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Jewish World Review July 12, 2010 / 1 Menachem-Av, 5770 Our scofflaw president By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The political rationale for the lawsuit the Obama administration has filed to overturn Arizona's immigration law is clear. According to Gallup, Mr. Obama's job approval rating this year has been pretty stable among whites (low) and blacks (high). But it's declined from 69 percent to 57 percent among Hispanics.
"One senior strategist...noted that white voters made up 79 percent of the 2006 midterm electorate, while they made up 74 percent of the 2008 vote," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote Monday. "If the white percentage returns to its 2006 level...that scenario, said the source, 'would generate massive losses' for House and Senate Democrats in November."
So the lawsuit likely is an effort to boost the president's standing among Hispanics. But it may not have the effect Mr. Obama desires. According to a poll conducted in late June for three news organizations in the state, 61 percent of Coloradans support Arizona-like immigration laws. More Hispanics than whites -- 62 percent -- said they support such laws.
Whether or not it raises Mr. Obama's standing among Hispanics, "the administration's lawsuit...ensures that the immigration debate will be front and center for the next few months," Mr. Cillizza wrote.
To the detriment of Democrats, which is why it is selfish of Mr. Obama to raise it. He's not on the ballot again until 2012. But the lawsuit all but dooms the re-election hopes of Arizona Democratic Reps. Gabrielle Giffords, Ann Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell, who were elected in 2006 and 2008 in districts which lean slightly Republican.
It isn't just in Arizona where Democrats will suffer.
"I can't think of any place in the West where this is going to play well," former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, a Democrat, told the Webzine Politico.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed the Arizona law would lead to racial profiling. But then they acknowledged they hadn't actually read SB 1070.
If they had, they would have discovered the Arizona law specifically prohibits racial profiling. What it does do is permit police officers, in the course of a "lawful stop, detention or arrest," such as a traffic violation, to ask the detainee to produce proof of citizenship (a valid driver's license will do) or proof of being in the country legally (federal law requires legal immigrants to keep on their persons their green cards, tourist visas, or I-94 registration receipts).
If the detainee cannot provide proof of citizenship or legal residence, the police are empowered to check on his or her immigration status. If the detainee is found to be in the country illegally, the police are empowered to turn him or her over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or to hold him or her in a local jail pending turnover to ICE.
The Justice Department lawyers who drew up the lawsuit evidently did read the law, because it makes no equal protection claims. The challenge is based instead on "pre-emption" grounds. A state "may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes with federal immigration laws."
That's indisputably true...if state law conflicted with federal law. But all the Arizona law does is to permit state and local law enforcement officials to enforce existing federal law, as Rhode Island and Missouri have been doing for years, with no complaint from the feds.
So the administration argues if Arizona arrests lots of illegals and turns them over to ICE, "it will impose significant and counterproductive burdens on the federal agencies charged with enforcing the national immigration scheme."
The Obama administration's attitude toward illegal immigration is illustrated by what it did in response to reports Mexican drug and people smugglers have taken over large swathes of the Arizona desert. It posted signs warning Arizonans to stay away.
So the lawsuit amounts to a claim by the Obama administration that if it chooses not to enforce federal immigration law, states may not, either.
Since federal appellate courts -- including the U.S.Supreme Court in a 1976 case -- have held that state laws which enforce federal statutes are not unconstitutional intrusions into federal jurisdiction, the administration is unlikely to prevail in court. But since the purpose of this lawsuit is political, that may not matter much to this scofflaw president.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2009, Jack Kelly |
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