The Rev. Canon Carmen B. Guerrero remembers living with the fear of her mother, a third-generation Mexican American, “who would never go close to the border because she was afraid of getting deported, although she had been born here.”
For Guerrero, canon for peace and justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, the state’s tough anti-illegal immigration law feels a bit like déjà vu.
Guerrero described suffering of her parishioners because of the immigration debacle.
Not true. Look at this for comparison from http://themcj.com/?p=11489#comment-95048 :
[blockquote]Jim the Puritan
May 14, 2010
The absurdity of this is California already has a law on its books like Arizona’s, even if it’s ignored:
California Penal Code Section 834b
(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.
(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following:
(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and
place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States.
(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity.
(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited.
The L.A. County Council might want to note that they are in violation of the last section of that law.[/blockquote]
The Arizona law is different in only one respect: it makes it a state crime to be in violation of the federal law and empowers the state officer to make an arrest in addition to the feds being able to make the arrest. What hypocrites.
While I do not minimize the shambles that the federal government has made (and this goes back at least two decades) of federal immigration policy, it cannot be constitutionally acceptable for states to assign themselves responsibility for enforcing immigration and naturalization authority.
So, Lawyer Haley, where are you when we need you? Is there a discrimination case against the government based on selective enforcement of the law (or selective failure to enforce)?
Border crossers bad if EcUSA/TEc does not like ’em! Border crossers good when EcUSA/TEc likes ’em. Got it.
2, it’s called concurrent jurisdiction and there are many examples where the state and feds criminalize the same acts. So you are basically arguing that Obama and the executive branch violate their oaths of office to see that the federal laws are enforced.
“The sadness is, so many have come here seeking a better life for themselves and their families. They’re very good people, certainly not criminals, or drug lords or violent. They find themselves being profiled and targeted as being members of that type of community when that’s the last thing on their minds.”
No, it’s sad that this has come to be a way of life – cross the border ILLEGALLY and claim all sorts of benefits just cause you’re here. Our taxes are super-high because of this and if nothing is done they are just going to go higher.
God tells us that actions have consequences,”The wages of sin is death”. Crossing the boarder from Mexico into the US illegally to establish a new live has consequences, you might get deported. Cross the boarder from South America into Mexico you go to jail..These people that come here illegally know what they are doing is wrong or they wouldn’t sneak in under the cover of darkness in obscure places and try to avoid detection..That the US government doesn’t develope the programs for guest workers etc is beyond rediculous! The ecomonic impact of illegals is terrible, illegals cost Azizona one billion per year, California 10 billion per year. I think laws should be inforced or removed. I think Mexico should pay the cost of health care, and incarceration for the citizens of Mexico that are here illegally. I think employers should be fined that hire illegals. My son inlaw and his family own a farm and got out of crop poduction because they can not compete against the farms that hire illegals. Using US workers is to expensive. They now raise dairy cattle. This mess is just horrindous and the federal government does nothing. When your house is on fire you do your best to stop the fire until the Fire department shows up..well Arizona has waited long enough for the clowns in Washington ..By the way, I am boycotting any state that boycotts Arizona!
Perhaps the most [i]interesting[/i] aspect of the ENS article, is that the law is quite egregiously mischaracterized by the Rev. Enrique Cadena who is quoted in the article as having said [i]{my [b]bold emphasis[/b] on the specific untruths}[/i]: [blockquote]Now, [b]any police who have the suspicion, the mere suspicion, that someone is undocumented, can stop them[/b] and ask for documents,” he said.
“[b]Just by the color of our skin, any of us can be stopped[/b] … leading to the possibility that the police have all the authority to abuse people instead of serving them.” [/blockquote] Both of the highlighted errors are patently untrue. In order to ask any person for documentation that he or she is legally in the country, there must first be a legal reason for the law enforcement officer to have stopped the person(s), and, second, the officer must then have probable cause to suspect that the person(s) presence in the U.S. might be illegal. Then, and only then, does this law apply.
