The "Screw the Court" Constitutional Amendment

Dafydd at Big Lizards offers:

The "Screw the Court" Constitutional Amendment

I would love to see the following offered on January 3rd, 2011, in the 112th Congress of the United States, as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Section 1. State definition of 'marriage':

The power to declare the legal definition of marriage within any State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe is reserved to such State, territory, possession, or tribe.

Section 2. Federal definition of 'marriage' and 'spouse':

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

Section 3. Powers reserved to the states:

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex, or more than two persons, that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

SB 1070 and ID

One of the memes going around wrt Arizona's SB1070 is the question: "Are you carrying proof of legal residency in the US right now?" The presumption is that many, if not most, forms of ID will not be accepted as proof of legal status. Legal immigrants, and citizens for that matter, would wind up being held until someone, somewhere, can be called in to present a birth certificate or something. Heather MacDonald addresses this in: Clueless L.A. Councilman Distorts the Arizona Law - Heather Mac Donald - The Corner on National Review Online

Los Angeles city councilman Ed Reyes deserves top billing on any updated compendium of idiocy for the following statement, made in anticipation of the Los Angeles City Council’s resolution to boycott Arizona:

As an American, I cannot go to Arizona today without a passport. If I come across an officer who's having a bad day and feels that the picture on my ID is not me, I can be . . . deported, no questions asked. That is not American.

It should not be necessary to rebut Councilman Reyes’s hysterical fabrications, but for his fellow members of the L.A. City Council, who compared Arizona’s law to Nazi Germany and to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and for all those other grandstanding politicians who are busily denouncing Arizonans’ racism, a primer is apparently needed.

If Mr. Reyes was planning to fly to Arizona from L.A. (pre-boycott, of course), he would need either his driver’s license or his passport to get on a plane. So we had better add the TSA to the list of Holocaust-in-waiting perpetrators. The only way he could be “deported” is if he is in fact an illegal alien, and before that happens, there will be plenty of “questions asked” and other legal wrangling, thanks to decades of work from the immigration-law industry. The only way the police would have a chance to discover that he is an illegal alien is if he has given them lawful grounds to stop him, such as running a red light, driving drunk, or acting suspiciously enough to suggest imminent law-breaking — and then has given them further ground to suspect that he is in the country illegally, such as possessing no valid identification.

If, on the other hand, Mr. Reyes presents any form of valid government ID during the course of a lawful police stop, he will be presumed to be in the country legally, and there will be no inquiry into his immigration status. So if, after getting through the brownshirts at LAX, Mr. Reyes continued to carry his California driver’s license, he would have nothing to worry about in Arizona.

Interestingly enough, I haven't heard very many people voicing concerns about being hauled in, subjected to immigration checks, and possibly deported. You'd think, if people were worried about that, they'd avoid the state for reasons other than a desire to punish with a boycott.

Since Mr. Reyes and all the other boycotters are so convinced that the Arizona police are itching to abuse their rights under SB 1070, they would make a much better case against the law by actually traveling to Arizona and demonstrating to the world their mistreatment at the hands of the police. Until then, their unhinged denunciations of the law reveal only one thing: They are terrified that it will work.

Another take on AZ SB1070

Adam J White at the Weekly Standard writes:

...the Obama administration's complaint against Arizona faces serious obstacles in the federal courts.

The administration needs to show that S.B. 1070, Arizona's law authorizing state officials to enforce federal immigration law, is "preempted" – that it runs afoul of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which confirms that federal law supersedes state law.  To that end, the complaint's opening paragraphs stake an uncontroversial claim: "[i]n our constitutional system, the federal government has preeminent authority to regulate immigration matters."

Certainly no one would dispute that the federal government is the "preeminent" architect of the nation's immigration policy.  But it is quite another thing to say that federal law, through the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, preempts S.B. 1070.  In U.S. v. Arizona, the administration will have to prove the latter point – and that will be no small task.

The administration's primary obstacle is De Canas v. Bica(1976), in which the Supreme Court emphatically declared that federal immigration laws did not prohibit the states from enforcing the policies embodied by those federal immigration laws. (In that case, the state law was a California prohibition against the employment of illegal aliens.)  The Court reviewed the text and history of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, and found no indication that "Congress intended to preclude even harmonious state regulation touching on aliens in general, or the employment of illegal aliens in particular." According to the Court, states may enforce laws consistent with federal immigration laws, so long as the state does not "impose additional burdens not contemplated by Congress."

