What Part About "Illegal" Do You Not Understand?

Arizona has passed a new illegal immigration law that has the usual suspects apoplectic with righteous indignation. I expect most of my readers know at least something about this law, but for those who don't here is the provision in the law that has provoked all the controversy:

"For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…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…."

Now you tell me: what is so extreme about that provision? Does that language even remotely justify the commentary about this law by the left? "Harkens back to apartheid," claims Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Shameful," says E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. "German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques," says Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles. Al Sharpton (surprise!) compared Arizona to the Jim Crow South. Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva has called for a boycott of his own state.

Now, there are probably legitimate concerns that could be raised about this law (more on that later). But the left is not interested in constructive criticism. Their sole objective in this debate (as clearly evidenced by the comments mentioned above and many, many more not mentioned) is to score cheap political points with their black and Latino base by accusing conservatives of being racists and extremists. Remember, people who opposed the health care bill were racist too. Oh yeah, and the Tea Parties calling for limited government are racist. Basically, what passes for political disagreement on the left is accusing Republicans of being racist bigots, no matter what the issue is.

To compare enforcing our country's immigration laws to racial discrimination in the Old South or to the secret police tactics of Nazi Germany is worse than irresponsible. It is a despicable attempt to turn justice on its head by smearing the law-abiding citizens of this country who oppose illegal immigration as hate-filled bigots, racists, and criminals, while illegal immigrants are praised as law-abiding people who automatically deserve the full rights of citizens. For people on the left who engage in this kind of rhetoric, right and wrong are irrelevant. The only "right" these people acknowledge is the ability to manipulate the voting patterns of minority groups in this country using racially-charged rhetoric about their opponents.

Let's be clear. The United States has immigration laws for a reason. Like virtually every other country worth living in, we don't let just anyone enter our borders for whatever reason for however long they choose. People must be properly authorized to enter. And if people choose to ignore those laws and enter this country illegally, they are committing a federal crime. That isn't my opinion. That's a fact. When the left claims illegal immigrants have a "right" to be here, that's a lie. Unless, of course, you think our country's laws don't matter. Contrary to fashionable left-wing opinion, we do not have a moral and ethical obligation to accept anyone and everyone into our country. Nor do we have a moral and ethical obligation to provide full treatment as citizens to people who have entered this country in violation of our laws. (Although it's nice to see that the left has finally come around to believing in moral absolutes!)

Arizona is a good case study for why it is necessary, not only to have, but also to enforce immigration laws. There is a good reason why, of all the 50 states, Arizona specifically passed this law and why a recent poll showed a full 70% of all Arizona voters supported the law, with only 23% opposed. And no, it's not because Arizonans are racists. It's because Arizona is experiencing first-hand the devastation that has resulted from the U.S. government's failure to enforce its own immigration laws. With border security stepped up at San Diego and El Paso, Arizona is now the number 1 entry point for illegal immigrants coming from Mexico. The results are tragic. Illegal drug trafficking is everywhere, with an estimated $2 million in drug money passing from Mexico into Arizona each day. The city of Phoenix, a haven for illegal immigrants, has the nation's highest rate of ransom kidnappings (350 per year reported, with probably another 700 per year going unreported). These kidnappings are primarily committed by illegal aliens living in Arizona and recruited by Mexican drug cartels. Many of those people kidnapped from off the street are abused, tortured, and killed. Phoenix and Tucson have among the highest rates of property crime in the nation. The Arizona Cattle Growers' Association described the situation this way: "The U.S./Mexico border in southern Arizona has become a lawless region. Criminals, bandits and an international organized crime unit are operating with impunity in the region. Their trades are burglary, home invasion, drug smuggling, human smuggling, murder, extortion and kidnapping rackets. These organized crime units have been terrorizing northern Mexico for 20 years and have been terrorizing Southern Arizona for at least 10 years. These entities are extremely violent and dangerous and they have now succeeded in creating terror in Southern Arizona as they have in Northern Mexico.” Is it any surprise that 70% of Arizonans support this law? Political pundits living in their comfortable Upper West Side apartments have no idea what it's like to live at Ground Zero of the immigration war.

Of course, it shouldn't be Arizona's responsibility to enforce illegal immigration laws. Those are federal laws, and should be enforced by the federal government. That is why it is so galling to hear President Obama calling this law "irresponsible," when it is the irresponsibility of him and his government (and his predecessor government) that have caused this problem in the first place. Obama has done nothing to deal with this problem and even stopped some half-hearted border control measures put in place by Bush. It is disgraceful that Mexican criminals are wreaking havoc on our country's soil with impunity. As Arizona Governor Jan Brewer put it, "It’s a problem that we did not create and Washington refuses to fix." First and foremost, we need to gain control of the border. We need to build a wall to stop the tidal wave of illegal aliens walking into our country, and we need U.S. troops deployed to the border to get the violence under control. Second, we need to come up with some kind of logical method to deal with illegal immigrants already living here. I think this should involve requiring all illegals currently living in the U.S. to register with the government. Illegals who are gainfully employed with clean criminal records should be allowed to stay in this country (after paying a fine and any required back taxes). Illegals who have committed crimes or who refuse to comply with registration requirements should be deported. And individuals and businesses who help illegals avoid compliance should face stiff penalties.

Now, I don't think this Arizona law is a perfect law, and it is certainly not going to perfectly solve the illegal immigration problem. Critics have raised the concern that engaging local police to enforce illegal immigration laws will lead to distrust between Latino communities and law enforcement and will keep immigrants from cooperating with police or reporting crimes. This is a valid concern. It is also possible that this law could lead to unfair targeting or questioning of Latino citizens or legal immigrants. However, it is important to point out that the law specifically prohibits racial profiling and that ethnicity alone cannot constitute "reasonable suspicion" under the law. Also, a person's immigration status can only be questioned by the police if that person has already been stopped for another crime already. So President Obama's claim that some Hispanic person could be walking down the street to "get ice cream" and suddenly get stopped by the police and questioned is ridiculous. They would have to be committing a crime, and they would also have to arouse reasonable suspicion from the police for some reason other than being Hispanic (for example, being unable to produce a driver's license or other identification in a traffic stop, an overloaded vehicle, evasive behavior, being in a known smuggling corridor, etc.)

The bottom line is that the federal government's inaction has forced Arizona to take action to try to protect its citizens. Much has been made of the rights of illegal immigrants, but what about the rights of American citizens to be able to walk the streets of their cities or sleep in their beds at night without fear of kidnapping or other drug-related violence? What about the rights of American citizens to be able to own property without fear of having it stolen or destroyed? What about the rights of law-abiding people around the world who are waiting to come to the U.S. legally, only to see illegal border-crossers from Mexico unfairly steal into this country ahead of them? What message do we send to the immigrants who are going through the long, painstaking process of becoming a U.S. citizen, when they see others living here illegally and using government services with impunity? Our President and our Congress need to realize how messed up our current immigration situation is and take immediate action to fix it. We need to expedite the legal immigration process and the path to citizenship or permanent legal status for legal immigrants to show that we value immigrants and to reward honest hard-working people who follow our laws. It is inexcusable that it can take 10+ years for an immigrant to get permanent legal status. We need to be careful not to restrict too much the number of legal immigrants coming in to this country. And we need to take severe action to stop illegal immigration. Legal immigration should be easy and illegal immigration should be hard, but our ridiculous immigration policy has made it easy to come illegally and hard to come legally. Most of all, we need to stop playing racial politics with this issue and come together to fix this important problem for the wellbeing of our hard-working, law-abiding citizens.