State must do more to tight illegal immigration

Nov. 2, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

State Sen. Russell Pearce served in the Arizona House from 2001 to 2008 and entered the Senate in 2009. Here is an excerpt from an interview with him.

1. What are the three prongs of this plan?

Trespass: Make it a crime to enter or remain in Arizona in violation of federal law. Also prohibit "sanctuary cities" - the local refusal to enforce immigration law.

Employer sanctions: Tighten our existing law.

Day-laborer enforcement: Make it illegal for an illegal alien to solicit work and make it a misdemeanor for anyone with a license to do business in Arizona to pick up any day laborer who does not fill out an employment application.

2. Why are you ramping up your efforts against illegal immigration now?

Enough is enough. I am not "just now" ramping up my efforts. I have run this same legislation for several years.

The public has had enough and wants the laws enforced. With a 26-year high in unemployment, maybe we ought to be standing up for Americans and not allowing employers to hire illegal help. There are billions of dollars in costs, jobs taken from Americans, citizens killed and maimed every day, a huge roundup of a La Familia gang involved in drugs, murders and more.

3. How do you answer critics who say we shouldn't spend state and local resources to do a federal job?

It is not now, nor has it ever been, just a federal responsibility. Congress could have chosen to limit local enforcement, pursuant to its plenary power over immigration, but it has not done so. In the absence of a limitation on local enforcement powers, the states are bound by the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution to enforce violations of the federal immigration laws.

4. What would prevent racial profiling?

We already have laws against this. We have both in Arizona Constitution and the U.S. Constitution provisions to protect against the abuse of power and the courts to sit in judgment of such. This "racial profiling" issue is an attempt by the open-border anarchists and the cheap-labor crowd to thwart enforcement. 5. What further steps do you think should be taken at the local, state and federal level?

It is pretty simple. Enforce the law. No public benefits. No sanctuary policies.

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