In fact, the Obama administration goes so far as to assert that S.B. 1070 prevents it from getting tough on truly nasty illegal immigrants: "S.B. 1070 disrupts federal enforcement priorities and resources that focus on aliens who pose a threat to national security or public safety ... undermin[ing] the federal government's careful balance of immigration enforcement policies and objectives."

But that line of argument wholly misses the point.  When courts decide whether federal law preempts state law, the question is not whether the state law conflicts with the president's selective enforcement of federal statutes.  The question is whether the state law "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment ... of the full purposes and objectives of Congress," as embodied by the federal statutes.  S.B. 1070 satisfies that test – it does nothing more than allow state officials to enforce Congress's purposes and objectives as expressed in current federal statutes.

As it happens, the Supreme Court may weigh in on these types of questions long before the lower federal courts resolve the Obama administration's case.  In the upcoming term, the Court will hear Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria, which presents a similar constitutional challenge to another Arizona immigration-related statute – one that was signed into law, ironically enough, by then-Governor Janet Napolitano.  In that case, the traditionally liberal Ninth Circuit ruled in Arizona's favor, holding that federal law does not preempt Arizona's law punishing employers that hire illegal aliens.

Arizona's Constitutional War Powers

Interesting reading. Unfortunately, the courts seem to have decided law is written in a foreign language that only by coincidence resembles English. In fact, it's a language that means whatever the courts decide it means.

Arizona's Constitutional War Powers

via American Thinker on 7/8/10

The route taken by the State of Arizona is far less severe than it could have been.

Authority to enforce Federal immigration law

One of the bona contention with respect to the Arizona immigration law is whether Arizona can intrude on Federal territory by enforcing the Federal immigration law. This blog post at JustOneMinute: Holder/Obama v. Arizona looks at what's happening in Maine.

Wild Bill Jacobson and Andy McCarthy tell us that Rhode Island police are already doing what the Arizona police are about to commence, namely, enforcing the Federal immigration statutes. More importantly, they were sued for doing so and the First Circuit found for the police.

And here is an interesting wrinkle from the opinion upholding the police stop, questioning and detainment (my emphasis):

Thus, there was a reasonable basis 20 for the officer to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).   The ICE representative called back three minutes later and noted that the agency wanted to identify the passengers and their status, “due to the lack of identification and strong possibility that the [van's] occupants were illegal immigrants.”

This was enough to raise a serious question, warranting further investigation of whether plaintiffs were in violation of immigration laws.   A reasonable officer would believe this evidence was sufficient to merit extending the period of detention for the next one-to-two hours to accompany the van to the ICE office, whether the passengers consented or not.   Indeed, federal law gives the authority to arrest for violations of § 1324 to all “officers whose duty it is to enforce criminal laws.”   Id. § 1324(c).

We wouldn't expect a judge to be wrong about that, and he does not seem to be; here is the relevant section of USC 8-1342:

(c) Authority to arrest

No officer or person shall have authority to make any arrests for a violation of any provision of this section except officers and employees of the Service designated by the Attorney General, either individually or as a member of a class, and all other officers whose duty it is to enforce criminal laws.

That seems pretty clear. In the specific case at hand, the police had stopped a van with fifteen likely illegals on their way to work. The possibility that the driver or the employer was working in concert with alien-smugglers was certainly in play and merited investigation. Well, if these laws mean anything.

AZ Immigration Law, a preliminary look

Paul at Powerline looks at Arizona's new immigration law:

As I understand it, this is not a situation where Arizona has enacted immigration legislation that's inconsistent with federal immigration law. Nor, to my knowledge, has Arizona authorized any enforcement mechanisms that violate other federal law.

The Justice Department's theory is, instead, that the Arizona law is unconstitutional because the government has preempted the field of immigration. Under the "field preemption" theory, a state law can, under certain circumstances, be preempted even if it is not inconsistent with federal law.

The power to regulate immigration has been held to be exclusively federal power. But the Supreme Court has also made it clear that not every state enactment that deals with aliens is a regulation of immigration and thus per se pre-empted. In De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351 (1976), the Court upheld an attempt by California "to strengthen its economy by adopting federal standards in imposing criminal sanctions against state employers who knowingly employ aliens who have no federal right to employment within the country." Here, as I understand it, Arizona similarly attempts to vindicate important state interests - including protecting the safety of Arizona residents - by adopting and enforcing federal standards.

