Curmudgeon's Corner

Shame on the Supreme Court? Hardly.

Posted by Al Campbell on June 26, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life

The shame of Arizona isn’t the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday that basically said it is okay to seek proof of immigrants’ status if they are first encountered for some other valid reason, but that Arizona or any other state cannot go further.

The real ‘shame’ in this whole situation is that of the Obama Administration that is simply refusing to enforce duly enacted laws made by Congress concerning immigration.  Federal inaction is what caused Arizona to try to create state-level laws that would parallel those of the federal system, and that would give the state the ability to try to stem the flow of illegals into its system.  Those federal failures lie at the feet of the Obama Administration that decided it didn’t like this particular law of the land; therefore it would not enforce that law in anything approaching a robust manner.  (People seeking votes sometimes are a bit overzealous in that quest.)

The real ‘shame’ of this situation is that the Obama Administration added insult to injury when, later yesterday, it decided it would renege on an earlier agreement (the so-called 287-G agreement) that it had reached with Arizona.  That agreement was made so that the state could assist the feds by verifying immigrant status and holding those without approved status for the feds.  It has now told Arizona that if the state calls on the feds to respond to the capture and detention of illegals, the state can simply “go fish” because the feds will be nowhere near the scene unless there is a felony or other serious crime involved.

We have again seen the childish nature of this Administration that surfaces whenever the Administration is ‘tweaked’.  The Supreme Court basically told Arizona that immigration is not a state-level responsibility but a federal responsibility.  That is what the Constitution requires according to the Supremes.

What wasn’t dealt with was what happens when an Administration intentionally refuses to enforce a law that only it can legally enforce, and when that impinges seriously on one or more of the states, such as is the case in Arizona with a nearly 400 mile border with Mexico.  This is not only a matter of legal immigration vs. illegal immigration; it is a matter of drug runners infiltrating our country, and a matter of national security since any number of people intent on killing Americans can make it across this porous 400 mile border time and again.  Al Qaeda must love our Administration for providing such free access to this country.

This is an Administration that walks guns across the border and permits virtually anyone else to walk across the border so long as they don’t get caught.  And now, there is little to suggest they’ll be caught since the Administration has effectively opened the borders.  The Supreme Court ruled as it was compelled to rule on the question at hand.  It didn’t rule on whether or not this Administration was in the wrong.

Shame on this Administration.