Jeanfromfillmore
05-07-2010, 05:00 PM
By JANE GILVARY, For The Bulletin
Friday, May 07, 2010
“America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration.” – President Calvin Coolidge, First Message to Congress, 1923
Citizens who help illegal aliens are considered to be criminals and illegal immigration is a felony, with a possible punishment of up to two years in prison. If an illegal immigrant is deported and tries to enter the country again, he can be jailed for up to ten years. Delinquent visas are punishable with six-year prison terms. The law dictates that all law enforcement, including local, regional, and federal police departments, cooperate with immigration authorities regarding the capture and arrest of illegal immigrants.
One might think that U.S. immigration policies are unusually severe after reading the above. But the legislation mentioned above is from the Reglamento de la Ley General Poblacion or the General Law on Population. It is a federal Mexican law that was enacted in April of 2000 and is one of the strictest immigration laws of any nation in the world.
Contrast this with the new Arizona law, Senate Bill 1070, that gives local and state police the authority to arrest and detain suspected illegal immigrants during lawful stops, like a traffic violation for instance. The law specifically prohibits any police officer from asserting a charge of immigration illegality on race. Since 1940, federal law has required aliens in the U.S. to provide documentation of immigration status; the Arizona law simply reinforces the already existing federal law by penalizing illegals who cannot produce such documentation—an evenhanded expectation given that there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants living in Arizona today.
Kris W. Kobach, a Professor of Law at the University of Kansas, recently writes in the New York Times, “Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008.” Furthermore, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national non-profit interested in reforming immigration law in the U.S., approximates that in 2004, the taxpayers of Arizona spent $748.3 million on illegal aliens in public schools. Such statistics make it easy to understand why a recent Rasmussen poll indicated that 70 percent of Arizonans are in favor of SB 1070.
Other nations have similar immigration laws in place, some of them much more stringent than U.S. policies. In 2009, the Italian government passed legislation to curb the influx of illegal immigrants from North Africa and the Mediterranean. Illegal immigrants in Italy are fined up to 10,000 lire and detained up to a period of six months. A Swiss law presently pending referendum allows for the immediate expulsion of all convicted criminals who are non-citizens, and possibly even their family members. Back in 1992, Australia passed the Migration Reform Act to curb an influx of refugees from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, permitting law enforcement to detain any aliens discovered in Australia without valid visas.
How hypocritical, then, for Mexican President Felipe Calderon to condemn Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s signing of State Bill 1070 as “discriminatory and racist” when Mexico’s own laws on illegal immigration are downright draconian compared to U.S. or Arizona immigration policies.
Surely the Mexican government has these strict immigration policies in place so that destitute, uneducated, English-speaking Americans don’t cross the border to sell illegal drugs and kidnap Mexicans for human trafficking, or take advantage of their generous healthcare system, or obtain Mexican jobs and live in Mexican cities and attend Mexican public schools and then demand that those schools teach in English. Mexican businesses and government offices would have to post all of their signs in English and Spanish and provide taxpayer funded translators so that illegal immigrants from America could fully understand all of their rights, and then shirk all of their responsibilities, in their new home country.
The new Arizona law is a markedly modest attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigrants to the United States, and, in reality, doesn’t go far enough to curb what’s become not just a critical problem in one state, but a national crisis that requires drastic and immediate measures by Congress to secure our borders. A good place to start would be to entertain the idea of building a fence along our Southwest border, similar to the very effective and state-of-the-art Israeli West Bank security fence. WeNeedaFence.com, an initiative of the constitutionally-minded non-profit Let Freedom Ring, states that, “Securing our borders is the first step in any serious immigration reform plan,” and “a barrier is an essential component of any effort to secure our borders.” The purpose of a border fence is not to prohibit immigration to the U.S., but to stem illegal immigration and encourage adherence to our time-honored rule of law. We welcome the huddled masses as long as they seek to come to America on American terms, including speaking English, paying taxes, and living according to our Constitution.
Illegals crossing America’s Southwest border are committing crimes and saddling American taxpayers with financial and social burdens that are appalling and un-American. A border fence would help to regulate and track who is coming into our country. Retired Army Lt. Colonel Allen West, candidate for Congress in Florida, states it best when he says, “There should be three types of persons here; Americans, those wanting to be Americans, and guests.”
