Posted on 07/27/2010 12:11:26 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Opponents of the Justice Department's lawsuit challenging the enforcement of Arizona's controversial illegal-immigration law have hit upon a strategy to highlight what they contend is a gaping inconsistency in the Justice Department's policy priorities. Why should federal attorneys be targeting the Arizona law as an alleged obstacle to coherent and centralized enforcement of federal immigration statutes, they argue, while Justice officials also have done nothing to challenge the legal status of so-called sanctuary cities, which effectively block enforcement of the same federal law?
The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Phoenix to stop Arizona's law from going into effect this Thursday, arguing that the measure interferes with federal immigration policy. But critics, including California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, are challenging the logic of Justice's move, arguing that if U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder really cared about enforcing federal immigration law, he should be targeting sanctuary cities instead of Arizona.
[Photos: Immigrants flee continued AZ conflict]
More than 30 cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Denver, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Dallas, have local ordinances on the books that prevent police from asking about a person’s immigration status. The Arizona law would allow officers to question a person’s immigration status and report them to federal authorities if that person is believed to be in the country illegally. The crackdown could prompt illegal immigrants to seek refuge out of Arizona and into those sanctuary cities.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sanctuary City Prevention Act Introduced (Rep. Duncan Hunter):
Washington D.C. – As the Department of Justice goes to court today to block the implementation of Arizona’s immigration law, Congressman Hunter has introduced legislation to deny DOJ any funding to continue challenging the Arizona law until action is taken against sanctuary cities. The legislation – the Sanctuary City Prevention Act – follows a recent report that DOJ is unwilling to force sanctuary cities into compliance with immigration law, despite filing a lawsuit against Arizona on the basis that the state law interferes with federal enforcement duties.
“It’s ironic that the basis of the Obama Administration’s lawsuit against Arizona is that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, but it refuses to do anything about the sanctuary cities that actually impede effective enforcement,” said Congressman Hunter. “In the case of Arizona, the state is simply enforcing the laws that the federal government refuses to enforce itself. The preference of the Administration to challenge Arizona while ignoring sanctuary cities is blatantly hypocritical.
“If the Administration believes that Arizona is contributing to a patchwork of laws that will ultimately impede federal enforcement, then it needs to be consistent and address the multitude of challenges created by sanctuary cities – something it can already do under existing authority.”
http://hunter.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=60
Send us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses of illegals longing for freebies...”
However, as was famously said - "The Law is a ass!"
I’d LMAO if they were hoisted on their own petard on this. If the judges agreed with them, that’s the end of sanctuary cities, more than likely it will get thrown out because they only selectively pursued their target.
If the left-wing want to support having an executive branch that picks and chooses when to enforce federal law and when not and allow sanctuary cities in regards to federal immigration law then I guess they also would have no problem with the same happening in regards to other federal laws as well?
It seems that the left-wing principle that is at play here is that federal law is not to be applied equally to all but is instead a political tool for the party in power.
So in the future we can have sanctuary cities for polluters with an administration that chooses to ignore enforcing federal environmental laws and blocks any states from trying to do so themselves. Sanctuary cities for civil rights abusers alongside an administration that chooses to only enforce federal civil rights laws when it suits them.
Of course the Obama administration is also already doing this in regards to both federal civil rights (the black Panthers case) and in regards to federal pollution laws (denying governors the right to protect their shores from the oil spill) and this type of a precedent would simply lead to further abuses.
This tactic is such a no-brainer. It completely deflates any possible argument against the Az law.
In 1957 Eisenhower sent the 101st airborne to Little Rock to help enforce segregation.
While Madame President send troops to sanctuary cities in 2013 to enforce immigration laws?
Sanctuary cities should be abolished and all funding should be cut.
Let them deal with illegals on those terms
“Plus it will make them a laughingstock and all the other states will act mean to Arizona, there I said it. So really we are helping them”
That’s their next apporoach.
Where’s my sanctuary city from federal taxes?
Ping!
Santuary Cities are a hot topic today.
THAnks for the ping...
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