RSS Feed MenuWhatever one’s views on immigration it is clear that upwards of 60% of Americans believe that Arizonans were justified in their new law that allows police to ask for proof of citizenship when given cause to do so. Now it appears that the Obama administration is going to sue Arizona to prevent implementation of the law. If this pans out the Obama administration will give Republicans a costless issue upon which to run.
The Democrats expect to solidify their advantage among Hispanics and increase turnout from their opposition to Arizona’s law. That will not be the effect. First, it places the Democratic party on the side of lawlessness. It will not enforce the federal laws on immigration. Despite huge majorities it cannot reform immigration. But it will make Arizona spend money defending a perfectly reasonable law that deals with a problem that disproportionately affects that state.
Every time Arizonans detain another illegal with a criminal record Republicans can trumpet that Obama would have prevented Arizona from finding this out. On the Democratic side of the ledger such a suit is unlikely to be brief or successful. The administration will have chosen the course least likely to produce results. This will add to the President’s growing competency problem.
Finally, there are a host of things the Justice Department could be doing. Why is this a priority? To govern is to choose. The current administration choosing to use scarce resources to tie up Arizona’s popular approach will drive perceptions of the Democrats further left and over the cliff that November is becoming.
Rabiner // Jun 22, 2010 at 6:25 pm
nkthinker:
“I support the AZ law because it’s intent it to reduce the ignoring of existing law- not because it is popular.
But it’s popularity cuts directly through the hallucinogenic arguments here that Obama and the Democrats will not pay a price at the polls for raising the issues in the time frame voters will be making decisions.”
I don’t see this bill as being too popular amongst minority communities which will just marginalize the Republican Party in the future. When coupled with the other immigration related legislation passed in AZ its sure to marginalize it further for decades to come. Going after teachers with accents, trying to eliminate citizenship for children born here are just the tip of the ice burg i guess.
“Finally, there are a host of things the Justice Department could be doing. Why is this a priority? To govern is to choose. The current administration choosing to use scarce resources to tie up Arizona’s popular approach will drive perceptions of the Democrats further left and over the cliff that November is becoming.”
This is why we’re arguing with the article. It’s basically saying that if something is popular then who cares if its legal. That isn’t how the Justice Department should ever act, popularity doesn’t mean legal and this article basically says it should at some superficial level.
nhthinker // Jun 22, 2010 at 7:17 pm
rabiner
“It’s basically saying that if something is popular then who cares if its legal. That isn’t how the Justice Department should ever act, popularity doesn’t mean legal and this article basically says it should at some superficial level.”
You have a reading comprehension problem, the article actually says: “First, it places the Democratic party on the side of lawlessness. It will not enforce the federal laws on immigration.” But with your liberal filter, you ignore it and basically claim that the article is only about popularity. Actually, obeying the law is popular- Getting enforcement of existing law is also quite popular. It is quite humorous that you are arguing for the enforcement of legality- that is exactly what the 70% that support AZ law actually want and they want it now. It is those that are arguing for some new amnesty to formally condone illegal past behavior and give preference in the immigration line to those that jumped it. And that does not sit well with people that actually believe in the law.
Rabiner // Jun 22, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Nhthinker:
“It is those that are arguing for some new amnesty to formally condone illegal past behavior and give preference in the immigration line to those that jumped it. And that does not sit well with people that actually believe in the law.”
First off, you don’t know what I think on immigration probably. Second, it isn’t realistic to deport 12 million individuals from this country over night.
The AZ law is not simply the federal law. It is forcing police officers to police federal laws which is not their responsibility and never has been. It also does a lot of other things like allow citizens to sue the police department and collect lawyer fees if they succeed. This issue doesn’t ‘place the Democratic party on the side of lawlessness.’ It places them on the side of minority rights and constitutional rights not to be continuously harassed for your citizenship papers because you’re brown. But I guess you stopped caring about the constitution after the 2nd amendment.
nhthinker // Jun 22, 2010 at 10:17 pm
“First off, you don’t know what I think on immigration probably. Second, it isn’t realistic to deport 12 million individuals from this country over night.”
