Thread: Will Calif. follow Arizona on immigration?

By the one and only.... RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

Originally published: January 1, 2011 Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a syndicated columnist.


California and Arizona share a common border and a common destiny, despite the reluctance of each to admit it and best efforts of each to avoid it.

Now, one shortsighted Californian wants to emulate Arizona and make his state inhospitable to illegal immigrants. Tea party activist and rogue Republican Michael Erickson wants to place an Arizona-style immigration law on the 2012 California ballot. The Support Federal Immigration Law Act requires state and local police officers to determine the immigration status of individuals if they have "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the country illegally. In a feeble attempt to avoid the legal pitfalls that befell the Arizona law, this time, state and local officers would have to try to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement to verify a suspect's immigration status before taking anyone into custody.

It's a meaningless distinction. Before contact is made, the local officers would, in fact, have custody. Thus, they would be detaining the individual without the constitutional authority to do so. Besides, the Arizona law set back community relations by making immigrants fearful of local police. Even if local police do communicate with federal officials, the same thing will happen here.

And so, once again, thanks to this cut-and-paste immigration proposal, we have a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling. In the real world of policing, law enforcement officers can't begin to guess about whether someone is in the country illegally without considering race and ethnicity.

The proposed California measure would also outlaw sanctuary cities. And it would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work while concealing their immigration status, and another state crime for an employer to hire an undocumented immigrant whether deliberately or negligently.

Erickson and I agree on this much: Sanctuary cities should be banned for the sake of consistency. If it's wrong for local cities and states to enforce immigration law, then it must be wrong for them to defy immigration law. Neither the extreme right nor the extreme left seems to understand this.

Yet the part about employers will get sticky. Without illegal immigrant labor, the state's $30 billion a year agribusiness industry would shrivel up like a raisin. Besides, note the word "negligently." Built into the current system is the plausible deniability that allows employers to pretend they have no idea the people they hire are in the country illegally. But, if this law passes, those folks could be heavily fined for "negligently" breaking immigration laws. Such wording might be too broad, and impossible to enforce.

Erickson needs to collect the signatures of 433,971 voters by April 21 to qualify the initiative for the ballot. He should have no trouble gathering the ink, despite resistance from the California Republican Party. The GOP is rightfully terrified that the measure might succeed of ridding California not of illegal immigrants but of Republicans. In a state where one in 5 voters is Latino and where the GOP brand is already toxic to that community, this would be the proverbial nail in the coffin.

I've come to love both these states. I'm a Californian, born and bred. And in the late 1990s, I was a reporter at a newspaper in Phoenix. One day, I drew the assignment of driving out to the California desert to cover unrest about, of all things, a billboard. An anti-illegal immigration group had paid for an advertisement on the California side of the state line, warning visitors from Arizona about what could happen if they weren't careful.

"Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigrant State," the sign read. "Don't let this happen to your state."

Years later with its harsh immigration law, Arizona scared off what demographers estimate were a few hundred thousand illegal immigrants. As a result, Arizona might have lost more than it bargained for. Instead of getting two congressional seats through the reapportionment process, as it did in 2000, the state came up 328,000 residents short (the census counts illegal immigrants as well as legal residents). And so it will now only get one. And according to a recent report by the Center for American Progress, the immigration law also cost the state as much as $141 million in lost convention business. All because of a law that was gutted by a federal judge and will be tied up in court for years.

California, welcome to Arizona, where they believe that the best way to get rid of unwanted houseguests is to set fire to your house. Don't let this happen to your state.

Please rate the article at bottom of page... ( They don't have a ZERO star option... ) http://www.newsday.com/news/will-calif- ... 80486?qr=1

well good for you .Now all the other state get ON the ball this is your Country . Not the Illegal Immigrant your & our . wake up congress . the voice Of Amercian

This has bothered me for along time, if we let California down, we all go down!

the Arizona law set back community relations by making immigrants fearful of local police

But Americans who are fearful of violence by illegal Mexicans feel comforted by the AZ law.

Originally Posted by stevetheroofer

This has bothered me for along time, if we let California down, we all go down!

I agree, Steve. We have all had our fun at California's expense with the snide comments, but for the life of me I don't know where to start. I support Capwiz, but that's all I really know. Those of us on the other coast are kinda lost about the where's and why's of the West coast.

I know if suggestions on how we can help were made we would all support them.

California is part of the United States so I say we fight for it. I would not put all our resources into it because it will be the last state to win. Lets win the rest of the Country first. Just my opinion

Absolutely we fight for California, all the way, by all means necessary, whatever it takes. She completes our sea to shining sea. She was our dreamers, inventors, risk-takers, innovators, our paradise, our promised land and our real life Disney world. Without California, we would never be the same or ever soar to our potential.

GO CALIFORNIA! Get the bill on the ballot, you know what you must do, and you must ignore these planted opinion articles by people like Rubin Navarette and all the other planted so-called journalists who support open borders and do what is right and necessary to save your state.

RELATED

CA. to seize property of human traffickers as of 1/1/11

California SB 677

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-223262.html


CA. AB 26, would bar sanctuary cities, and require E-VERIFY

12/30/2010

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-223176.html

the Arizona law set back community relations by making immigrants fearful of local police

Illegal aliens are not a legal part of any community and should be deported to their legal countries communities.
If California goes so does the rest of the states. We fight every battle as it comes if the battle is in California we fight in California if the battle is in another state we take the fight there. You guys have to stop blaming the victims or soon you'll be victims too..

CA. Bay Area activist working to put Arizona-style immigration law on California ballot

11/23/2010

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-219166-bay.html

INFO @

http://www.supportimmigration.org/