Saturday, April 24, 2010

Arizona Governor Signs Strict Immigration Bill Into Law


Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, signed into law a bill that cracks down on illegal aliens, making it the toughest in the nation.

The bill makes being in the country illegally, well, illegal, which sounds redundant if you ask me, but the problems with this legislation, in my opinion, is the question of determining how someone is here in this country illegally.  While this law may have good intentions in mind, I think it is far more harmful to the personal liberties of the citizens of Arizona.  I also think that this law will increase abuse by law enforcement officials, although Brewer signed an executive order intended to give more training to police officers enforcing the new law.  I just think that this is the wrong way to go to solve the problem, and there are better ways out there.

Politically, I think this will be damaging towards republicans, who haven't quite learned from the past, and especially during the years of the Bush presidency.  The GOP seems to take the Latino vote for granted, but as we saw in 2008, they moved further away from conservatives.  According to Chris Arcos, a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer and former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for International Affairs, "Latinos may be somewhat conservative in values, but they are spooked by the 'base of the GOP,'" and considering this legislation in Arizona is backed by the Tea Party, this can only spell danger for conservatives running for election in the southwest.

Take into consideration John McCain, who authored an immigration bill with the late Ted Kennedy.  The bill, titled the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act," was introduced in 2005 and worked towards "incorporating legalization, guest worker programs, and border enforcement components," but was never brought to a vote.  Now McCain is up for reelection and is facing a tough primary against J.D. Hayworth, a former conservative representative who is popular with the GOP base.  McCain, being the maverick he once claimed to be, has now decided to reverse many of those independent positions he took that made him a popular choice, and is taking the low road, pandering alongside Hayworth, actually coming out in support of this ridiculous piece of legislation.  “The state of Arizona is acting and doing what it feels it needs to do in light of the fact that the federal government is not fulfilling its fundamental responsibility — to secure our borders,” McCain told O'Reilly.

McCain also mentioned that it would be unfortunate should the legislation lead to racial profiling, being that that is not the intention of the law.  This logic is exactly why this kind of legislation should not be passed.  This would be like creating stricter laws regarding yellow traffic lights, treating them as red lights, but stating it is the goal of the law to prevent red light runners.  The law is open to abuse and the only solution conservatives have is abide by the law, which means, become a citizen or leave.

Lets just hope the Obama administration and the Department of Justice act quickly on this one...

I welcome fellow bloggers and websites to utilize the political cartoon that I had drawn for this article.  I feel that it evokes a strong but important message that directly relates to this legislation.  The imagery of the gates of Aushwitz is not to be taken lightly, and is not like the usage of Nazi symbolism typically seen used by the Tea Party adherents and the likes of Glenn Beck... 

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