Jane Gilvary is a red, white, and blue American from the City of Brotherly Love. She loves Jesus, Johnny Cash, and the U.S. Constitution.
http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2010/05/07/commentary/op-eds/doc4be466e612399785639619.txt
Friday, May 07, 2010
“America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration.” – President Calvin Coolidge, First Message to Congress, 1923
Citizens who help illegal aliens are considered to be criminals and illegal immigration is a felony, with a possible punishment of up to two years in prison. If an illegal immigrant is deported and tries to enter the country again, he can be jailed for up to ten years. Delinquent visas are punishable with six-year prison terms. The law dictates that all law enforcement, including local, regional, and federal police departments, cooperate with immigration authorities regarding the capture and arrest of illegal immigrants.
One might think that U.S. immigration policies are unusually severe after reading the above. But the legislation mentioned above is from the Reglamento de la Ley General Poblacion or the General Law on Population. It is a federal Mexican law that was enacted in April of 2000 and is one of the strictest immigration laws of any nation in the world.
Contrast this with the new Arizona law, Senate Bill 1070, that gives local and state police the authority to arrest and detain suspected illegal immigrants during lawful stops, like a traffic violation for instance. The law specifically prohibits any police officer from asserting a charge of immigration illegality on race. Since 1940, federal law has required aliens in the U.S. to provide documentation of immigration status; the Arizona law simply reinforces the already existing federal law by penalizing illegals who cannot produce such documentation—an evenhanded expectation given that there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants living in Arizona today.
Kris W. Kobach, a Professor of Law at the University of Kansas, recently writes in the New York Times, “Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008.” Furthermore, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national non-profit interested in reforming immigration law in the U.S., approximates that in 2004, the taxpayers of Arizona spent $748.3 million on illegal aliens in public schools. Such statistics make it easy to understand why a recent Rasmussen poll indicated that 70 percent of Arizonans are in favor of SB 1070.
Other nations have similar immigration laws in place, some of them much more stringent than U.S. policies. In 2009, the Italian government passed legislation to curb the influx of illegal immigrants from North Africa and the Mediterranean. Illegal immigrants in Italy are fined up to 10,000 lire and detained up to a period of six months. A Swiss law presently pending referendum allows for the immediate expulsion of all convicted criminals who are non-citizens, and possibly even their family members. Back in 1992, Australia passed the Migration Reform Act to curb an influx of refugees from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, permitting law enforcement to detain any aliens discovered in Australia without valid visas.
How hypocritical, then, for Mexican President Felipe Calderon to condemn Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s signing of State Bill 1070 as “discriminatory and racist” when Mexico’s own laws on illegal immigration are downright draconian compared to U.S. or Arizona immigration policies.
Surely the Mexican government has these strict immigration policies in place so that destitute, uneducated, English-speaking Americans don’t cross the border to sell illegal drugs and kidnap Mexicans for human trafficking, or take advantage of their generous healthcare system, or obtain Mexican jobs and live in Mexican cities and attend Mexican public schools and then demand that those schools teach in English. Mexican businesses and government offices would have to post all of their signs in English and Spanish and provide taxpayer funded translators so that illegal immigrants from America could fully understand all of their rights, and then shirk all of their responsibilities, in their new home country.
The new Arizona law is a markedly modest attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigrants to the United States, and, in reality, doesn’t go far enough to curb what’s become not just a critical problem in one state, but a national crisis that requires drastic and immediate measures by Congress to secure our borders. A good place to start would be to entertain the idea of building a fence along our Southwest border, similar to the very effective and state-of-the-art Israeli West Bank security fence. WeNeedaFence.com, an initiative of the constitutionally-minded non-profit Let Freedom Ring, states that, “Securing our borders is the first step in any serious immigration reform plan,” and “a barrier is an essential component of any effort to secure our borders.” The purpose of a border fence is not to prohibit immigration to the U.S., but to stem illegal immigration and encourage adherence to our time-honored rule of law. We welcome the huddled masses as long as they seek to come to America on American terms, including speaking English, paying taxes, and living according to our Constitution.
Illegals crossing America’s Southwest border are committing crimes and saddling American taxpayers with financial and social burdens that are appalling and un-American. A border fence would help to regulate and track who is coming into our country. Retired Army Lt. Colonel Allen West, candidate for Congress in Florida, states it best when he says, “There should be three types of persons here; Americans, those wanting to be Americans, and guests.”
Jane Gilvary is a red, white, and blue American from the City of Brotherly Love. She loves Jesus, Johnny Cash, and the U.S. Constitution.
http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2010/05/07/commentary/op-eds/doc4be466e612399785639619.txt