Thread: Immigration heats up the desert

Immigration heats up the desert

Updated 11m ago
By Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.
Today: Arizona's immigration law.

Cal: It was supposed to be D-Day — or I-Day — in Arizona. Starting today, a police officer, who questioned someone during a legal stop, such as a traffic violation, would have been able to ask that person his or her immigration status.

Bob: And thankfully a judge stepped in and blocked the most controversial aspects of the law — at least for now.

Cal: Arizona's law is simply trying to do what the federal government — under Republican and Democratic administrations — has refused to do: attempt to slow the flow of illegal immigrants into America. Perhaps a higher court and ultimately the Supreme Court will see things differently. I hope so because like a majority of Americans, I am tired of the "law" on too many occasions taking the side of the lawbreakers.

Bob: Cal, it was the right action to take. Without the ruling, what people do you think police would have asked about their immigration status? I suspect they wouldn't ask you or any other white person. But if your skin was brown and — God forbid! — you spoke only Spanish, chances are you'd be asked. The Arizona law is a travesty — and if this ruling isn't upheld — it will flat-out result in racial profiling. And if that happens, I hope the first legal resident who is profiled and happens to be Hispanic sues Arizona and its governor for millions.

Cal: A liberal's first instinct: Sue! Here's a bulletin for you: Those aren't Norwegians running across the border. Of course they have brown skin. That's a description, not discrimination.

Bob: Of course? So every light-skinned person is in Arizona legally? This is what this immigration issue has come to — arguments over skin color?

Cal: I'm just trying to cut through the politically correct nonsense. This isn't about race or profiling. It's about politics. Democrats think they can rile-up Hispanics (many of whom are here legally and oppose illegal immigration) into voting for them. This is a cynical manipulation of the law and ought to shame politicians, if they had any shame left.

Bob: Rockets, cars, the electric light bulb, plastics and much more were invented or brought to our shores by immigrants. All this anti-immigration hysteria might scare off the very foreign talent we will need in this country to compete in the global economy.

Cal: I'm not anti-immigrant. America almost by definition cannot be anti-immigrant.

Bob: You could have fooled me.

Cal: I'm anti-illegal immigrant. Besides, most of the greater innovators and entrepreneurs of our nation's founding were legal immigrants.

Bob: Let's be honest, Cal. Asking for papers, interrogating those who don't look "American." You don't have a problem with any of this?

Cal: It isn't discrimination to ask for identification. How many times must we show our IDs? If I am stopped by a police officer for speeding or a broken tail light, the officer asks me to produce a driver's license and registration. The officer gets back in his cruiser to check for outstanding warrants. I have to show an ID and credit card when writing a check. In none of these situations do I feel discriminated against or put out.

Bob: Let me put this as delicately as possible: You're white. Neither you nor I have experienced racial discrimination, so it's easy for us to say that none of this bothers us. But if the threat of discrimination had been a part of your everyday life, perhaps you'd see things differently.

Cal: That's where I take issue with the entire immigration "debate." Somehow, merely enforcing the law became controversial. Feelings became more important than the integrity of our borders. "Enforcement" became code for "profiling." All a sideshow, a distraction.

Bob: Look, I don't have a problem with police checking for valid registration, outstanding warrants or a current driver's license for anyone stopped for a violation — no matter their ethnicity. You'd be free to go, Cal. The way Arizona's law was written, Hispanic drivers may clear all these hurdles and still be asked to prove they are legal citizens if the officer senses that they're here illegally.

Cal: Well, let's see how the law is enforced before jumping to conclusions, as our federal government already did. I mean, suing Arizona for enforcing a law that has been passed by elected state officials? It's funny that the administration has had nothing to say about the " sanctuary cities," like San Francisco, presided over mostly by Democratic mayors. We don't want a "patchwork" of immigration laws, unless the patches fit into our open-borders quilt. Selective enforcement mocks the law.

Bob: The Obama administration is enforcing immigration laws. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, in the past three years the population of illegal immigrants has declined from 12 million to 11 million.

Cal: Only because the economy has crashed! So we need to hemorrhage jobs every few years to cut down on illegal immigration? Come on.

Bob: The immigration problem is not simply about fences, apprehension and deportations. It's about jobs available to illegal immigrants north of the border.

Cal: I understand market forces as well as you do. But too many criminals — and perhaps terrorists — are sneaking across the border. A drug war is blazing along our southern border, our prison population is already bulging, and our hospitals and public schools are burdened by illegal immigrants. No nation can maintain its character if it refuses to control its borders. If we give amnesty to those now here — as we did in 1986— what will you do with the next wave who violate the law to get here? And when will you say, "enough"? When the majority of them vote for Democrats?

Bob: The federal government is doing a good job protecting the borders, but at a huge cost to taxpayers. Here are a few facts: The Border Patrol, which had 9,000 agents in 2001, now has 20,000 agents at a cost of $4 billion a year. We have spent $4 billion to build 670 miles of border fences. Throw in the cost of the National Guard, surveillance aircraft, detention and deportation, and the costs climb to $10 billion a year. At this rate we might as well pay potential illegal immigrants to stay home!

Cal: The border remains a sieve. I applaud Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for dispatching National Guard troops to the border on Aug. 1. Let's hope that unlike some of the previous Border Patrol and customs agents, these will actually slow the flow. But they can't remain forever, and when they leave the flow will resume unless the wall is finished.

Bob: I am for making the border as secure as possible first, but we should have a policy that addresses the 11 million illegals already here. Let's be realistic: We can't round these people up — roughly the population of the state of Ohio — and send them home. We should follow the outlines of the last immigration bill in 1986 signed into law by President Reagan. Allow the 11 million to register with the government, pay any back taxes and fines owed from income received illegally, and be put on a path to citizenship — but behind those who have followed the rules for legal immigration.

Cal: Agreed. And those who won't should be deported. There also must be stiffer penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. If the demand dries up, the supply will too.

Bob: That may be our strongest common ground point. Unless and until those who employ illegal immigrants pay a substantial price for doing so, no new immigration policy can work.

Cal: No doubt about it. But I can't fault Arizona for simply trying to do what the federal government has failed to do.

Bob: I understand. Here's hoping we get a federal solution — i.e., reform — so Arizona's law, and those surely to follow in other states, will be rendered moot.
------------------------------------------
Post comment @

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/fo ... 29_ST_N.ht

I no longer give a rats ass for the talking heads.The time is growing near for Americans to take matters into their own hands. No more talk.

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

I no longer give a rats ass for the talking heads.The time is growing near for Americans to take matters into their own hands. No more talk.

If a Judge can rule that this is no longer our nation and that the U S has no sovereignty, it most certainly is time Tex.

We don't need to "round them all up and deport them". Attrition thru enforcement of existing immigration laws will do the biggest part of the job.

Look what just the possible enactment of the Arizona law did - got a lot of illegals moving out.

Of course the majority of dems don't want this; too many votes to lose. And don't tell me illegals don't vote. They sneak, steal, lie and use multiple aliases. The more aliases the more votes...