Saturday, June 19, 2010

States' Rights in Jeapordy?

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has indicated that she is ready to fight the federal lawsuit that will be filed challenging the immigration law passed in her state earlier this year.

In a statement issued late Friday, Brewer called the Obama Administration's decision "outrageous" but "not surprising."

The law, which takes effect July 29, requires officers to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that he or she is in the country illegally. There have been at least five legal challenges filed against the law since April, alleging that Arizona's law will lead to racial profiling. The lawsuits also argue that it's the federal government's responsibility to regulate immigration.

The problem with that second argument is that the federal government has not been doing such a hot job with the problems along the Mexico/U.S. border, so what are the border states to do? Wait? Just like they did after Katrina and now after the oil spill?

There is a little thing in our Constitution called the 10th Amendment. It provides that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

"To the people." Do you all get that up there in Washington?

That means that the fishermen who would like to go out and help clean up the oil in the Gulf should be allowed to do so. The local governments and municipalities in Lousiana, Mississippi and Alabama should have been able to step up in the hours following the hurricane to start the clean up and rescue efforts instead of having to wait days for federal coordination.

And states should have the right to deal with the problem of illegal immigration as they see fit.

I'm not getting into the debate over illegal immigration. That is a whole other topic. What I am advocating for here are the rights of states and the citizens of those states. The federal government has been infringing on those rights for too many years now. They need to back off and take care of the business that is clearly theirs and allow the states to take care of their business.

What do you think?

For more on States Rights visit this Web site The Tenth Amendment Center

4 comments:

Mason Canyon said...

I must have sleep somewhere along the way because I thought that as a nation we already had laws in place that basically said officers could question someone if they suspected they were here illegally. Our laws are just getting crazier. You can't do anything when there's a problem until the left hand tells the right hand and the left is usually a sleep. (Okay, I need another cup of coffee to make sense).

Mason
Thoughts in Progress

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

I agree whole heartedly. How is it profiling? You either have the documents you don't. Whether that be a green card or a legal drivers license or whatever is acceptable.
The feds are doing nothing to protect the citizenry. So let the states most affected handle it.

Maryannwrites said...

Thanks for stopping by and weighing in on this.

Patricia Stoltey said...

All states should have the right to protect their borders and their legal citizens from invasion, from violence, and from the economic impact of illegal immigration, especially when the feds are not taking responsibility. Jan Brewer has a lot of guts. I respect her anger and determination.