Interesting timing, eh? Having Mexico President Calderon 'on stage' in OUR Congress just days after Arizona passed a new immigration law? What a coincidence! ;-)
Mexico is a country with much stricter immigration laws than those at our federal OR state levels. While Calderon was lecturing us about Arizona's new law that gives police there the ability to pursue identifying documentation from people ONLY after they were stopped for breaking some law, Mexico police were busily enforcing their law that says they are "REQUIRED(!) to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in Mexico BEFORE attending to any other issues". Mexico police MUST first pursue proof of legal presence of people they suspect may not be there legally. Here, even in Arizona, not only must there be a different legal reason for stopping people in the first place but the cop must have sufficient other reason to believe the person is here illegally before asking for proof of legal presence.
In fact, ALL Mexican law is more strict with suspected and actual illegal immigrants than any of ours. And they have less reason for it ... no 9/11 there and radical Islamists aren't saying they're absolutely committed to the destruction of their country.
So, as to the facts involved, Calderon has a lot of nerve lecturing us, ESPECIALLY IN our own Congress. But even worse, however, was the sight of members of Congress rising to give the man a standing ovation(!) for criticizing one of our sovereign states for claimed principles that Mexico itself violates worse. The unmitigated gall of Calderon coming here to say such things, IN our own Congress no less, makes me angry. The unmitigated gall of our own elected representatives giving him a standing ovation for a public and arguably irrational dressing down of a state not only angers me, it makes me literally sick to my stomach.
What's so ridiculously laughable is that Arizona's law is less strict than the federal law it was designed to support. Federal law enforcement people need LESS justification (than Arizona police under their new law) to stop someone who may be here illegally. And Federal law enforcement people need LESS justification to require proof of legal presence.
The argument against Arizona's law that it should be struck down because it CAN be applied in an abusive way is nonsense. In fact pretty much ALL of our laws CAN be applied in an abusive way if police want to. If we struck down every law that could POSSIBLY be applied abusively we'd have NO laws at all! The solution is to be tough with those who abusively enforce laws, not to dumb down our laws so they don't 'offend' people. The Arizona law has BUILT INTO IT restrictions against abusing it so it will be EASY to prosecute police who do. Whatever abuse is attempted will be short-lived if we do that.
Finally, for people in power here to USE a foreign president to dress down a sovereign state when 75% of Americans support what that state is doing and HAS A RIGHT AND OBLIGATION TO DO for the sake of its citizens' security is reprehensible. It's especially reprehensible of Congress due to the fact that the Constitution REQUIRES them(!) to protect our national borders. Not providing that security is an abdication of Congress' Constitutional responsibilities and duties. Congress loses ALL moral authority to criticize, much less penalize(!), a state for doing what Constutional duties Congress itself fails to execute. What Arizona is doing is the ultimate, justifiable and legal exercise of state's rights and is fully consistent with the founders' intentions as well as the Constitution itself. Congress should be standing up and asking Arizonans what can we do to help fix this problem, not spending its time trying to figure out how to circumvent an affront to its politically correct sensitivities.
No comments:
Post a Comment