To be sure, a state cannot enact legislation that "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 (1941). However, it's difficult to see how the Arizona law stands as such an obstacle.

The New Arizona State Flag?

The New Arizona State Flag?

I vote a hearty "Yes!"

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Controlling the Borders

Merv at Prairie Pundit:

The larger question is whether we are going to control the immigration process or not. We have an orderly process for immigration and then we have illegal immigration that can include criminals and terrorist and who knows what, because no background checks are run on those sneaking across the border.

You can have all the empathy in the world for the sneaks, but that is not a good reason to ignore the rule of law. These people are jumping the queue ahead of those who play by the rules and if there is no consequence for the queue jumpers we will only have more of them. Are we going to control the process or let those who do not obey the law control the process? That is the issue.

I don't carry a brief for the Arizona law. If Obama and the rest of his administration were doing their job, there would be no need for the Arizona law. That is what makes the decision to sue the state so perverse. It is an in your face slap that says we are not going to enforce the immigration laws and you should not do anything to make us. Politically it may appeal to the small open borders base of the Democrat party, but to the majority of voters the administration is on the wrong side of the immigration issue, regardless of whether anyone thinks the illegals are here to commit crime. Whatever crime they commit, would not happen if the immigration laws were enforced properly.

Lies about SB1070

From Dr. Gina Loudon at Big Journalism:

 

• • LIE #1:  Most minorities are opposed to SB 1070 because they are afraid of being unfairly accused, stopped, racially profiled, or in some way inconvenienced or abused.

  The facts:  The hotel where we stayed had Native Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Asians.  I used my down time to interview them about SB 1070 and I was shocked to learn that not one person I spoke with of any national or ethnic origin was opposed to SB 1070.

  They know that dangerous terrorists have established an entire entry strategy utilizing the advantage of our broken borders, and as one Native American told me, "I would rather be asked for my ID than have my people blown to bits by a terrorist."

   

  • Lie #2:  Law enforcement will have to begin new processes that may include racial profiling when SB 1070 goes into effect.

  The facts:  I spoke with a shop owner who happened to be an off-duty Phoenix cop, and the moment he learned that I was the "BUYcott girl" I watched the passion well up in him.  "This law changes one thing.  One thing!" He said.  "And this is the one thing it changes… When 1070 goes through, and I arrest someone who I suspect is committing a crime, and haul 'em into the Feds, now they will have to do something with them.".

  He further explained that as the law (or lack thereof) stands now, he takes the criminal into the Feds, they release the suspect, and then the suspect comes after his family, or him for revenge.

  He said the biggest change in all of this isn't about race, or profiling, or even arrests.  It is about the lives of law enforcement and their families.

 

• • Lie #3:  Local groups are holding grassroots boycotts of Arizona.

  The facts:  I attended the Boycott of SB1070 undercover.  No one I met was from Arizona.  All came in on a bus, funded by union bosses or Communist front groups (I have their documents, and it is straight up true, see below) bragging about how they were traveling around the country "doing" these rallies because life has been unfair to them.

 

• • Lie #4:  The Mexicans, all illegals, and most foreign countries all agree that the US is being unreasonable in its desire to secure the borders.

  The facts:  After Mexican film crews interviewed me on the BUYcotts, I always asked them what their personal opinions were on the issue of SB 1070 and the US illegal immigration policy.  Without exception, they told me that Mexican sentiment is that politicians are using this to grandstand, and media outlets are using it to sell papers and get ratings, but that the people on the ground in Mexico prefer a safe guest worker program that is legal and well-managed.

Rank and File SB 1070

Jack Dunphy at Pajamas Media writes:

One must be wary in listening to police chiefs who claim to speak on behalf of their rank-and-file officers, especially when it comes to issues as politically sensitive as this one. Chances are that the chief's publicly espoused views are diametrically opposed to those held by most of the cops serving under him. Chief Beck's pronouncement on SB 1070 is but the most recent example of this.

Like any major city in America one could name, Los Angeles is governed by people of the political left but policed by people of the right. You may find the occasional conservative walking the corridors of L.A. City Hall (a lone member of the city council voted against a boycott of Arizona), and you may find a liberal here and there in the police department, but it is safe to say that those in the city's government and those in its police department are about as ideologically unaligned as any two groups can be.  Even those cops who might start their careers in a leftward frame of mind soon veer to the right as they confront the twin realities of seeing so much money taken from them in taxes while doing a job that offers such an unrivaled view of how that money is spent.

