Jul 28 2010

Justice is blinded by politics

Category: government,illegal alien,justice,legislationharmonicminer @ 4:08 pm

Here is the introduction to Andy McCarthy’s comments on today’s Arizona Immigration Decision

On a quick read, the federal court’s issuance of a temporary injunction against enforcement of the major provisions of the Arizona immigration law appears specious.

In essence, Judge Susan Bolton bought the Justice Department’s preemption argument, i.e., the claim that the federal government has broad and exclusive authority to regulate immigration, and therefore that any state measure that is inconsistent with federal law is invalid. The Arizona law is completely consistent with federal law. The judge, however, twisted <the>  concept of federal law into federal enforcement practices (or, as it happens, lack thereof). In effect, the court is saying that if the feds refuse to enforce the law the states can’t do it either because doing so would transgress the federal policy of non-enforcement … which is nuts.

There is much more at the link above, including references to other federal court precedents that the judge seems to have decided to ignore… presumably because they would not have led to the decision she appears to want. (She is a Clinton appointee, and presumably leans left, as essentially all of his appointees did.)

There are other federal laws, laws the enforcement of which requires local law enforcement to be directly involved, and even take initiative, on matters ranging from kidnapping to terrorism to the Mann Act to drugs, literally thousands of laws.

There is no precedent for the federal government to sue to stop a state from enforcing federal law in a constitutional way.  Imagine if local peace officers were not allowed to notice if someone was selling illegal drugs (mostly federal laws), or to stop a kidnapping, or arrest someone carrying a grenade launcher (not illegal according to some state laws, but banned federally for most civilians).  Imagine if local peace officers were not allowed to notice someone carrying a sign advocating the assassination of Obama, or the bombing of a federal facility?

That is the ridiculous position we’d find ourselves in, if the notion that local peace officers can’t enforce federal law ever became consistently applied, and that’s why the judge’s decision is ridiculous.

This was a PURELY political lawsuit, brought by a president who wants to buy off the Hispanic vote in 2012, even at the cost of the congress in the 2010 midterms, a president who cynically believes that Hispanic voters are in favor of illegal aliens in large numbers.

I hope he is wrong in ascribing such motives to legal Hispanic voters.  If he is right, it will be interesting to see exactly how much other American citizens care about this.  How many who usually don’t vote can be energized to get to the polls to avoid amnesty (official or unofficial) for illegals?

Not enough, I fear.

One Response to “Justice is blinded by politics”

  1. kdippre says:

    This issue has reached such idiotic proportions that I can barely understand the arguments. A man is interviewed on the street for his views of the current Arizona laws in question, and of course, bemoans the fact that he may be subject to deportation. He also comments that he has been here 20 YEARS illegally and fears for his children losing their father. Was it not possible to become legal in those 20 years somehow? How should I feel sorry for him? If I went to another country illegally for that amount of time, how would they deal with me? Would they tolerate television interviews and demonstrations? Am I just completely nuts, here?

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