Of course, ENS couldn’t be troubled to publish a link to the actual text of the act, which is located here. The reason for which is fairly obvious: someone who understands the law, even though not an attorney, might realize that ENS is publishing propaganda, not news.
All of which leads to the observation that, when one has begun to falsify the truth by twisting the plain meaning of ordinary words, it becomes ever easier to be less and less truthful. TEC has quite rapidly become an iconic example of that behavior.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Keith, most of the news stories mischaracterize the Arizona law this way. It is typical of the press to lie and propagandize in this way. I first noticed it in their campaign for gun control and their blatant mischaricterization of semi-automatic firearms as machine guns. For me the issue became more of press lying than gun control. The press simply lies and once the approved lie gets into the press it is almost impossible to change it.
[b][8] Br. Michael[/b],
Yes, I fully recognize that, and I find it very common in the commercial media. And in that context, I suspect it is often as much owing to sheer ignorance on the part of the [i]alleged[/i] journalists as it is to bias on their part. I just believe that it is incumbent on the ENS, that office being part of an ecclesial community, to be truthful. But, I suppose, inasmuch as the Presiding Bishop of that ecclesial community has her own documented difficulties in being truthful, one should not expect its press office to do any better.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Of course why should ENS or the rest of the media care about accuracy in comments when Attorney General Eric Holder feels free to call the Arizona law unconstitutional with out ever having read the law!
It is difficult enough to discuss any issue based on the truth, it is impossible when people are deliberately lying. We should hold the Government and everyone else to the truth as best it can be discerned. A deliberate lair should be shunned.
No. 4 – I don’t think this has much to do with any particular administration. This one seems to be far more aggressive on border control than the previous half dozen, but it’s a long border. The states do not have concurrent jurisdiction over immigration and naturalization. The Constitution makes that an exclusively federal function. I don’t dispute that the feds have done a miserable job of it, but it doesn’t create a state authority where none existed previously.
Respectfully, 12. NoVA Scout, please cite your source – “The Constitution makes that an exclusively federal function.” Tnx
12, we are not talking about immigration and naturalization. We are talking about illegal border crossings. Are you arguing that a state has no authority to secure its border with a foreign country? That if the federal government makes no effort to control the border the state must simply sit on its hands? And that if an illegal commits a crime and the state discovers that the illegal has no identification the state may not inform the feds of that fact or make any effort to discover if the person with no id is in the country illegally?
No. 13. I did cite my source: The Constitution of the United States of America. It’s a pretty succinct document (at least in its original form), I don’t have it in front of me at the moment, but if recollection serves, both immigration and naturalization are among the specifically enumerated powers of Article I, section 8. This is basic stuff.
No 14. A state has no power to control commerce or security on international borders. That is an exclusively federal function. That’s why we don’t have 20 or 30 different Border Patrols and Customs Bureaus. Of course a state has substantial authority to control crime within its borders. The immigration status of a criminal suspect makes no difference. He can be arrested, charged, tried and convicted under state law, subject to treaty rights that the United States has with some foreign nations concerning consular access. There is nothing that prohibits a state from informing the federal government that it has in its possession a car thief whose immigration status is not documented. The current problem, however, is what the federal government chooses to do with that information.
I don’t think that Arizona is securing it’s boarder, it is arresting people in the state illegally..We will see when the Supreme Court takes up the issue>>
15, you are arguing apples and oranges. The state codified as a state statute what is already existing federal law. The state is not crafting its own immigration and naturalization policy.
Article 1 Sec. 8 states: The Congress shall have Power …..To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,
Congress has done that. It is in federal law. Arizona didn’t change anything. It recopied it as a state law. You argument has to be that the feds are free to ignore their own law. Sounds like that would be a good argument for the impeachment of the President for nonfeasance.
We will have to see what the courts do with it. However, other Arizona laws dealing with illegals have been upheld.