But that rightward tack, generally a steady progression in police officers working patrol and other field assignments, must be reversed by any cop harboring ambition for high rank in his department. Those seeking to ascend into the upper levels of the command structure, most especially anyone aspiring to be chief, must learn to embrace the liberal policies in vogue at City Hall, or at least feign doing so convincingly.

Which brings us to Chief Beck and his views on Arizona and SB 1070. In circulating among my coworkers these last few weeks, I've yet to encounter even one who expressed an opinion similar to Chief Beck's on the matter. In fact, whenever I've heard the subject raised, most of my colleagues said they would have preferred to see Beck keep his opinions on the Arizona law to himself, as the airing of them served no purpose but to further spread the many falsehoods about the law already in circulation. Moreover, it is unseemly for a police chief to show disdain for a law duly considered and enacted through the democratic process. The people of Arizona have spoken, and it is not for people from outside the state, least of all a police chief, to wag fingers and tell them they have erred.

In criticizing SB 1070, Chief Beck was most emphatically not speaking on behalf of most LAPD officers, but rather on behalf of the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, who selected Beck as chief and whose position on illegal immigration is well known. Whatever Beck's true opinions on these issues might be, if they differ one iota from the mayor's, he took care to keep those differences to himself during the interviews leading up to his appointment.

George Will on Arizona's Immigration Law

George Will is not rushing to condemn Arizona for its newly passed immigration law.

 

It is passing strange for federal officials, including the president, to accuse Arizona of irresponsibility while the federal government is refusing to fulfill its responsibility to control the nation's borders. Such control is an essential attribute of national sovereignty. America is the only developed nation that has a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation, and the government's refusal to control that border is why there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona and why the nation, sensibly insisting on first things first, resists "comprehensive" immigration reform.

Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense -- being in the country illegally -- a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund attacks Gov. Jan Brewer's character and motives, saying she "caved to the radical fringe." This poses a semantic puzzle: Can the large majority of Arizonans who support the law be a "fringe" of their state?

Non-Hispanic Arizonans of all sorts live congenially with all sorts of persons of Hispanic descent. These include some whose ancestors got to Arizona before statehood -- some even before it was a territory. They were in America before most Americans' ancestors arrived. Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their back yards at 3 a.m.

And it might be noted, in the ongoing theme of a New American Civil War, Dennis cites the example of one state deciding it won't do business with another an example of one state making war on another.

 

Still not a shooting war, but it sure looks like a war.

Arizona Immigration Law not Unusual

Clayton Cramer writes at Pajamas Media, Arizona Immigration Law not Historically Unusual

For all the screeching about Arizona’s new immigration law, you would think that this is a new question: may a state enforce federal immigration law? I know better than to predict how the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this question, but if we look to history, this should be easy. We have plenty of examples of states enforcing immigration laws that were actually stricter than federal immigration law.

Don't trust the MSM

Interesting photos at the Big Journalism site:

Nancy Pelosi said there were protesters parading around with swastikas – it turns out she was right! The images below are a sampling from a gallery posted by AZCentral.com, covering the protests in Arizona against the passage of SB 1070.

Police chiefs on SB1070, yet again

Police chiefs have come out against Arizona's SB1070, saying it will increase crime and make their jobs harder.  The first thing I wanted to know is, what do the rank-and-file police officers think?  They are, after all, the ones who will have to deal with the impact of any such law on a day-to-day basis.

Why not just take the police chiefs at their word?  Police chiefs are political animals.  Even in cases where the job is filled from the ranks of the police force, it will be filled with someone who has the support of the mayor, and thus supports him in turn.  I don't know how free a police chief is to disagree with the mayor who appoints him, and can very likely disappoint him.

"Jack Dunphy", a rank-and-file LAPD officer offers his take at Pajamas Media:

Chief Beck is an honorable man and is — so far, at least — respected within the ranks of the LAPD, but he is also a man who knows where his bread is buttered.  He is an appointee of the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, who enthusiastically advocates amnesty for illegal immigrants, and it is inconceivable that Beck would have been named to the job if he could not be reliably counted on to parrot the mayor's opinions on a range of matters, most especially illegal immigration.

Beck was one of several police chiefs in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday who met with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Arizona law. "This is not a law that increases public safety," said Beck, as quoted in the Washington Post. "This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs.  Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state."

