public.
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