ILLEGAL Immigration

On Friday, April 23, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona signed into law a bill that will require police to determine immigration status on anyone of suspicion. There is a huge left wing outcry blowing up with this issue, as all sorts of "minority groups" scream of racial profiling and discrimination. They threaten court action to have the new law declared unconstitutional, and are accusing Gov. Brewer of racism. This whole concept seems pretty overwhelming to me, so let's break it down a little, maybe look at the little parts more closely. First off, let's put the new law out there so that you can read it. Arizona Senate Bill 1070. This is the full text of the bill. It is 16 pages long (wouldn't it be nice if our federal government could learn to keep them this short?), so go ahead and read through it. If you type Arizona Immigration Bill into your search engine, you get an enormous list of news coverage, most of it about protest rallies and other such attention getting behavior. This is a nice little left winger special that I read through that hits on all of the so called concerns. (Mexidata) It's not particularly long, and a quick read through gives some nice discussion points to address.
After a couple of days of being tied up with various issues, I finished reading the bill. It really is pretty simple and straight forward. It doesn't have any specific Immigration language in it, it simple says, Arrest illegal aliens, fine and penalize those that knowingly employ them, and fine, arrest, and confiscate vehicles being used to transport them. Much of the bill is amendments and additions to already existing state statutes. There is NO WHERE in this bill where it discusses "racial profiling", or attempts to define characteristics of an illegal alien. But it really is impressive to listen to the protesters and see their signs and rhetoric. I would suspect none of these people have read the bill. And they are a peaceful bunch, too, throwing bottles and trash at the police, and screaming epitaphs and threats. This whole issue is wrapped up in "citizens' rights," "discrimination," "police state," and a host of other buzz/catch phrases. But let's boil this down a little.
1) The police are required to ask for documentation if you are stopped for some other violation, to prove legality.
2) If you can not provide said documentation, you are referred to immigration/federal authorities to make that determination.
3) If you knowingly hire illegals, you can be fined for it.
4) If you knowingly transport, hide, shelter, or support illegals, you may be fined, arrested, or suffer confiscation of property used in this offense.

Pretty simple. I've been listening to a lot of these talking heads screaming about getting arrested and deported if you "forget" to have your documents with you. No, the bill does allow for proving legality if you should happen to be without. But even on that count, let's think about this documentation thing a little. If you are driving a vehicle, you must have your driver's license with you. Pretty much fifty states agree on that, and all fifty agree that a driver's license is accepted as ID. Medicaid/medicare now requires a picture ID be copied and in the chart before getting services. In most school districts around the country, students are required to have a student ID. In my son's high school, here in the midwest, in a pretty peaceful suburb, the students are required to wear the ID by a neck lanyard, with the ID approximately in the middle of the torso, At All Times of the school day. Not having your ID will get you "disciplinary action." As tourist/legal aliens enter the country, they are issued visas, or green cards, or some other form of documentation. Additionally, they are instructed to have these documents with them at all times. They are instructed to keep their passports with them. Are you seeing a pattern here? If you don't have some form of documentation, as dictated by our already overbearing government, you're probably already on the suspicious side of the deal. So you know what? I call Bulls**t. If you're legit, you've got the documentation. And quite frankly, if you've been in the habit of not routinely carrying it with you, you now have officially been warned--go home, get the ID, etc, and put it in your pocket.

We'll have a short discussion about racial profiling later.

Take care.