Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor La Raza Member
The left has owned the immigration debate for years. It shows in every story the print and electronic media run on the subject. They have shaped the vernacular and framed the issue in terms that suit their bias.
The first way we can know this is by the misnomer itself. The influx of millions of illegals – largely across the Southern borders – has nothing to do with immigration.
It has to do with interloping. Trespassing.
Yet the media quickly seized the initiative by employing the “immigration” banner, as though this were all some kind of bureaucratic snafu, and they have continued the deception by using terms such as “alien” and “undocumented” to soften the idea in public perception.
It worked tremendously. I don’t know about you, but I have known dozens of illegals over the years, and my experience with them has been for the most part positive. One of my dearest friends began his life in the U.S. as an illegal and today owns a successful restaurant. But hundreds if not thousands of Hispanics die each year trying to enter the U.S.
One of the great tragedies of the Reagan administration was his Amnesty Bill. The Amnesty wasn’t in itself a bad idea but not building up the INS and the Border Patrol to deal with future interlopers has proved disastrous.
The government since that time has continued to fail both the American people and the millions Mexicans and South Americans who have come here to feed their families. And no one has easy answers.
I believe that Arizona will eventually lose this battle when it is finally taken up, as it surely will be, by the Supreme Court. Probably the better strategy would have been for Arizona join with other willing states and entities in a class action against the U.S. Government. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know.
What I do know is that Barack Obama has been cutting industries and issues out of the heard and ceasing power unlike any President in U.S. history, and he is on “immigration” like a flea on a birddog.
The Arizona law is absolutely right. It merely extends authority to Arizona law enforcement to implement the statutes that the federal government has been remiss in carrying out.
Arizonans feel helpless. The state legislature has every right to cut off resources and employment to illegals. People are dying and Arizona has an enormous related crime problem.
But the issue is complicated. What about the citizen children born to these illegal parents? Do they also return to the parents’ country of origin? Not so fast. Like it or not they are citizens of the United States.
In passing this bill, Arizona has handed Barack Obama his next “crisis.” He will use the sword with relish.
In the coming months (and summer is on us) leftist front groups like La Raza will mobilize and I will not be surprised to see riots as the fervor ramps up. We all need to remember this when we vote, not only in the next two elections, but also as a life lesson.
Get vocal.
Left Coast Ledger 