New York could do with another Jan Brewer.
Fed up with the drug-fueled violence on her doorstep from neighboring Mexico, the Arizona governor has introduced the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration, going into effect next week and requiring cops to check on the immigration status of suspected criminals.
Joy-jump, please.
Senate Bill 1070 is an important one for this nation’s future because it addresses the reality — not just the ideals — of our national immigration system, whose downside is being played out everyday in Arizona’s border communities. Residents there, terrorized by gangs and smugglers, are fleeing here, and squashing American taxpayers beneath the burden of their unlawful immigration.
A shootout, earlier this month, in the northwestern Mexican town of Altar killed 21 people and injured six others. The region’s main city, Nogales, which shares its frantic fringe with an Arizona city of the same name, has seen more than 131 murders this year. Those numbers blanche in comparison to the bloodshed in other Mexican cities, among them, Ciudad Juarez, across from Texas, where 2,600 people were murdered last year.
Clearly, Governor Brewer’s had it with unlawful migration, which breeds cheap labor, diminishes the American workforce, degrades society and creates a plum bloc for unscrupulous politicians seeking a quick vote.
Peppered with cautionary clauses, such as “reasonable suspicion,” “when practicable” and “probable cause,” her law — which only underscores existing immigration policy — is intended to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens, and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.”
America’s rich immigration history should not be a bargaining tool for unlawful immigrants, many of whom do not speak English, and come here to cement their status by birthing children.
From Plymouth Rock in the 1600s to Ellis Island in the 1900s, large quotas of people — mostly from Europe and Canada — emigrated here in response to fluctuating labor markets, contributing to the construction of this great nation. Today, at great cost, the United States has become the illegal immigrant’s champion. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars states that there are more laws enacted today to help illegal immigrants than ones cracking down on them.
People will continue to flock to the United States to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Lawful ones boost the melting pot, and help to rejuvenate the economy. Illegal ones place enormous economic and social stress, especially those who commit other crimes, too. Such as Daniel Ignacio, the disgruntled illegal day laborer from Guatemala who admitted to tossing accelerant-soaked toilet paper into a baby carriage in Bensonhurst last February — the resulting fire killing five people.
The gravy train for illegals is colossal to operate — $113 billion, annually — according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, $52 billion of which finances the education of their children. All of it paid for by you and me.
Any concerns the Mexican Foreign Ministry has about the “rights of its citizens” under the Arizona bill should be redirected at its own Congress. That impotent body is responsible for a poor economy, a national culture of terror, a joke justice system, and the reason why Mexicans come here in the first place.
Governor Brewer’s bill helps reclaim a broken immigration system, whose advocates should look up the word “illegal” in the dictionary before courting rights for people who break the law.
