Since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill that will allow police to randomly question anyone they choose about their immigration status, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor would probably be better off not walking alone on a street in Phoenix, lest she get thrown against a police car.
Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez might be advised to not perform in the Grand Canyon State unless they have their passports in their pockets during the show.
Anyone that "looks" like they might actually mow lawns, drive trucks or fold laundry had better be brushing up on their ingles.
Gov. Brewer denied any racial profiling and said, "We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color, accent, or social status," and then signed a bill that targets people with regard to skin color, accent and social status. What, you think the police are going to start asking white seniors to show their papers?
The Governor has said that she believes "God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona's governor" to help the state weather its troubles. God apparently also told her to take away the state's domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples a year after they were implemented, leaving as many as 500 university employees without coverage for dependent family members. The health, welfare and civil rights of the populace be damned - God has conservative values!
The bill's Republican sponsor, state Rep. Russell Pearce, said, "We'll have less crime. We'll have lower taxes. We'll have safer neighborhoods. We'll have shorter lines in the emergency rooms. We'll have smaller classrooms." Not to mention less Latinos, which might be swell with him if his past associations with white separatists (which he later apologized for) are any clue.
While denying any racism, in 2008 Pearce sponsored a bill prohibiting students of Arizona universities from forming groups based on the race of their membership. He said he didn't want students indoctrinated with seditious or anti-American teachings, such as those dens of sedition the Mexican American study program or Black Business Students Association.
Americans have a hypocritical love/hate relationship with illegal immigrants. As Eric Schlosser vividly documents in his book Reefer Madness, which I would highly recommend, illegal immigration is built into America's economy, and many industries depend on employing illegal workers. Who's going to pick strawberries for $5 a day - you? The minute people have to pay $1 for a strawberry, they're going to be smuggling Mexicans in the back of their SUVs.
And plenty of otherwise law-abiding Americans have at one point or another employed illegals, including celebrities, high court nominees and politicians. Ask Mitt Romney about his Guatemalan landscaper.
Conservatives who have been screaming that their freedoms being infringed upon by health care reform are now applauding a law that infringes on the freedoms of every Latino in Arizona.
And conservatives who routinely trash the federal government are saying that the federal government should take care of it. Mike Huckabee said, "This is a federal problem, the feds ought to be fixing this, they ought to be standing guard at the border, they ought to be enforcing the federal laws."
I don't know the solution to the illegal immigration crisis, but I would bet that giving the police unrestricted power to harass citizens, especially police who might share the mindset of former officer Russell Pearce, isn't it.
And it isn't a great idea to enable people like those who made death threats against Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) for calling the law discriminatory, and left phone messages like, "Tell that tortilla-eating wetback to go back to Mexico."
And please, in the name of Judge Judy, don't tell me you hate the government and then blame the government for not doing it's job, and don't tell me you're not racial profiling when you sign a bill that mandates it.
As long as we're profiling, why not have New York City police randomly stop Wall Street bankers on the street and make them prove they are not trading fraudulent mortgages? Or the have D.C. police detain congressmen and ask to see their expense accounts? How about some equal protection under the law around here?
The logic here is enough to make your cabeza spin.
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Read the intent of the law carefully. Arizona has no intention of deporting all illegal aliens. READ THE INTENT and discover what GENIUS of a law this is. I swear that Arizona will only have to probably do their everyday work like they are doing now like if the person committing a crime cannot provide a valid ID or DL, they check for immigration papers, this LAW will work like a charm. However, if they see violations stated in this bill, the law has to be enforced. This is the MOST GENIUS law I had ever seen.
Please read the SB1070 word for word. You will discover how genius of a law this is---- This law is a MASTERPIECE.
8,300,000 - the number of illegals, using invalid SS numbers, illegally working at known places of employment.
In the meantime, there are 15,000,000 unemployed American workers
8,000,000 illegals earning $10 an hour, equals $20,800 a year, that's 8,000,000 X $20,800 equals $166,400,000,000; that's $166.4 billion that American workers aren't taking home for their wives, and children.
Remember all of those jobs that used to be available for teenagers.
By the way Mexicans are Americans. So are Canadians, Argentinians, etc ... They all live in America. You might want to replace the term 'American' with United States citizen in future posts.
STOP THE INVASION
In the last 23 years, since the 1986, Reagan, one-time amnesty, over 27 million illegals have been apprehended, as they crossed the border into our United States.
UNITED STATES BORDER APPREHENSIONS (Source DHS/CBP)[/b]
1987--1,190,488------1995--1,394,554------2003----931,557
1988--1,008,145------1996--1,649,986------2004--1,160,395
1989----954,243------1997--1,412,953------2005--1,189,075
1990--1,169,939------1998--1,555,776------2006--1,089,902
1991--1,197,875------1999--1,579,010------2007----876,704
1992--1,258,482------2000--1,676,438------2008----723,825
1993--1,327,259------2001--1,266,213------2009----556,041
1994--1,094,717------2002----955,310------2010----beg. 10/01/09
UNFORTUNATELY, far less than half of illegals are apprehended at the border.
Tucson Border Patrol Sector Monthly Apprehensions Of Illegals---Length 262 miles
----------OCT---NOV---DEC---JAN----FEB---MAR---APR---MAY---JUN----JUL---AUG---SEP
FY2010-23211-16999-10922-16096-21223-31203
FY2009-18814-12845--9862-18649-20943-31433-28072-24084-20822-20144-20805-15178
FY2008-21725-18232-11722-26348-34297-45222-45436-32851-24290-21074-18404-18044
FY2007-25135-21323-16136-29459-34148-52692-49044-41789-34103-30373-24388-19649
FY2006-27316-24270-16447-33229-43153-63583-51588-40190-25049-21187-23256-22806
seriously, this law will victimize people with brown skin. but the potential is there to infringe on the fourth amendment rights of anyone the powers that be choose to target. where are the tea partiers? when do they start fighting for the freedoms guaranteed in (what's left) of the fourth amendment.
But ICE deported 310.000 illegal immigrants last year. I'm sorry but that doesn't particularly sound like drumming fingers to me; let me say that again: 310 thousand people were deported last year.
Also, the police already sends those caught to ICE for deportation, and they have no limitation to inform ICE of people suspected of being illegal. More so, any citizen can call ICE and tell an illegal immigrant, heck, it happens every day.
Lastly, the law is portrayed as a response to an evil, incapable and incompetent federal government, which at the same time is expected to pay for the biggest fence in the world. If the problem is the fence what prevents the "great" state of AZ to build the fence with _their_ tax payer money?
Apparently harassing latinos is cheaper, besides it has the benefit that those that are citizens or legally in the country will move out of AZ, for a clean, white, aryan state. Great day for whites in AZ indeed.
They voted no to reform healthcare and now to Wall Street. I would really like to ask all those like the governor of AZ, that keep saying "we had to act because the federal government let us down," if they really think immigration reform stands a change of even a debate, with the type of Republican senators that won't agree on anything. Give me a break, talk to your counter parts first and really find out what is going on at the federal level before you speak, Jan Brewer.