[b][i]15. NoVA Scout[/i][/b],
Based on a reading of the act that was passed amending AZ state law, your argument amounts to an assertion that a state law enforcement officer is prohibited from arresting someone who violates any Federal Law enacted by the U.S. Congress which is covered under its enumerated powers. This is [i]prima facie[/i] [b]nonsense[/b]. I would humbly suggest that you think about the implications of your assertions before you post them. A quotation variously attriutable to a number of prominent historical personages states that it is “[i]better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.[/i]”
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
17 and 18: I have argued nothing. I simply suggested some basic, axiomatic constitutional principles that help frame the issue. You’re a tough crowd to please. I get paid to argue these things at all levels of the federal judiciary, and Keith suggests (well, more than suggests) that I am spouting “nonsense.” Federal judges haven’t told me that (yet), and they can be an impatient bunch. Unless the Constitution changed radically after I left the office Friday afternoon, I’ve said nothing that isn’t basic constitutional fare. I thought it might be helpful.
States don’t gain authority over federal functions by purporting to re-state federal law as their own (although I don’t think that is a wholly accurate description of what Arizona did). And I certainly didn’t even come close to “arguing” the feds are “free to ignore their own law.” This crisis is largely caused precisely because the federal government has had a backbone of silly putty about asserting its obligations and prerogatives in this area. But, having readily acknowledged that, state authority doesn’t come from the fairy dust of the federal government being incompetent or federal legislators being too afraid of the loudest voices to enact essential immigration law reform. The Constitution is quite precise about what powers are federal. There are, thankfully (from my perspective as a Burkian/Kirkian conservative), relatively few of those powers. This was all well thought through by the Founders. But where those powers are expressly granted, federal authority is plenary.
Finally, re this recurring theme that this immigration tangle is somehow peculiar to this administration (penultimate graph in No. 17), or that it an element of impeachment, I can’t see that this Administration is doing less or worse than its immediate several predecessors. In fact, both from public sources and from my own eyes moving along a 400 miles of the southern border in April, I’d have to say this Administration is more energetic than any of its predecessors in the last 50 years in trying to control the border. I give the Bush Administration high marks for trying to move immigration reform through the Congress, but they failed. This Administration has no choice but to try again. We’ll see how they manage.
Here is a summary of the argument from Wikipedia:
[blockquote] According to one of the bill’s authors (Kobach), the law embodies the doctrine of “concurrent enforcement” – i.e., that the state law parallels applicable federal law without any conflict[30] – and that believes it would thus survive any challenge: “There are some things that states can do and some that states can’t do, but this law threads the needle perfectly…. Arizona only penalizes what is already a crime under federal law.”[29] State Senator Pearce noted that some past state laws on immigration enforcement had been upheld in federal courts.[5] However, various legal experts were divided on whether the law would survive a court challenge, with one law professor saying it “sits right on that thin line of pure state criminal law and federally controlled immigration law.”[30] Past lower court decisions in this area were not always consistent and a decision on the bill’s legality from the U.S. Supreme Court is one possible outcome.[30][/blockquote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_Our_Law_Enforcement_and_Safe_Neighborhoods_Act#Constitutionality
We can argue all day, but nothing will be decided until a court rules.
The argument in Wikipedia is quite different than the argument you and others advanced in this thread. The states have considerable power of the police. Much depends on what they make criminal. They can’t make it a state crime to cross the border without inspection (which is the federal misdemeanor violation that occurs when someone sneaks in illegally). They may be able to make it a crime for anyone (not a particular class) not to have sufficient identification. But, as one of my favorite Supreme Court Justices once observed, mere congruence is not a defense to a charge that a state is operating in an area of federal enumerated powers. Read the Webster/Hayne debate – or at least Daniel Webster’s side of it – and you quickly get the picture on why the State’s pealing off on their own in these areas is a major existential threat to the Republic.
[b][19] NoVA Scout[/b],
I apologize that may have given the impression that I was personally attacking you. Such was not my intent. It is my (layman’s) understanding that the law AZ law has to do predominantly with the arrest and handing over, by state law enforcement personnel, to Federal authorities, of people found to be in this country illegally, that is to say, aliens who have entered the U.S. illegally, and have already evaded any Federal efforts to prevent their entry. I am also operating under the understanding that it is within the powers of a duly authorized state or local law enforcement officer to apprehend anyone who is known, or reasonably suspected, of having broken any law (Federal, State, or Local) that pertains to the people in the officer’s jurisdiction. Thus, the Mann Act, enumerated in the Constitution or not, may be enforced as a Federal statute, but even absent a local law covering the same offense, any officer, duly authoized in the jurisdiction in which the suspected offender is encountered is empowered to detain the suspected offender (subject of course to considerations of probable cause and any other such considerations as may independently render the arrest or detention invalid.
