Showing posts with label borders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label borders. Show all posts

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Political Implications of Arizona's Immigration Bill

Note: I wrote the majority of this post last night around 2AM on my iPhone while I was in bed. Then, this afternoon I saw the following tweet from Fox News:

"Rallying Cry: Dems using Arizona immigration law to drum up support for federal action http://fxn.ws/debI2G"

The concern seemed fairly obvious to me - but appeared to be lost on many conservatives, which I found disappointing.

Anyway, without further adieu - the actual post:

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My rather libertarian concerns about Arizona's recently passed immigration bill potentially creating police state conditions aside, I have some pretty major, and I fear legitimate, concerns about the bill's national political implications on both the federal amnesty agenda and the conservative 10th amendment movement.

A lot of conservatives are excited about this bill - and on the surface I can understand why; the claim is that finally, the problem of illegal immigration will be curbed in Arizona, because the laws will actually be enforced. (Sidenote: Endless enforcement of bad laws that don't address the actual issue won't help a thing. The root of the problem is the language in the 14th amendment that creates the incentive to have "anchor babies"- but that's an entirely different discussion).

While I agree that illegal immigration is a problem and that laws, insofar as they exist, should be enforced (or changed), I don't think it's worth creating a police state that has the potential to result in more lawsuits than meaningful deportations - or arrests; (in which case don't bother; they should be sent back to their home country, not be allowed to live off US taxpayer's money). I fear that conservatives; desperate for any perceived "crackdown" on illegals, are willing to support any measure that claims to do so without thinking through the logical (or for that matter, political) implications of the policy.

.... But, like I said, the political implications are what I want to discuss, and I believe they are twofold: