Friday, July 9, 2010

What is illegal?

I guess what the President and the Department of Justice are saying in the lawsuit against Arizona is that it is illegal to enforce laws against illegal aliens. The lawsuit is not based on the law being prejudicial, which is what they have been talking about, but rather challenging the law based on the fact that the State is not allowed to enforce federal law.

Wonder who is allowed to enforce federal law? Second question, why aren't they doing it? Now that would be a good lawsuit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the federal government's not going to enforce federal law (due to laziness or out of fear of "offending" the hispanic vote), then it has no business getting on Arizona's case.

inky said...

The problem with Arizona's law is that white Europeans aren't going to be asked for their papers ... but brown-skinned people will be. And while it can be argued that there are more illegal Mexicans than Scots in Arizona, it means legal Hispanics are going to be detained in droves while the illegals go underground. Grocers and other businesses are already screaming about this.

But hey, it took Arizona a while (and a boycott) to catch on to the whole Martin Luther King Jr. holiday thing, so maybe it'll take economic sanctions to help them find a different way to police illegals.

Jim of L-Town said...

Inky, the problem is that white folks are asked for their papers (driver's licenses) when they are stopped for traffic. If they can't identify themselves they are likely to be held until they can. That goes on all the time now both in Arizona and elsewhere. A Hispanic with a driver's license in Arizona, according to their law, is in full compliance and the driver's license is taken as proof of residency. I believe most stops made by officers will be in traffic situations.

My point is that this is, and has been going on for decades, as I said previously, California police officers (the ones I worked for) frequently stopped and determined whether folks were legal or illegal (and yes most were Hispanics) back in the 1970s.

Nothing new, just a convenient target for politicians hoping to win the Hispanic vote this year.

And no, I'm not the least bit shocked about that.

Anonymous said...

Inky: you DO realize that not all Mexicans are brown-skinned, right? I'm from Texas, and I can tell you that many are light skinned with blue or green eyes. It's more the ability to speak the language and other gestures that might make an officer suspicious.

Dave Forsmark said...

Bank robbery is a federal crime...

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/15/obama-administration-sues-michigan-for-prosecuting-%E2%80%9Cfederal-issue%E2%80%9D-of-bank-robbery/