Arizona

Yeah, it is about time that I have some words about Arizona. I have some Latino friends who are understandably concerned about the prospect of harassment of people who look like they do, but there is so much else that needs to be considered in this move.

For starters, let's one thing straight:  not all the Latinos in the United States are illegal, but the overwhelming majority of illegals are Latino.  Sort of similar to the terrorist Muslim argument: not every Muslim is a terrorist, but the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslim. If you want to enforce United States law as to illegal immigration, the Latino community will bear the brunt of enforcement action: numerically the number of non-Latino illegals is a vanishingly small percentage of the total.

That idiot Al Sharpton is headed to Phoenix because it means "racial profiling" that he wants to protest. Duh. If you are looking to find an illegal in Phoenix you don't head for the nearest hotbed of Thai refugees or Canadians. While there may be some, it is stupid and inefficient to try. Instead, you head to the nearest Home Depo(r)t to look for guys waiting for a day job. You stop a pick-up with 15 guys in it. Its not hard!

The people of Arizona - and all the other border states are overrun by illegal immigration. Sure that provides cheap labor for the unscrupulous that hire them, and those that benefit directly and knowingly from it, but it is NOT good for the United States as a whole. It suppresses wages, costs staggering sums in entitlements and support (everything from education for children of illegals, to health care, to bilingualism in the Courts), denies the United States of its unifying language, debases the tax system -- I could go on. Various think tanks have calculated the real cost to the taxpayer of each illegal in the United States at between $18,000 and $22,000 per year.  Of course, that is using the same number of illegals used by Obama and Liberals ...  about 12 million illegals. The known number is actually about three times that, about 30 million illegals. That would put the per unit cost down some, but also reflect huge costs not thrown into the calculation, costs that are literally breaking the bank in various states.

States like Arizona bear an unusual burden in the illegal/cost mixture. While they benefit from the cheap agricultural labor provided by the illegals, that does not even begin to recoup the costs to the State in humanistic / welfare support. You could look at this equation as a sort of unofficial State subsidy of agricultural producers. The workers ... get a savage and dangerous life on the fringe of society, fostering an atmosphere where gang violence and drug running is a rational choice, and to the detriment of Americans.

The average Arizona tax payer gets hammered.  The same is true in California, Texas, New Mexico and Florida.  Other States, like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont etc., also gain from cheap food and from seasonal workers -- who do you think mows the lawns of rich communities like Wellesley and Greenwich? The owners? But even those States have to pay up for the privilege of having desperately poor Guatemalans do the gardening of the wealthy and the dishes in their favorite restaurants.

But why did Arizona break first? This might help explain some of it.... Over 1/3 of the entire population of Arizona is Latino, including legal and illegal residents (maybe as much as 1/2). Arizona is one of the primary channels of illegal immigration into the United States, and with the fence largely confined to Texas and California, Arizona becomes ground zero for the often violent smuggling operation run by gangs that also "dabble" in drug running.  The sheer volume of illegal activity has made Arizona a very unsafe place to be: (caps necessary) PHOENIX IS ONLY SECOND TO MEXICO CITY, WORLD-WIDE, IN TERMS OF KIDNAPPINGS PER YEAR. Consider that for a moment. You are more likely to be kidnapped in Phoenix, a U.S. city, than Jakarta, Karachi, Kabul, Baghdad, Soweto, Rio ... you get the picture.

Arizonans are understandably rather upset about that. Is there a common theme in violence South of the border and here? You betcha, Mexican (drug) gangs.  Arizona just passed laws eliminating the license requirement for concealed weapons and that was not so that the criminals could do so, they do it anyway. Rather, it was to make it a hell of a lot more dangerous to scoop some poor schmo on the street, who might have a .357 with one up the spout on him or her.


So what other options does Arizona have to address its nightmare? None, really, if they want to get a grip on rampant crime they have to target the source and that means illegals. Arizona's police community was against this legislation, not because it won't work, but because they feel they should not have to enforce what they have always perceived to be the job of Federal Authorities.  Too many illegals, and too few police officers to do the rest of their assigned tasks. 

Is there any hope from Washington (now we are back on a familiar theme)? No. And that is because our "President" is using this situation as a political football. If he were to start to enforce the laws that were already on the books, he would run afoul of Liberals -- who largely don't have to contend with MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel or El Nortes stealing their cars, selling drugs to their kids, and perhaps kidnapping them -- and totally alienate the Latino vote. Since he has totally screwed the Catholic suburban vote, he is desperate to replace it with Latinos, and hopefully grant voting rights to illegals themselves.

Obama is also savvy enough to let the Republican boobs define themselves as anti-immigrant, anti-Latino.  He hopes. But over 70% of voting Arizonans support the legislation, so Obama may be making the tactical decision to hand over a few electoral college votes in hopes of gaining Latino votes elsewhere ... by whatever means.  So we should see more of these desperation bills coming down the pike -- notwithstanding Obama's direction to Justice to see whether this legislation is unconstitutional. Just where does this (expletive) "President" get the balls to send something for constitutional examination when his entire presidency appears to violate the constitution on a daily basis? Bet the New York Times won't comment on that one either.

One other thing that really riles me is the response of Mexican President Calderon ... who stated that the new law was discriminatory and warned that trade and political ties with Arizona will be seriously strained by the new crackdown. As a foreigner in Mexico, if you do not produce your "papers" upon request and prove that you are there legally, you are imprisoned. So to the extent that the law singles out criminals under U.S. law, he wants to threaten us? Does Arizona give a rat's whether trade and political ties with Mexico will get worse?

The Dean at U.C. Davis (not exactly a conservative establishment *cough, cough*), said that he felt that legal challenges to this law should succeed in that you can't have local or state police enforce federal immigration laws.  Which only goes to prove that he hasn't really considered the matter more closely: the law gives police authority to prohibit that which is already illegal under Federal law. It is being in Arizona illegally that results in 6 months jail and a fine of up to $2,500 -- NOT entering into the United States illegally.  It is an additional layer of protection afforded to the citizens of Arizona above and beyond that afforded by the Federal Government ... and that is within State's rights.

"If every state had its own laws, we wouldn't be one country; we'd be 50 different countries," said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Yes. And Obama's selective political application of the laws already on the books may tend to have that effect.