Title 8 Section 1325 of the United States Code makes it a crime to be in the United States by entering this country without going through proper immigration procedures. To be in this country legally, you had to have been born, or received a visa. Today there are upwards of 20 million people who are here and breaking the law. Recently, the state of Arizona passed a law that makes being here illegally a crime. The state is enforcing a federal law that the federal government refuses to enforce. However, the police in Arizona can only investigate the immigration status of an individual if the person is suspected of breaking the law. The state legislature is exercising fairness and prohibiting immigration status without suspicion of a crime. Arizona finally got tired of the federal government refusing to enforce its own laws, so it passed a state law allowing law enforcement to enforce the federal law. Anyone reading the bill will see that the state law is the federal law verbatim.
Now some people have protested the law saying that it is taking away the right of these people to come here and pursue their American Dream - in the same way immigrants came to this country in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The only difference between the legal immigration of a century ago and the illegal immigration of today is that one group followed the law and the other group does not. I am all for people immigrating to this country; however, people who come to this country with the intention of living for any extended period of time must do so legally. People who come here illegally should not be afforded the ability to receive the same services citizens and all legal immigrants are able to enjoy. The only downside with supporting illegal immigrants is that this country was founded under the concept of the rule of law and equal justice under the law. Remember these people are here illegally - and breaking the law.
This is just another example of progressives advocating something other than equal justice under the law. Thomas Jefferson said that, "This is a country of law, not of men." We are a Republic where the rule of law is the foundation on which this country was governed. Progressives want to make it easier for people who came here illegally to acquire the benefits of citizenship of the United States. This is a slap in the face to not only the people who came to this country legally, but to the citizens already here because bending the law for illegal immigrants waters down the value of American citizenship. Many people think that Arizona is becoming the Fourth Reich - these people do not seem to understand the fact that the phrase "illegal immigration," has the word illegal in it. If the law is struck down, social justice wins again.
