PDA

View Full Version : Mitch McConnel Slams Obama on the DOJ Lawsuit Vs. Arizona's Immigraton Law




bobbyw24
07-07-2010, 07:56 AM
WASHINGTON — Republicans denounced the Obama administration's challenge of Arizona's new immigration law Tuesday, a fresh sign they may try to paint Democrats this fall as soft on illegal border crossings.

While Democrats stayed largely quiet, a host of Republicans said the federal government has no business challenging Arizona's new law. Slated to be implemented July 29, it would require state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal immigrants during the enforcement of other laws such as traffic stops.

"If the president wants to make real progress on this issue, he can do so by taking amnesty off the table and focus his efforts on border and interior security," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But some Democratic strategists say the GOP is playing a dangerous game. Past GOP bids to crack down on illegal immigration have driven Latino voters into Democrats' arms, as was seen most dramatically in California in the 1990s. And Americans who are most passionate about illegal immigration tend to be reliable Republican voters anyway, and not up for grabs, these strategists say.

"There's no evidence that Republicans have been able to turn this issue into a winning issue in a general election," said Simon Rosenberg, who follows immigration matters as head of the liberal-leaning group NDN. If top Republicans keep pounding the issue, he said, it could increase Democratic turnout in Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California and possibly other states.

The politics of immigration has a complex past and unclear future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/arizona-lawsuit-obama-gop_n_637294.html

osan
07-07-2010, 08:12 AM
WASHINGTON — Republicans denounced the Obama administration's challenge of Arizona's new immigration law Tuesday...

What I heard this morning was that the suit claims the law will allow for racial profiling and other such horrors. Well, my understanding is that the law is basically identical to the federal law... or that it simply authorizes AZ state to enforce the actual laws currently on the books. In either case, it would seem that the allegations made in the suit are bringing the federal law into question on the very same basis. Or do the feds claim that only federal employees are capable of enforcing such laws with no risk of profiling, etc.?

To watch this circus, one has to marvel that the world still functions even nominally, give that it has apparently gone barking mad on a wholesale scale.

jmdrake
07-07-2010, 08:22 AM
What I heard this morning was that the suit claims the law will allow for racial profiling and other such horrors. Well, my understanding is that the law is basically identical to the federal law... or that it simply authorizes AZ state to enforce the actual laws currently on the books. In either case, it would seem that the allegations made in the suit are bringing the federal law into question on the very same basis. Or do the feds claim that only federal employees are capable of enforcing such laws with no risk of profiling, etc.?

To watch this circus, one has to marvel that the world still functions even nominally, give that it has apparently gone barking mad on a wholesale scale.

Federal agents have no power to pull anybody over for a traffic violation, so the law can't be the same as the federal law. However police checking the IDs of immigrants who were not driving the car based on little more than a hunch plus a foreign accent have been held up in court. I agree with Tom Tancredo that the original AZ law was problematic. (I don't know if he's spoken about the revised law).

The real problem is that the federal government has for over a decade (decades?) abdicated it's responsibility on this issue. They're putting up signs warring Americans to keep out of parts of our own country for crying out loud! It's little wonder that states would seek to take the most drastic measures legally possible.