Rubbish.

It is disappointing to see Beck joining the ranks of alarmists predicting all manner of calamity should the Arizona law take effect as scheduled on July 29.  It is all the more disappointing to see him do so by mischaracterizing what the law says.  The Los Angeles Times reported his statement thus:

Beck said that his officers are guided by a different set of rules than the ones laid out in the Arizona law. For more than three decades the LAPD has followed a policy that prohibits officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether he or she is in the country legally.

Assuming the L.A. Times has accurately paraphrased Beck's statement, we can reach either of two possible conclusions: that he is misinformed on the language of the new law, or he is deliberately distorting the truth to serve a political agenda.  Neither choice is comforting.

It is no doubt true that some illegal immigrants are reluctant to speak to the police, but it has been my experience that they are less fearful of being deported than they are of being retaliated against by criminal gang members, a large number of whom are themselves illegal immigrants.  Yes, the new Arizona law brings the potential for error and even abuse, but that potential exists in every aspect of police work, and we don't ask police officers to ignore violations of the law because they might make a mistake.

My guess is that police officers in Arizona, when armed with this new law, will concentrate their efforts on those illegal immigrants whose criminal predations fall most heavily on their law-abiding neighbors.  Had such a law been in place in Texas a few years ago, Houston police officer Henry Canales might be alive today.  The men accused of murdering him last year, both  illegal immigrants with criminal records, are today on trial in Houston. 

Other Arizona Legislation

From The American Thinker:

When I wrote the report on Less Well Known Legislation from Arizona I focused on this year's legislative session.  But one reader made an excellent comment about a bill that penalized employers who hired illegal aliens to work in their businesses.

Arizona already did this.  The bill was called the Legal Arizona Workers Act. The bill entailed provisions that prohibit knowingly or intentionally hiring an illegal alien.  It also provides for penalties for businesses that violate the law.  The first offense permits up to a 10 day suspension of the business' license and three years probation.  A subsequent offense can cause the business to lose its license permanently.

With typical Mexican government hypocrisy, several Mexican legislators came to Arizona to complain.  The complaint?  "We won't be able to have all the resources to help in case the amount of people are too many people," said Florencio Diaz Armenta. The Mexican government was concerned about a mass return of Mexican nationals. 

The most amazing part of this story: the bill was signed by then Governor Janet Napolitano in 2007.

 Well, she's on record as not having read SB1070.  Maybe she didn't read that one, either.

The police chiefs speak

 Big-City Police Chiefs and the Arizona Law [Heather Mac Donald]

A delegation of big-city police chiefs has announced its opposition to the Arizona immigration law. They claim that SB 1070 will increase crime by intimidating illegal-alien victims and witnesses from cooperating with the police. This standard argument in favor of local sanctuary policies has never been tested empirically by comparing witness involvement in sanctuary and non-sanctuary cities. As Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, head of the Arizona Sheriff's Association and a supporter of SB 1070, points out, cooperation from illegal aliens is already low.

But the real weakness in the position of the big-city chiefs (who are exquisitely political animals) is the tired nostrum that we need a federal, not a local, solution to illegal immigration. Unless the federal government suddenly starts showing an unprecedented commitment to the issue, you cannot have a federal solution to illegal immigration without also involving local law enforcement. There are simply not enough resources at the federal level to create a meaningful deterrent for intending illegals who have not yet entered the country or a reason for illegal aliens already in the U.S. to return to their home countries.

Source

About the police chiefs and AB1070

From Big Journalism:  What the MSM Didn't Tell You About Holder and the Police Chiefs

As if we needed one, here's another item showing  bias in the way the mainstream media covers the controversial  Arizona illegal immigration law. Many major news organizations, including, MSNBC, CNN, and USA Today for example, covered a story about a group of Police Chiefs who met with A.G. Eric Holder to register their objections to the Arizona law.

Yes, I wondered about that.  In particular, I was wondering what else they object to -- just by way of establishing a track record.  Do they slant left, right, or down the middle?

At first glance this all seems like a perfectly normal news story, but there was a very important piece of information left out: the meeting was arraigned by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and the police chiefs attending the meeting were members of PERF. (Holder is an "old friend of PERF, he addressed their convention in April). In the rare cases where a news organization mentioned the PERF connection (the NPR story referenced above is the only one I could find) they neglected to mention that PERF is an organization that objects to any enforcement of immigration laws directed at the illegal alien (as opposed to an employer who hires illegals). The Forum describes itself as a "national organization of progressive police executives."

