TheLoop21.com

By: Devona Walker | TheLoop21 (Add to your loop)
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 10:54

Blocking SB1070 won't stop the hate groups

The immigration mess in this country is not a fake problem. But the debate surrounding how you solve it is completely artificial. Immigration reform has been the most politically divisive issue in this country for going on six years. That is insanely idiotic when you consider that both sides essentially agree on how to solve it. You cannot find one (unless you are talking to those racist nativists) anti-immigration group that honestly believes this country can or should deport millions of illegal immigrants. Likewise, you cannot find one pro-immigrant advocate who believes we should not do more to enforce the rule of law and secure our borders.

It all boils down to who is going to blink first. Who is going to take up this fight, which is political suicide in the short-term for Democrats and in the long-term for Republicans?

And which one do you do first? Do you secure the borders first? Or do you start a legal process by which illegal immigrants currently in the country can begin a process of becoming a legal citizen? Yes, amnesty folks. Despite all the vitriol on the anti-immigrant side of things, there is not one expert among them who does not believe that "amnesty" in some form must be a part of solving our current immigration mess.
 

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Today, a judge in Arizona temporarily shot down the most controversial parts of the state’s stringent immigration enforcement law. It should be noted that she would not have taken that step if she had not thought there was considerable merit in the federal case against the state of Arizona.

The truth is the law doesn’t have a chance of becoming law as it is written. It does not merely encourage, but requires racial profiling. But it also violates due process. It sets up a system in which the innocent can be indefinitely detained without any proof they are illegal. Validating someone's immigration status at present takes several days and the Department of Homeland Security has already been sued several times for detaining legal citizens. If the federal government can't get it right, with all the resources and training available to them, how do you think some small-town Arizona cops will fare?

But the really inexcusable thing about this whole immigration farce is that the folks penning these "enforcement-only" immigration statutes around the country, know these laws are not enforceable or legal.

The little-known secret behind this whole “anti-immigrant” movement is that the laws are not written by individual legislators, but the legislative arm of a far right anti-immigrant group called FAIR, that is the Federation for American Immigration Reform.