First, why don’t you tell us- although your particular opinion in no way invalidates my contention. Second, employee check and the set of clauses in the AZ law work to minimize illegal employment. Most illegals will self-deport if they cannot find work and know that they will be deported if they apply for government services. The 12M problem will shrink quite rapidly.
I am very confident that most, if not all, of the AZ law will be found constitutional by the USSC if Obama makes good on the threat to challenge the law. On follow up- contrary to what Clinton said, the Justice department is still indicating a lawsuit is under consideration, with no decision having been made yet.
Congress could make a law that explicitly prohibits states from concurrent enforcement of portions of federal immigration law.
However, with 70% of voters agreeing with the AZ law, I doubt that Congress has the stomach to try to pass that before November.
Rabiner // Jun 22, 2010 at 10:44 pm
“First, why don’t you tell us- although your particular opinion in no way invalidates my contention. Second, employee check and the set of clauses in the AZ law work to minimize illegal employment. Most illegals will self-deport if they cannot find work and know that they will be deported if they apply for government services. The 12M problem will shrink quite rapidly.”
If they had actually taken serious measures to prevent business from hiring illegal immigrants that would be fine by me and wouldn’t alienate a minority group.
“I am very confident that most, if not all, of the AZ law will be found constitutional by the USSC if Obama makes good on the threat to challenge the law.”
Why are you so confident that this is so? And why do you think it good policy to force Hispanic Americans to carry documentation of citizenship with them while White Americans won’t have to for fear of being asked to produce proof of citizenship and having possible detention until proof is provided?
Blumstein // Jun 22, 2010 at 10:55 pm
***I don’t see this bill as being too popular amongst minority communities which will just marginalize the Republican Party in the future. When coupled with the other immigration related legislation passed in AZ its sure to marginalize it further for decades to come.***
The alternative is to allow these states to self destruct like California.
“California’s financial unraveling has prompted a long-overdue debate about taxes, regulation, and government spending, but the state’s media and government continue to ignore what could be an even greater problem: the irreparable damage to California’s human capital that nearly 30 years of unrestrained illegal immigration has achieved…
For a closer glimpse of what’s in store for California, look at the Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest in California and the second largest in the country. Of its roughly 700,000 students, almost three-quarters are Hispanic, 8.9 percent are white, and 11.2 percent are black. More than half of the Latino students (about 300,000) are “English learners” and, depending on whether you believe the district or independent scholars, anywhere between a third and a half drop out of high school, following significant attrition in middle school. A recent study by UC Santa Barbara’s California Dropout Research Project estimates that high-school dropouts in 2007 alone will cost the state $24.2 billion in future economic losses…
In short, we are witnessing a highly advanced and prosperous state, long endowed with superior human capital, turning into the exact opposite in just one generation. What can be done to stop this race to the bottom? The answer is simple: California and Washington need to enforce existing immigration law. Unfortunately, it is difficult to convince the public that this is necessary, so deeply entrenched are myths about illegal immigration.
One myth is that because America is a country of immigrants and has successfully absorbed waves of immigration in the past, it can absorb this wave. But the argument neglects two key differences between past waves and the current influx. First, the immigrant population is more than double today what it was following the most massive previous immigration wave (that of the late 19th century). Second, and much more important, as scholars from the Manhattan Institute have shown, earlier immigrants were much more likely to bring with them useful skills. Some Hispanic immigrants certainly do integrate, but most do not. Research has shown that even after 20 years in the country, most illegal aliens (the overwhelming majority of whom are Hispanic) and their children remain poor, unskilled, and culturally isolated they constitute a new permanent underclass.
