RadiomanATL
Senior Member
azcentral.com blogs - Laurie Roberts' Columns & Blog - LaurieRoberts - Arizona immigration law: Are you listening, Mr. President?
IMO there are serious constitutional and civil rights issues with the law. But the passage of the law is having one positive effect: It's making national (DC) politicians acknowledge the elephant in the room.
The one part of the law that they got dead on was the imposition of stiff penalties to companies or individuals who employ illegal aliens.
Mr. President, are you listening? Secretary Napolitano, remember us?
If you or your predecessors had done something to close the nation's back door, we wouldn't be in this fix, where U.S. citizens are left to wonder whether they'll be asked for their papers simply because of the color of their skin. Where our ranchers live in a war zone and our largest city is the kidnapping capital of the planet.
Where everybody is now dug in to whichever foxhole they've chosen in this fight alien invader or noble immigrant -- with little room for middle ground or rational discussion.
A few hours before Brewer signed the bill, President Obama stood in his Rose Garden and lashed out at SB 1070, saying it threatens to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.
He's right. But this bill is now state law because the trust between our communities and our federal government was long ago broken.
It is because of Washington's steadfast refusal to do its job that we find ourselves where we are today when half of Arizona Democrats, 69 percent of independents and a whopping 84 percent of Republicans support SB 1070, according to the latest Rasmussen Poll of likely voters.
Dismiss this, if you like, as the work of the radical fringe, as Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund did on Friday. But 70 percent of likely voters supported this law.
The way things are going, we very well could have Sen. J.D. Hayworth, Gov. Joe Arpaio and Attorney General Andy Thomas running this place by the end of the year.
Can you hear us now, Mrs. Pelosi? And you, Harry Reid?
I'm assuming that you can because by the end of the week, immigration reform rocketed up Washington's to-do list, above climate-change legislation and this during Earth Day week.
Surely we can all agree that when 11 million people in our country are living here illegally, outside the system, that's unacceptable, Obama said Friday. The American people demand and deserve a solution. And they deserve common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform grounded in the principles of responsibility and accountability.
They do. But first, they deserve to know that Uzi toting drug runners and human smugglers are no longer running through our desert.
Brewer's been asking for National Guard troops to be sent to the border for 13 months, as then-Gov. Janet Napolitano did before her.
If we are now a police state, it's because nobody's been listening.
IMO there are serious constitutional and civil rights issues with the law. But the passage of the law is having one positive effect: It's making national (DC) politicians acknowledge the elephant in the room.
The one part of the law that they got dead on was the imposition of stiff penalties to companies or individuals who employ illegal aliens.