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Should the other 49 states adopt Arizona's new immigration law?
Results so far:
| Yes | 45% | 70 votes | Total: 156 votes | |
| No | 55% | 86 votes |
Yes
by Robert Minnella
Created on: October 30, 2010
Should the other 49 states adopt Arizona's new immigration law? You Bet!
There are specific laws that must be followed before immigrants gain passage to citizenship in America. But many cities across our country have provided a safe haven for illegal aliens and the dangers that follow.
Stealthily entering the U.S. through our porous borders is like cutting to the front of the line. Knowing just how irritating and rude that is cannot be compared to those who come into our country and cut to the front of the legal path to citizenship line.
As far as the new Arizona law, steps had to be taken to assure the safety of the citizens from those who breach our borders. Would you consider Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico more dangerous than Afghanistan? I would and much of the violence and corruption is filtering freely into our country. A corrupt Mexican Government laden with armies and police, who are in cahoots with drug cartels, makes for a very unsavory situation. If you think something is rotten in Denmark, one only has to look south of the border to realize the true meaning of the word rotten.
I am not a racist and I believe in the laws of our land. But for our government to sit by idly and allow our borders to be breached is an affront to us. To allow this to happen is akin to aiding illegal conduct.
Do illegal aliens have the right to protest in America? What really steams me is when I see large crowds of protesters in the streets of America in favor of some sort of immigration reform or quick path to U.S. citizenship. In my view they are advocating illegal behavior. Many of these folks carry their own national flags, banners and colors. This is very disrespectful to us Americans. Do you think that behavior would be tolerated in Mexico? Of course not.
There is also a lot to be said about how illegals flood our hospitals at a huge cost to the American people and the fact that so many medical centers have gone down financially because of this burden placed upon them.
Among those who enter our country illegally are are gun runners, drug and human traffickers, their mules, gangsters, sexual deviants, terrorists and even Mexican Army patrols. It is true that many innocent and hard working aliens are crossing over, but when they step onto our soil they are automatically illegal. That is certainly not a good way to start out.
Many areas of the southwest employ warning signs about the dangers of illegal aliens in the area. Apparently we are losing ground to those who would harm us in their attempts to remain unnoticed. Our government turns a blind eye from the penetration of our borders on all sides, land and sea.
We cannot help where we come from, it is what it is. To that end I do feel sympathetic for those who live under harsh government controls and poverty or those who live a meager day to day existence in fear of corrupt government officials. However, their perils are not our fault. We live in a country where honest behavior is expected and to see our laws broken is disheartening.
Each and every state has a responsibility to protect its citizens. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer realized this and took the action she felt was necessary to protect the citizens of her state. Like her or not, she has guts. I just hope it will trickle down to other politicians state by state so we can get a grasp on this failing situation..
Then there is the matter of when a child is born that has illegal alien parents. That child automatically becomes a legal U.S. citizen. This does not make sense. What if you had a child born in Mexico while on vacation? Would you suppose your child is a Mexican Citizen? Of course not and neither does Mexico. Our politicians need to start acting responsibly by putting the best interests of its citizens ahead of any illegal benefit.
Arizona is doing the right thing. May all the other states follow suit.
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No
by Tim Pettus
Created on: July 14, 2010
Even if one agreed entirely with Arizona's approach to take on immigration, which I admit I do not, they would have to concede it is not a decision that a state is constitutionally allowed to make. Arizona's border with Mexico is a state border, granted, but first and foremost, and as any scholar of the constitution will tell you, it is first and foremost a country border between the United States and Mexico. It is the duty of congress, not the states, to establish a rule of uniform naturalization.
Now, granted, there are those within Arizona who are greatly frustrated with the federal government's lack of action concerning immigration. Certainly, many on both sides of the issue want definitive law to be set forth and prosecuted. That, however, does not give individual states the right to dictate foreign policy. We cannot have, for example, Montana deciding it's own rules on immigration from Canada that disagrees with Maine. Connecticut cannot independently spy on France due to their suspicions. For better or worse, the constitution we are beholden too set foreign policy squarely in the hands of the Federal Government, who represent all fifty states to all other countries.
In short, if Arizona law were to be expanded to all fifty states, it would do so by legislative vote of the national congress. As it stands, the Arizona law is entirely unconstitutional, as would be the case in any other border state that passes similar legislation. That is simple fact.
Furthermore, the Arizona law tackles i believe entirely the wrong part of the problem by wrongly defining who the real perpetrators of illegal immigration are. It targets those who are suspected illegals based on little more fact than their ethnicity and ability to speak English. It turns police against would be informants, and the law against the legal Spanish community as a whole. It would be better to investigate, I believe, what draws immigrants in the first place, namely the jobs.
Now, these aren't the jobs that people claim are being stolen from them by illegal immigrants. In fact, Factcheck.org, a reputable site devoted to clearing up the facts on either side of a debate, claims that immigration of any kind, illegal or otherwise, creates more jobs due to the services that those people require. The jobs to which i prefer are those menial labor jobs in agriculture and manufacturing in which businesses save considerable money by hiring illegals for dirt pay. For years, a business friendly government in both Arizona and the Federal law have let immigration slide as an issue, because it directly meant fast and cheap business growth, and higher revenues for all involved.
Logically, if the law were to seriously crack down on those businesses that hire illegals, than the illegals would have no work, and thus no impetus to cross our border. There is some of this apparent in the Arizona Law, but not nearly strong enough. The legislation focuses far more on prosecuting illegals-A hopeless and divisive effort that will do little to stop people from trying to cross the border, and most likely prevent investigative workers from doing their job.
Let us learn a lesson here from the "war on drugs" before we start another "war on immigration". These tactics may at first show numbers, but they create a division between the police and the people they are trying to protect. They bog down police in paperwork and a numbers game, rather than real investigation on serious crime. And, it is thus the real criminals who profit from this, not those who cross the border in search of a job, but those who commit robbery and murder, legal citizens, who benefit from a distracted, overworked, and distrusted police force.
Learn more about this author, Tim Pettus.
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