....

If the reporters had done some legwork they would have found the group is not just against the Arizona law, it is against any enforcement of immigration laws. For example, last July the group protested the federal program that trains local police departments to get involved in enforcing immigration law

Oh.  OK...

Everyone's asking for "papers" these days

Byron York wants to know... What America is Michael Gerson living in?

The effect of the new law, he argues, will be bad for everybody:

It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny -- but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command "Your papers, please," however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be "Go to hell," and then "See you in court."

Which leads to the question: What America is Gerson living in? No, we are not confronted by actors with heavy German accents demanding our papers. We are instead confronted routinely by people of all stripes asking to see our driver's license. When we board an airplane, we are asked to produce a government-issued photo ID, usually a driver's license. When we make some credit- or debit-card purchases in department stores, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we enter many office buildings, both private and government, security guards often ask us to produce a driver's license. When we go to doctors' offices and hospitals, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we check into hotels, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we purchase some over-the-counter drugs, we are asked to produce a driver's license. If we go to a bar or nightclub, anyone who looks at all young is asked to produce a driver's license. And needless to say, if we have any encounter with police or other authorities, we are asked to produce a driver's license.

Some situations involve an even higher level of scrutiny. When we get a new job, we are asked to provide not a driver's license but a passport or birth certificate to prove citizenship. In other situations, too: When I renewed my District of Columbia driver's license last year, I had to produce a passport to prove citizenship, even though it was a valid, unexpired license I was renewing. And in many places, buying a gun -- a constitutionally-protected right -- involves enormous scrutiny.

And York also comments on the law itself:

Has anyone actually read the law? Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.
....
Critics have focused on the term "reasonable suspicion" to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics.

What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."
....
But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.

Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.

Oh, What A Tangled Web...

Oh, What A Tangled Web...

Two days ago, my colleague Chone wrote about Jessica Colotl, a young college student who had been pulled over for a moving violation. She also had no driver's license, and as police looked further into her case, this pre-law senior turned out to be an illegal alien -- her parents had brought her here from Mexico when she was 11. She had attended public schools, then been admitted to Kennesaw State University.

According to her supporters, this is an outrage. She was pulled over for a minor moving violation, and her registration had an old address -- she hadn't updated it. And since she was an illegal alien, of course she didn't have a driver's license.

There's an old aphorism that there is no such thing as a single lie. As soon as a lie is questioned, it almost demands more lies to protect it. Similarly, Colotl might not have been guilty of the "original sin" of entering the country illegally -- her parents brought her, and only an idiot would hold a child responsible for the actions of their parents -- but she is responsible for her own actions since she became an adult.

The original charge against Colotl, the one that drew the attention of the police, was "impeding the flow of traffic." The particular statute seems to cover stopping in an intersection (causing gridlock), blocking traffic, going too slow, or in general being a pain in the ass to other drivers. It's a piddling charge, and I'm sure most of us have done that sort of thing in our lives. (Personally, I remember with great chagrin the last time I entered an intersection I wasn't sure I could get through, and spent an embarrassing amount of time blocking traffic. And I've cursed out others for doing just that.)

So, should Colotl be deported for this incredibly trivial motor vehicle violation? No.

Likewise, she hadn't updated her registration after moving. That's something else I've done, and it is technically providing a false address to the police. In most cases, it'd get you a scolding or perhaps a fine, unless she actively gave her old address to the police. Again, not the sort of thing you throw someone out of the country over.

But she was also driving without a license. Yes, as an illegal alien, she wasn't eligible to have one. But dammit, there's a line in an old Bob Dylan song: "to live outside the law you must be honest."

When you're already a wanted person, you have to toe the line even tighter. You have to be incredibly paranoid and follow every single law as best as you can. You have to make certain you don't get caught breaking any laws and drawing the attention of the police. And when you're an illegal alien, whose very presence is a violation of the law, you have to be exceptionally careful.

Colotl was driving without a license. That is a serious offense, and "I couldn't legally get one" is no excuse. If you can't get a license legally, don't drive. Period.

But her entire story raises a host of questions that no one else seems to want to ask. Wizbang commenter (and occasional PITA) "bobdog" raised quite a few in a comment on Chone's piece. Since he was recently a pain in my own ass, I'm going to steal his and expand upon them.