In what particular, or particulars, is my understanding in error? If they are not in error, but the courts have held that this power of arrest is not as broad as I have believed, then it is the court’s interpretation which is nonsensical, on its face, which I failed to clearly communicate in my earlier post.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
21, I suggest that you read the statue in question. I think for the reasons stated that it will pass constitutional muster.
1. SENATE BILL 1070
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/laws/0113.htm
and as amended:
2. HOUSE BILL 2162
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2R/laws/0211.htm
No. 22 – Your admonition that I not open my mouth and make myself seem a fool did come across as a bit personal, but I accept and am grateful for your kinder, gentler tone in the later comment. To address your point, there are some areas where local and federal law enforcement can and do overlap. My point is that, in the relatively few areas of enumerated federal authority, the states cannot operate except by leave of the federal government. That is why you sometimes see reference to Memoranda of Understanding or some such documents where the federal government essentially delegates a role to the states or localities to assist. Sometimes a Congressional enactment expressly disclaims intent to preempt state action on the same subject, and Congress is free to do so. In the Immigration area, there are some cooperative programs with the states and localities, but they exist by grant of the federal government. The states simply cannot arrogate to themselves a dual authority to enforce or improve upon federal law in these few areas. The Mann Act is not a good example (does that thing still exist? I would guess that it is unconstitutional, particularly in a setting where the Supreme Court is fairly conservative and doesn’t cotton to contorting the Commerce Clause to weird Congressional purposes) for several reasons. First, I doubt that a local cop could arrest someone on a Mann Act violation (absent some overlapping state offense that is not premised on crossing state lines) and second, I have no idea what enumerated power of Article I it purports to assert (perhaps Commerce Clause, but that seems strained). I do not think a local cop could arrest someone for postal fraud. A state could not stand up an army or navy. A state can’t regulate airline or vessel safety. A state cannot coin money. A state cannot conduct foreign policy (of which immigration and naturalization are a component). A state cannot delare war. A state cannot make a felony a violation of federal law that is a misdemeanor (like uninspected entry into the country). These exemplary prohibitions are fundamental to the federal structure. These lines of distinction between state and federal power have to be zealously guarded.
No. 23. I have read the statute but suggest that your links are to the House and Senate versions of bills as introduced, and that neither is the final version of the law as enacted. Even so, assuming that the substance of the law is largely reflected by the overlap of the two documents, there are some things in those documents that probably don’t even require a law to exist as police policy in the state, there are some elements that seem clearly unconstitutional, and some elements that are probably not particularly offensive constitutionally, but that utterly fail to address the problem stated to be the provoking source of the legislation. When I see the latter category of provision, whether in Arizona or elsewhere, I suspect politicians have grabbed hold of an emotional issue that they feel can be fanned for votes.
To close this out (for me, at least) I do not minimize for a moment that the federal approach to this issue has been cowardly and ineffectual. This craven ostrich imitation goes back many years and is completely bi-partisan. The failure to enact legislation in 2007 at the federal level directly affects much of what is going on now. The Congress must try again and pull itself together. Border control is important, but so is creating an immigration system that encourages legal immigration. A major driver of illegal border crossing on the southern border is the complete dysfunctionality of legal immigration portals from Latin America. The petty crime elements of illegal immigration (incompetent motor vehicle operation, day laborer sites that annoy legal residents, over-crowded rental housing etc) can be controlled by legitimate local law enforcement, but they are exacerbated by the underground nature of the illegal immigrant economy. The serious crime (the drug war violence) is something that is happening both in overlap of illegal immigration and independently of it. That requires aggressive federal action and strong law enforcement on both sides of the border.