re: #8 Obdicut

For anyone who thinks that more local government is better, this law is terrible. That it opens up local law enforcement to lawsuits if its felt their insufficiently fervent about applying the law is just idiotic.

I do not understand how people can simultaneously say, “if you’re not from Arizona, then butt out!” about this law and simultaneously ignore that many of the law enforcement personnel effected by this think the law is terribly flawed.

Local law enforcement has to answer to federal law. Why should it not have to answer to state law? A thinly populated county right down on the border may find that it’s much easier to just look aside and let the traffic through.

And what is that traffic like? It’s a mix of people with hope of a better future, coming here to do jobs Americans would also take (the recession has not gone away), of people coming here with hopes of selling drugs, and of people working to help the first two categories get past state and federal law enforcement. Categories II and III are often armed and dangerous. Category III is largely responsible for the wave of kidnappings; they mean to be paid for their work in getting Category I in, and if the migrant cannot make good on his installment payments, Cat III has its ways to remind him of his debt.

Category II fights it out with the law whenever it thinks fighting stands a chance.

We don’t actually need a fresh infusion of Cat I illegal immigrants, and if we did, we could increase the legal immigration quotas and meet that need through channels. As to Cat II and Cat III, they’re bad actors and they’re responsible for all manner of felonies on top of the criminal purpose that brings them here.

Almost every nation in the world has borders and controls immigration. In most of the world, enforcement is strict. Mexico has an illegal immigration problem and their answer is unprintable. The rules of the blog forbid spelling out how they treat Guatemalans caught trespassing.

It isn’t wicked to have borders and set limits on how many new citizens we’ll take and which ones. The people who say this law is wrong-headed aren’t faced with the consequences of wide-open borders right across from a region of Mexico where disputes are settled with guns, the police are sometimes just another gang, and honest politicians and journalists are marked men.