Illegally Yours

President Obama's lawless executive order to extend visas (or defer deportation) for some illegal immigrants went into effect yesterday, and media outlets were quick to rush down and interview the applying non-citizens. Most of them seemed nice enough and I don't know a soul who would suggest they don't bleed like the rest of us. It's not hard to feel sympathy for an individual who through no fault of their own was brought here illegally, has since assimilated, attends school or holds full-time employment, and feels American down to their very core.

Good for them. Except the president has skirted the law to help them skirt the law with a thrown together policy that is ultimately destined to fail.

For one, circumventing Congress to change the law is a breach of power and most likely unconstitutional (with this Supreme Court, you never know, but its certainly not a policy that gives merit to representative democracy). The immigrants who sign up for this amnesty program could be signing up for quick deportation once President Obama's executive order is revoked or overturned. As it should be.

Secondly, any criteria to apply for "legal" illegal status is dubious at best and creates the potential for gross fraud and abuse. After all, how does one acquire the legal paperwork to prove they illegally entered the country during the qualified time to be deemed acceptably illegal? And if you came here illegally outside the qualified time frame, why not simply pretend to meet the criteria? How do you disprove such a claim? So long as you're under thirty and have established a stateside address, what racist would doubt you haven't lived and worked here for the required five years?

There's also the issue of those who are over thirty but were brought here illegally by their parents twenty years ago. Why do they get denied the opportunity of their younger cousins and siblings? Are we splitting up families now? The kids are alright but the parents have to go?

This isn't sound policy or even an acceptable substitute for the DREAM Act. It's a nightmare for immigration enforcement, a nightmare for the courts, and a nightmare for businesses trying to follow the law and hire long-term help. Which is why laws are best passed through the constitutional and legislative process, not made up willy-nilly by the wave of a leader's scepter to woo votes in the midst of a political campaign.

Tea Partier Calls for Revolution in United States

Oh wait. My bad. Turns out it's not a tea partier, but a UCLA professor and member of La Raza calling for a Mexican revolution against the "frail, racist white people" in Arizona. Bet you won't hear about this kind of hate in the mainstream media. They're too busy painting law-abiding American citizens who want to protect their lives and property along the border as the bad guys in Obama's bizarro world.

Here are the "highlights" of the professor's speech. I'm betting he teaches chicano studies or something equally ridiculous:

"The land we stand on is stolen, occupied Mexico...Viva Castro! Viva Hugo Chavez!... We will no longer fall for these lies called borders... We see ourselves as the northern front of a Latin American revolutionary movement. There's 40 million potential revolutionaries north of the border, inside the belly of the beast... Our enemy is capitalism and U.S. imperialism."

Let me get this straight. If you're living in poverty and thinking of coming to the United States for a better life, this idiot Communist professor is asking you to revolt against the very system that is going to afford you the best opportunities to succeed? Leave Mexico to make the U.S. more like Latin America? That sounds like a wasted trip. Don't they teach logic anymore at UCLA? Someone see if this guy is related to Ward Churchill.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

UPDATE: The video may be from 2007. That doesn't change the content or the hatred behind the message, but it does mean that this was not a response to Arizona's new law. Also, the speaker is apparently a public high school teacher, not a UCLA professor.

Mainstream Media Magically Discovers Constitution Now That Minorities Involved

I'm sure everything I'm about to write is politically incorrect. So be it. After all, we have freedom of speech so that citizens don't feel pressured into silence by the mob or the accepted conventional wisdom. I remind you that Galileo was ostracized and imprisoned by the ruling institution of his day, the Roman Catholic Church, for supporting Copernicus' theory that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. I'm making no such groundbreaking claims here. And perhaps that's what is saddest of all. I am merely pointing out the obvious, but pointing out the obvious has increasingly become taboo.

The mainstream media spent over a year covering ObamaCare. There were protests and tea parties and town hall meetings where the debate often got heated. The majority of the population opposed the bill (and still opposes the bill). Citizens expressed outrage over the potential consequences of a law giving the government the power to ration health care, not to mention the requirement that everyone purchase health insurance from private companies or go to jail. During this time not once did I hear any analyst on CNN or NBC or at the New York Times question the constitutionality of the law. Not once did any of these pundits ask if the government was overreaching. Even after ObamaCare passed and governors and attorney generals responded with lawsuits to block the legislation on the grounds of enumerated powers and the tenth amendment, their political motivation was questioned rather than the merits of the law.

Fast forward one month. Arizona passes an immigration bill that practically mimics the federal immigration law, and the next thing you know you can't watch cable news without Colombian Shakira, Canadian Steve Nash, Major League Baseball, and every other yahoo pretending to be a constitutional lawyer. What changed? Well pardon me for noticing, but I believe it's the color of the protesters skin. The majority of tea party demonstrators, as it's been pointed out a thousand times by the mainstream media, tend to be white. The majority of protesters against Arizona's law? Hispanic. As one columnist for Latino USA exaggerated, Arizona's law means it's "open season for hunting brown people." I think that outdoes any rhetoric Sarah Palin has come close to using, but you won't hear a peep about this comment from the elites.

Overnight, the same brain dead TV personalities and politicians who never questioned ObamaCare suddenly had no problem questioning the motives of Arizona, some going so far as to suggest a boycott of the state. Overnight, Nazi comparisons went from outrageous and incendiary right wing rhetoric to totally acceptable grievances from the Left. Overnight, showing your papers (to prove you had health insurance) went from no big deal to a very big deal (if you have to prove your citizenship).

While I support Arizona's new law as a common sense measure aimed at protecting the lives and property of US citizens who live along the border, I also support the rights of the protesters and understand the hesitation some Hispanics might have about how the law is enforced. Fortunately, the lawmakers had this in mind when they crafted the bill, and it goes out of its way to prevent law enforcement from stopping someone based just on their race.

If Leftist groups want to question the constitutionality of this bill, fine. Unlike liberals who passed ObamaCare, I welcome the debate. That's what this country is all about. But enough with the race baiting. I still haven't heard a great legal argument for the court not to uphold the Arizona law. It's an attempt to step in and fill the void left from the federal government's refusal to enforce and protect the border. Meanwhile, the hyperbole against the bill has been way over-the-top. Actually, that might be the biggest understatement I've ever made.

Legal Insurrection, which is one of my favorite blogs and received recognition from none other than Rush Limbaugh last week, has a great piece about the Arizona race card and wonders why the Left is so afraid to just come out in favor of the open-border policy they clearly support. Probably for the same reason they are afraid to acknowledge their continued support of socialism and wealth redistribution. Better to attack the compassion and motives of their opponent than discuss an issue head-on.

We are either a nation of laws or a nation of men. Either questions of constitutionality matter for every individual regardless of group identity and skin color, or special interest groups and cultural diversity trump the rule of law. It appears Obama favors the latter given his previous statements about "police acting stupidly" and the appointment of Sonia "Wise Latina Women Make Better Judges" Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. That's a shame.

If we are going to have comprehensive immigration reform on a federal level and grant more temporary work visas, how are we supposed to know who is here legally and who is here illegally without having the right to check papers? Doesn't the point of calling them undocumented workers, as the president prefers, back up the need to check their status? Why even go through the trouble of reform if we aren't going to enforce the law? The state of Arizona seems to be taking a rational, deliberate step in the right direction.

Exit Question: Given the expired visas (and illegal alien status) of some of the 9/11 hijackers, would it have been okay to check their papers or would that have also been a "question of fairness" that "went too far"?