Oh boy, oh boy...
Parents, you know how it is with kids. One acts up, and so you have to focus your attention on the troublemaker and take your eye off the others. Then, when you're not looking, another one gets out of line.
You talkin' about the gubbamint, Ruben?
States are much the same way. The eyes of the nation are fixed on Arizona, the undisputed problem child in our national immigration debate. But there are other states where lawmakers are eager to follow Arizona's lead and blame Washington for not solving a problem that, in truth, their own residents (i.e., employers) helped create.
My grandparents were immigrants, too, and they received no amnesty. They had to work for a living. Make the employers suffer, I say. Close the border. Send them home.
At least half a dozen of the states thinking about going on this suicide run can perhaps be forgiven their ignorance because the experience of having a sizable population of illegal immigrants is new to them. In Utah, Georgia, Ohio, Maryland, Oklahoma and South Carolina, illegal immigrants are still a rather exotic import.
But then there's Texas, which used to be part of Mexico and where lenient immigration policies toward white settlers from the South and Northeast led to a famous tenant dispute that included a dustup at the Alamo in 1836. In Tejas, Latinos are indigenous and as ubiquitous as bluebonnets. In the Lone Star State, where my mother and grandparents and great-grandparents were born and raised and where I spent five years writing about immigration and other issues for the Dallas Morning News, legislators should know better than to even flirt with the idea of adopting a divisive and dangerous law like the one in Arizona.
Anybody else from Texas got an opinion? I say, let the voters speak.
This was true even before
Swell. So how do we get the Federal Government to do their job? OK, so why do we have to wait until November?
Bolton agreed. She was particularly bothered by those elements of the law that all but required racial profiling by forcing police officers to arrest people they suspect are in the country illegally, made it a state crime for the undocumented to seek work, required legal immigrants to carry papers proving their status, and allowed police to detain and arrest people who could not prove their legal status. So the judge issued a preliminary injunction against those parts. The rest of the law - which did things such as making it a state crime to transport illegal immigrants - was allowed to go into effect.
Almost forced the police? My experience with the police is that some are lienient and some are not. So who would force the police - to a mna/woman/person - to all be Dick Cheney with a truncheon?
So much for Gov. Jan Brewer's bravado in telling the federal government that Arizona would "meet you in court." This battle is far from over, and the issue is probably headed to the Supreme Court. So far, it's
But like the saying goes, common sense isn't always common - even in Texas. State Rep. Leo Berman, a Republican, is drafting an Arizona-style bill for Texas and plans to introduce it next session.
How dare he run against the liberal common sense?
Adding fuel to the bonfire, Texas Republicans recently adopted an over-the-top platform at their state convention that, among other things, encouraged the Legislature to create a Class A misdemeanor criminal offense "for an illegal alien to intentionally or knowingly be within the state of Texas," and to "oppose amnesty in any form leading to citizenship." Texas Republicans also want to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, ban day-labor work centers, limit bilingual education to three years,| We observed when trailing daughter #1 went to the local preschool in Germany that it takes six months of full immersion in the local language to become reasonably fluent. Of course, that six months is quite painful, but considerably more efficient than bilingual education. Were I an immigrant I would demand full immersion rather than bilingual nonsense. |
Not me, man; I WANT to pay for illegal immigrants to go to Harvard, UCLA, Columbia, and other lefty diploma mills
| Non-U.S. citizens generally have access to their own nation's tertiary education systems, which are generally considerably cheaper, tuition-wise, than American schools. How fair is that for their American schoolmates? |
Ruben, Ruben.. Are you saying all Latinos love illegal immigrants? That the proposed law pits Anglos against Latinos? That everybody thinks like you do? My grandchildren live in Texas, Rueben; that's where we're going when we retire.
All of which leads me to ask my friends in the Lone Star State the same question my mom used to ask me growing up: "If all the other kids jumped off a cliff, would you do the same?"
How high is this cliff you've constructed in your own imagination? Aren't you running with the liberal herd, headed for the November cliff?
Apparently they would.
His e-mail address is at the link. Try not to come off as one of those gun-toting, bible thumping, legal-immigrant hating, xenophobic (did I use that big word correctly, TW?), Bushites. There are plenty of logical fallacies in his dribble for the WaPo faithful.
| Yes, you did, Bobby dear. Although I think it's Bushies. |