Thursday, April 29, 2010

More on Arizona's new immigration law

Pima County (Tuscon) Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Republican opposes the law. His Department already arrests and turns over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more illegals than any other law enforcement agency in the nation. I already told you that the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes it, right? Dupnik's problem is that the law doesn't give public safety officers any tools to do this job but it does mean that more people will sue policemen and departments (keep that in mind when I tell you about the law's author in a couple paragraphs). He doesn't like the fact that this law also puts the economic burden squarely on local departments to hold/house/feed/care for/and prosecute illegals, where as currently they are handed over to ICE, a federal agency to deal with. Dupnik (again- a Republican)says that he believes the only reason this law was created was racism or possibly to create political division.

This law wasn't even written by Arizona legislators, but by Kris Kobach, a lawyer from Kansas, at the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007. Joe Arpaio had already been paying Kobach $1,500 per month, plus expenses and travel, plus $300 per hour to teach Maricopa County Sheriff personnel how to racially profile immigration suspects.

Kobach has a conflict of interest because he is also Kobach is senior counsel for the Immigration Law Reform Institute, which describes itself as representing “citizens experiencing injury resulting from illegal immigration.” In other words, he stands to profit financially from people who are hurt by the very law he helped craft!

Republicans should probably oppose it because Nationally Hispanics voted for Obama 2 to 1, in AZ it was something like 54% to 41% and that's over home state favorite McCain. Hispanics constitute the fastest growing minority group in the US., making up almost 15% of our population. 30% of Arizona residents happen to be Hispanic! This issue may activate the tea-party base, but it's bound to erase whatever gains the GOP thought it was making over health care reform.
I knew that the GOP had gone crazy, but I didn't think it had become so foolish that they didn't even CARE if they got back into power or not. Wouldn't a political party WANT to appeal to the fasted growing segments of society? They proved that they're the party of the rich by opposing Wall Street reform, now they're proving that they're the party of white racists too. Keep it up Republicans, you're helping the Democratic Party more than all the elitists in Hollywood ever couldBookmark and Share

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