Today, a federal court in Arizona issued an injunction against certain portions of Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigration law from taking effect while allowing some to become law as of tomorrow. While advocates on both sides of this debate are still going at it as to whether or not the law should take affect and everything else but I sit here thinking to myself that both sides of this debate is blinded by their pure partisan ideologies. I don’t like fringe elements on the left or the right. Both of these fringe elements are absolutely clueless as to the real problem of this immigration law but refuse to come out and say it. If we can ignore both of the fringe elements in this debate i.e. the pro-illegal alien crowd who always attack any reasonable efforts of enforcement and the ultra-right deport everyone single illegal at any cost I’ll go and explain the real problem Arizona will face in implementing this practically.
Immigration enforcement is a very important part of the federal government’s job as they have the Constitutional authority to enforce such laws. This is not to say that there are instances where states and local jurisdictions can assist the federal government is their efforts much like they do in the course of their regular duties. There are many programs such as the controversial 287 g Program and the less controversial, and in my opinion more successful and supported Secure Communities Program. However, in a more specific sense the actual deportation of removal aliens is the responsibility of the federal government as individual states cannot maintain international relations in the manner federal authorities do with immigration. This is where I’m a little lost as to how this was all missed in the course of the heated and passionate debate.
Arizona has wrote a law making it illegal to be in the state illegally. (There are other aspects but this is the main part issue) So, I ask those on both sides of the debate what happens when the illegal alien is arrested and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refused to initial removal proceedings against them? In other words, does not put a detainer on the prisoner once they are booked into the local jurisdiction’s jail saying that once they have served their sentence on the original charges they were arrested for they will be turned over to federal authorities? This is probably the most important aspect of this law since Arizona wants to get rid of the illegals that from my studying of it has been overlooked and without a doubt in my opinion really makes the entire law worthless.
Those who oppose this law have “demanded” that President Obama order ICE officials to not accept prisoners from Arizona under this new law. This shows how little this side of the debate knows about the issue of enforcement. If a prisoner is arrested and the record is reviewed and the agent determines their past criminal history makes them eligible to be put in deportation proceedings then a Notice of Action is filed against them. Once their sentence is served they are turned over to ICE for the next stage of the process. Anyone with any knowledge of how this process works, whether it be lawyers, advocates or even those involved in the enforcement knows that every illegal alien that comes into contact with authorities are not taken into custody and eventually deported. Unfortunately those on the extreme side of opposing this law play up this fear even though it is quite over exaggerated but unfortunately no one is willing to call them out on this. Anyone with any common sense knows there are not enough ICE agents and resources to go after every single illegal alien with minor criminal offenses such as trespassing, loitering or drunk in public. That’s a reality. I would hope that even the most staunchest “deport them all” advocates would agree that getting an illegal alien, criminal gang member or child rapist deported is more beneficial to public safety than the local day laborer with many arrests from drunk in public and nothing else. I personally believe that the Obama administration has made it their mission to go after the violent criminal illegal aliens to include the previously deported felons and visa overstays. This is a good thing.
Supporters of this law seem to forget about a major part of this law that goes on after Arizona authorities are to take an illegal alien into custody and after they are due to be released from state custody: What happens if ICE does not initiate deportation proceedings against them? They will be released. There is no way around it. Arizona will lack the authority to hold an illegal alien after they have served their state sentence for being unlawfully present in the state as a non-citizen or legal alien. I have yet to see one legal scholar or advocate raise that issue. Arizona legislators believed that through this law that when an officer arrests your local day laborer they will automatically get them deported. Again, if they believed this I feel sorry for their constituents because it is evident that they did not do any research as to how ICE works or the efforts the administration has made to prioritize which type of illegal aliens they go after. As someone who advocates a stronger enforcement approach in immigration I also know through my own experience that you have to prioritize in the interest of public safety.
In the end, both sides of this debate fail to realize that in reality Arizona’s new law will simply put the state back to square one with many of the illegal aliens that they arrested for being illegal aliens in their state if ICE decides the illegals are not worthy at the present time to put into deportation proceedings. Arizona won’t be able to do much if ICE does not put detainers on every illegal alien that is arrested and the only legal option that is left is to release them from custody and put the state, it’s residents and legislators back to square one. I cannot really fathom as to why Governor Brewer, those who wrote this law, supporters and opponents of this law missed and are missing this one key and in my opinion the most important component of the desire effect of this law: Removing illegal aliens from the United States.
