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Governor gets one veto right and two wrong
May 31, 2005

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano recently vetoed three items impacting illegal immigration. She was right on one of them but wrong on the other two.

The correct veto involved rejection of a proposal passed by the Legislature that would have had state and local police agencies enforcing federal immigration laws. The reasoning behind this idea was that the Border Patrol is not adequately enforcing immigration laws.

The governor based her veto on the fact that the law did not provide additional funding to cover the cost of enforcing immigration laws and therefore would be too costly for the state and local agencies.

While this is probably true, a better reason to reject the idea is that enforcing immigration laws is simply not a proper function of state or local law enforcement agencies. Regulating immigration and safeguarding the borders is totally a federal function. State and local agencies have no business getting involved in this.

Certainly, the local justice system can apprehend, arrest and punish immigrants â€â€