The First Step To Solving A Problem…
June 24, 2010 by Ben Crystal
With the recent announcement by the Obama Administration that a Federal lawsuit targeting Arizona’s enormously popular immigration law is nigh, the transparency of the left’s opposition to Arizona’s SB1070 has been made manifest.
During his administration, President Bush talked tough on illegal immigration, but did very little to curb it. President Obama is now going one step further… doing very little to curb illegal immigration while talking tough on those who plan to. Obama seems more interested in developing some kind of Federalized Internal Affairs Division, searching for crime while ignoring the criminals.
The President is trying to recast the debate. It’s entirely reasonable to examine his reasons.
Most of the realities regarding illegal immigration are patently obvious. Virtually untraceable labor pools operating outside the law mean unemployed taxpayers and strained social services. Virtually untraceable routes into the United States mean endangered taxpayers and… strained social and law enforcement services—the presence of abandoned prayer mats along our southern frontier doesn’t mean the coyotes are developing an interest in yoga. A President bent on obfuscating both the latter and former by accusing his opposition of everything short of a return to Jim Crow is the worst of kind of political gamesmanship.
It’s well known that Arizona’s new law—set to take effect late next month—is nothing more than a state asserting responsibility abdicated by the Feds. One would presume most LEGAL citizens would be overjoyed to see a state willing to step in where the Feds are standing down. In fact, SB 1070 is similar not only to 8 U.S. Code Sections 1304 and 1306, but shockingly—CALIFORNIA Penal Code section 834b. The fact that the Brotherhood of Undocumented Onion Pickers has yet to march on Sacramento belies the political realities. The President can hardly risk torpedoing his fellow travelers Pelosi, Feinstein and Boxer by allowing his jackbooted legal legions to extend their L.A. Law redux into the Land of La Raza.
To be fair, the broad-based support for SB 1070 doesn’t necessarily prove the quality of the legislation. I could get 70 percent approval for legislation which would constitute extraordinarily bad thinking: Free BMWs for everyone! Federally subsidized beer purchases! National Throw Something Heavy at Keith Olbermann Day!
OK—that last one has real merit.
The problem we have now is that the majority is right. But the majority lacks power. In the worst kind of twist of fate, the minority has the juice to (to paraphrase Interior Secretary Ken Salazar)—step on the neck of John Q. Public.
And the Feds are going straight to the courts to shop for the appropriate neck-breaking footwear. There’s already a class-action lawsuit in Federal court seeking to halt SB 1070. A rogue’s gallery of left-wing groups with close ties to the current administration is challenging Arizona’s endeavors: the ACLU, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Network, the NAACP, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the—I’m not making this up—Malibu Community Labor Exchange. Makes you wonder who’s delivering chalupas to the guys trimming Mel Gibson’s hedges. At the very least, it’s nice to see the NAACP doing something other than waging jihad on Hallmark greeting cards.
Now the Feds are threatening to bring in the heavy artillery. Talk about rigging the game: if Eric “the red” Holder’s goons-with-briefcases bring the heat to Arizona’s doorstep in a Federal courtroom, the supporters of SB 1070 get to pay the lawyers on both sides. Beyond the obvious Constitutional violations of Federal tinkering with Arizona’s law enforcement—hello 10th Amendment—there’s the more troublesome issue: Obama and his thugs are trying to get us mired in a spurious discussion on race in order to cow us into ignoring a blatant effort to expand his constituency.
Throwing the verbal hand grenade of racism is clever, if only because people on the left will always believe it, and are redoubtable and vital allies for an administration which seems bent on becoming a political exemplar of ham-fisted authority. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis thinks illegals have a “right to fair wages.” Actually, Madam Secretary, illegals have the right to be Mirandized (and in a language other than English, even!)
With Obama telling Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.) that he’s going to lean into meaningful immigration reform only if amnesty is on the table, he’s drawing the proverbial line in the dust: no enforcement now, no enforcement tomorrow, no enforcement forever.
Or at least until this column is printed en espanol. Vaya con Dios!
You can opt-out at any time. We protect your information like a mother hen. We will not sell or rent your email address to anyone for any reason.