She was driving her own car, which she did legally register (albeit didn't keep up to date, but the registration was current). That's good. She didn't have a driver's license (which, as noted, is bad), but one needn't have a license to register a car.

But did she have the legally mandated insurance on that car? That raises an interesting dilemma -- as an unlicensed driver, she's pretty much presumed to be at fault in any accidents she gets into, as she has no legal right to even be on the road.

How did she get the car? She couldn't work legally, so she had no legal income. Her parents are still also illegal aliens, so they can't legally work either -- certainly not enough to afford vehicles.

How did she pay her tuition? She was granted in-state tuition, which reduces the cost of her education, but again that's a significant amount of money.

As part of the admission process, KSU verified that she was a resident of Georgia to qualify for in-state tuition -- a highly significant savings. Why doesn't the school also verify that the would-be student is also here legally? I am personally rankled that she was accorded better treatment than I, a United States citizen, would receive.

Did Ms. Colotl have an on-campus job as part of her student aid? I knew a lot of kids who used "work study" funds to get through school. Did the school verify her eligibility to work then?

Did she have any job while going to school? Again, if so, how did she pull that off?

Once she graduated from KSU with her pre-law degree, and then completed her law degree, what the hell did she plan to do with it? She can't work legally in the United States, and I can't imagine an illegal alien being admitted to any bar. Her only hope for pursuing her "dream" of being a lawyer in the United States would have been for an amnesty program of some sorts. Absent that, she's going to be another "undocumented," unhireable worker with a fancy degree heavily subsidized by the people of Georgia.

But the one thing that offends me most is this statement from one of her lawyers:

Her criminal defense lawyer, Chris Taylor, said Friday that his client's case is a perfect example of why U.S. immigration law needs reform.

"Jessica may not have the documents that show that she's an American citizen, but she's an American," Taylor said. "She's an American in her heart because she believes in the values of this country."

No, Mr. Taylor, being an American isn't simply feeling like one and wanting to be one. Being an American is defined as citizenship, which falls into two simple categories.

If you were born here, you are an American by birthright. You have documentation to prove it. And unless you renounce it, you will be a citizen until the day you die.

If you were not born here, you can be naturalized. You can ask to become an American. You demonstrate your respect for the nation by following all the rules, passing all the tests, and proving that you are worthy of the privilege of becoming an American.

Ms. Colotl is a citizen of Mexico. She has, apparently, never taken a single step towards changing that in the three-plus years she was here illegally. And she was fully aware of her illegal status, which interest in a legal career even more intriguing.

An argument can be made that her situation is tremendously unjust. And I am sympathetic to that. But the original "sin" at the root of her problem was the actions of her parents. And while, as I said, we should not punish her for their offense, nor should we allow her or they to benefit from it.

Ms. Colotl's grievance is with her parents, for engineering the situation she now finds herself in. And as sympathetic as her plight may be, it simply isn't our responsibility to make amends.

No, our responsibility is to the countless other would-be Americans who are following the rules and trying to gain citizenship the right way. To reward a "line-cutter" like Colotl or her parents would be a gross insult to all those others, and they do not deserve that.

No, they deserve our apprecation and our respect.

Despite Harsh Words From Obama & Chavez… Americans Broadly Support Arizona I...

Despite Harsh Words From Obama & Chavez… Americans Broadly Support Arizona Immigration Law

A whopping 73% of Americans approve of the Arizona law that requires people to produce documents verifying their legal status.

(Pew)

Despite the harsh words from Barack Obama and Marxist Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, a broad majoirty of Americans approve of the Arizona immigration law.
The Pew Research Center reported:

The public broadly supports a new Arizona law aimed at dealing with illegal immigration and the law's provisions giving police increased powers to stop and detain people who are suspected of being in the country illegally.

Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them. Two-thirds (67%) approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify their legal status, while 62% approve of allowing police to question people they think may be in the country illegally.

After being asked about the law's provisions, 59% say that considering everything, they approve of Arizona's new illegal immigration law while 32% disapprove.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted May 6-9 among 994 adults, finds that Democrats are evenly split over Arizona's new immigration law: 45% approve of the law and 46% disapprove. However, majorities of Democrats approve of two of the law's principal provisions: requiring people to produce documents verifying legal status (65%) and allowing police to detain anyone unable to verify their legal status (55%).

It looks like Arizona gets the last laugh.