I Thought The Feds Handled The Border
May 27, 2010 Political
The Arizona law has a lot of people in a snit. The opponents of the law that allows police officers to check the immigration status of anyone who has some interaction with police (a traffic stop, etc) continually mischaracterize the law and spread fear that it might lead to racial profiling.
This is hogwash but it has not stopped groups who advocate illegal activity from spreading the lies and the fear anyway. The Attorney General of the US, Eric Holder, is looking into challenging the Arizona law in court on Constitutional grounds. Holder, who did not read the law before condemning it (a common trait in the Obama regime), believes that enforcement of immigration laws is a federal government job and that states do not have the authority to enforce federal laws. As an aside, Arizona’s laws is a state law that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally. The only way to establish that is to check and see if people are in the country illegally.
This position is somewhat ridiculous. State and local police officers enforce federal laws all the time. Bank robbery is a federal crime but if a bank in any state is robbed the local police respond and have the authority to arrest the bank robbers. Can you imagine what would happen if FBI agents showed up and were told that the criminals were there with the police but they had no authority to enforce federal laws by arresting them so they let them go?
Kidnapping is a federal crime but state and local police respond to that crime. The same holds true for a number of crimes and no one seems to care that local officers are involved. For some reason though, people get uptight when the law deals with securing our borders or illegal immigration.
Surprisingly, Barack Obama has ordered 1200 National Guard troops to the border in Arizona (looks like the law is working) but has ignored a similar request from Texas. I don’t understand why Obama needs to give the order. If he takes charge of them they are not allowed to perform police functions. The NG belongs to the states so the governor of the state is in charge of them. If Texas or Arizona need Guardsmen on the borders then they should just deploy them. States have the right to keep people from crossing their borders illegally and if the governors deployed the NG then the soldiers could perform law enforcement functions. They could detain illegal entrants.
The federal government has been bellowing about the federal functions and how the security of the border is their job blah, blah. But an interesting thing happened today.
Texas was warned about the possibility of terrorists trying to enter the country illegally across the Mexico-Texas border. If stopping these illegal entrants is a federal job and the feds are the ones who should be enforcing their laws, why alert the local police? Why not send federal agents to guard the border and look for the terrorists?
One could make the argument that the state has the right to stop people at the border but that once they are here illegally the states have no authority to check immigration status or to detain people for being here illegally. Immigration being a federal job and all.
So if one of these terrorists crosses the border unseen but two days later an officer recognizes him from a photo, is the officer allowed to confront the guy and ask for identification? Can the officer check the immigration status of the terrorist?
If the answer is no then why alert Texas law enforcement and ask them to be on the lookout? If the answer is yes then why is the Arizona law wrong?
I have been thinking about the Arizona law and even though I have no problem I have a solution that will guarantee that no one is profiled. It will not please the left or any of the illegal immigrant groups who are aiding and abetting the criminals but it will work.
They should have immigration checkpoints. These would be just like sobriety checkpoints, would be random, would move from place to place and would require all people in every car that passes through the checkpoint to provide proof that they are here legally. Children would be considered legal if the adults in the car are legal.
The police could have cruisers set up to look for people who turn around to avoid the checkpoint. That would be probable cause to check their status.
The people who do not like Arizona’s law will not like the checkpoints but the courts have ruled sobriety checkpoints legal so long as they are random or everyone is checked. Illegal immigrant checkpoints are a great way to go. The law says that to check for immigration status the people have to make contact with police for some other reason first. No problem, just say the checkpoints are sobriety checkpoints and then ask everyone, and that is the key, for proof of status.
This could obviously be tweaked to work without violating the law or the Constitution.
The stops could also serve another purpose. Police could hand out literature explaining that there are sanctuary cities not far from Arizona and include a list of those cities and directions to get to them.
Arizona would be happy to send its illegals to California. Hell, the federal government will probably not take any referrals to ICE so Arizona might as well send the illegals where they are wanted.
As for Texas. It should tell the federal government to come look for the terrorist so that the state does not run afoul of federal immigration laws…
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: arizona, eric holder, illigal immigrants, lies, national guard, terrorists, texas