Perhaps the most disingenuous myth about illegal immigrants is that they do not impose any cost on society. The reality is that even those who work and half do not, according to the Pew Hispanic Center cannot subsist on the wages they receive and depend on public assistance to a large degree. Research on Los Angeles immigrants by Harvard University scholar George J. Borjas shows that 40.1 percent of immigrant families with non-citizen heads of household receive welfare, compared with 12.7 percent of households with native-born heads. Illegal immigrants also increase public expenditures on health care, education, and prisons. In California today, illegal immigrants’ cost to the taxpayer is estimated to be $13 billion half the state’s budget deficit.
The state should stop providing welfare and other social services to illegal aliens as existing statutes demand and severely punish employers who break the law by hiring illegal immigrants. This would immediately remove powerful economic incentives for illegal immigration, and millions of illegal aliens would return to their countries. Instead, with President Obama in the White House and the Democrats controlling Congress, an amnesty for the country’s 13 million illegal immigrants may be soon to come.
Milton Friedman once said that unrestrained immigration and the welfare state do not mix. Must we wait until California catches up with Mexico to realize how right he was?”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112167023
nhthinker // Jun 22, 2010 at 11:31 pm
“Why are you so confident that this is so? And why do you think it good policy to force Hispanic Americans to carry documentation of citizenship with them while White Americans won’t have to for fear of being asked to produce proof of citizenship and having possible detention until proof is provided?”
…why do you think… nice strawman… why are you so warped that you think you can divine what I think?
Ethnicity is PROHIBITED as a qualification for suspicion by the wording in the law.
Behaviors are suspicious. Caucasians with behaviors that indicate that they just made a long walk near the border or are packed into a vehicle and do not know who the other people in the car are as likely to be under suspicion and would need to provide documentation. I live in a border state that certainly does include illegal immigrants that are Caucasian.
Rabiner // Jun 23, 2010 at 1:05 am
Yea all those suspicious behaviors like accent, dress, lack of ability to speak English. They all really affect the Caucasian community like the Hispanic community.
“I live in a border state that certainly does include illegal immigrants that are Caucasian.”
/Golfclap
Blumstein:
“The state should stop providing welfare and other social services to illegal aliens as existing statutes demand and severely punish employers who break the law by hiring illegal immigrants. This would immediately remove powerful economic incentives for illegal immigration, and millions of illegal aliens would return to their countries. Instead, with President Obama in the White House and the Democrats controlling Congress, an amnesty for the country’s 13 million illegal immigrants may be soon to come.”
You ever hear of Proposition 187? Yea, it was deemed unconstitutional.
Blumstein do you even understand what you’re quoting because I sure suspect you don’t. Those $24 billion in economic losses aren’t actual loses, but rather future productivity loses based on what those drop outs will produce versus what they would produce if they had graduated from high school.
“Perhaps the most disingenuous myth about illegal immigrants is that they do not impose any cost on society. The reality is that even those who work and half do not, according to the Pew Hispanic Center cannot subsist on the wages they receive and depend on public assistance to a large degree. Research on Los Angeles immigrants by Harvard University scholar George J. Borjas shows that 40.1 percent of immigrant families with non-citizen heads of household receive welfare, compared with 12.7 percent of households with native-born heads. Illegal immigrants also increase public expenditures on health care, education, and prisons. In California today, illegal immigrants’ cost to the taxpayer is estimated to be $13 billion half the state’s budget deficit.”
Way to cherry pick figures to get it to look as bad as possible. You’re comparing immigrants who have not yet become citizens to everyone else and expect the figures to look anything but bad? Why don’t’ you include immigrant families that have become nationalized to get a real picture as opposed to segmenting it?
“Milton Friedman once said that unrestrained immigration and the welfare state do not mix. Must we wait until California catches up with Mexico to realize how right he was?””
Milton Friedman also advocated the negative income tax and actually you misuse his quote. http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/06/11/milton-friedmans-argument-for-illegal-immigration/ shows how he was actually talking about also having free migration into the United States for work as it would be good for the economy. He also advocated against the minimum wage.