The federal government has moved forward with plans to sue the state of Arizona in an attempt to shut down its new immigration law, scheduled to go into effect on July 29.
The law, considered the country’s toughest immigration laws, gives police the right to detain immigrants if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. Immigrants unable to produce documentation to show they are in the country legitimately will be arrested. The Justice Department has asked for an injunction to prevent the Arizona law from taking effect as planned; decisions on that request are expected in the next few weeks.
Using the long-established Supremacy Cause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes federal law as the ruling law of the land as the basis for their legal argument; the Justice Department maintains that redirecting law enforcement officer’s attention toward possible illegal immigrants will mean fewer resources for catching real criminals.
While the argument is a sound one – the government doesn’t have the capacity to locate and deport everyone who is in the country illegally – it overlooks one of the most disturbing aspects of the Arizona law: it creates an environment where individuals can be racially profiled and detained by police. Arizona is leaving it up to its police officers to determine just who looks suspicious and should be detained for questioning, violating both human and civil rights on a number of levels.
On paper, the Arizona law is not much different from the current federal law. The key difference is that Arizona wants to, somehow, catch and deport every illegal immigrant in the state. The federal government knows that attempting to do this would burden the justice system. So, instead of properly enforcing the current immigration law, the feds have chosen to work on detaining dangerous immigrants – terrorists, drug traffickers – and bringing them to justice. Unfortunately, this approach paved the way for Arizona to pass a controversial law and set the stage for other states, like Texas and South Carolina, to follow suit.
The federal government needs to move quickly to craft a responsible immigration law, one that it can enforce with the resources it has available, that protects our borders and the rights of individuals. No state should be able to singularly decide who looks suspicious and who should be detained without probable cause. With a properly enforced federal law, the government can ensure more states don’t attempt to walk the road Arizona has chosen.
The federal government can’t pick and choose what laws it wants to enforce. There is no such thing as a ‘kind-of’ criminal, just like you can’t almost be pregnant. Those who are here illegally need to be caught and sent home (on that’s countries dime!). Period. There is no such thing as ‘real’ criminals, as you stated. There are just criminals.
Since the Feds don’t care to enforce that simple law, Arizona decided to help them out. I ask you, how else can you investigate those who are here illegally if you don’t use common sense and suspicious behavior as a guide? If the police see someone in my house wearing a ski mask and using a flashlight in my house, I hope they will detain that person and make sure he is on the up and up. I hope they don’t just assume he lives in my house and merrily go on there way.
And that supremacy clause is weak. I think it is about time to start using the 10th Amendment and let the States use nullification to these tyrannical federal policies.
And you do know that the Constitution (you know that little document you cited) doesn’t protect those who aren’t citizens? They have no civil or human rights as far as federal policies are concerned. But that’s just a minor detail, right?