{"id":3680,"date":"2010-06-02T01:27:55","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T06:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=3680"},"modified":"2010-06-02T01:27:55","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T06:27:55","slug":"az-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/az-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"AZ immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know that you agree with me that any and all illegal activity must be confronted by law enforcement. I know that you also share my frustration that the Obama Administration simply refuses to secure our border with Mexico. To that end I believe that Arizona has landed upon a novel solution in keeping both with the need to prevent illegal immigration and protect the sovereignty of the several states as guaranteed by the 10th<\/sup> Amendment to the federal Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

The heart of the Arizona law, as you know, is the requirement that \u201cFOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry for the ALL CAPS, but I pasted it straight from the Arizona statute. That ensures, though, that there will be no errors in interpretation. Many people, unfortunately, make many errors.<\/span><\/p>\n

People who have not actually read the bill, like Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Nepolitano (ironically the former governor of Arizona) believe some truly outrageous things. Folks like them believe, for instance, that the law requires every police officer in Arizona to ask people for their papers based only on some undefined “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country unlawfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

The actual statute, as you can see above, requires that law enforcement make \u201clawful contact\u201d such as when they arrest someone in the process of a burglary or making a drug sale. Law enforcement must then have \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d such as if the burglar produces no identification. I know that you agree with me that by this time law enforcement needs to find out everything possible about the suspect. If they find out that the suspect is here illegally, then I\u2019m more than happy for their home country to take care of their incarceration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another truly strange accusation of many uninformed people is that the new statute has threatened the civil rights and liberties of millions of people living and working in Arizona. The funny thing about that charge is that illegal aliens have no civil rights and liberties. They\u2019re neither American citizens nor even legal residents. The new Arizona statute, if anything, protects the civil rights and liberties of American citizens and law abiding legal aliens by removing a very large component of criminal activity, particularly in Arizona.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another bizarre charge that I have seen levied against the new Arizona statute claims that, \u201cIt is\u2026inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution.\u201d The US Constitution actually says in Article IV, Section 4 that, \u201cThe United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.\u201d Therefore, the US Constitution requires that the federal government protect the states against the very human flood occurring in Arizona and elsewhere. The fact that the federal government refuses to uphold the US Constitution leaves it to the states\u2014like Arizona.<\/span><\/p>\n

I look forward to the summertime hearings that will perfect the bill in order that we might get it passed quickly in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know that you agree with me that any and all illegal activity must be confronted by law enforcement. I know that you also share my frustration that the Obama Administration simply refuses to secure our border with Mexico. To that end I believe that Arizona has landed upon a novel solution in keeping both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-Xm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}