Arizona’s new immigration law is a copy of a 1940 Federal statute requiring non-citizens to show their papers. It allows local and state law enforcement to join in the fight to stop illegal immigration. Open border advocates are opposed. So-called civil libertarians are aghast. Why? It is simple. If local and state police can enforce our immigration laws, that will add enormously to the number of “good guys” going after the “bad guys.” In addition, that means a real dent could be made in the flow of unlawful migrants into the United States from Mexico. And those people illegally in America, living and working here, many would over time probably go home.  

Instead of surrendering to the inevitable flow of people from around the world coming to America, the United States would re-establish its sovereignty over its own territory. In his recent address to Congress, President Calderon of Mexico sneered at such an idea by literally daring the United States to control its borders. Many liberals in the audience applauded his condemnation of the new Arizona law. 

On the other side, conservative members of Congress were urging the administration to send National Guard troops to our southern border to help bring back some, well, law and order. Jan Brewer, the Arizona Governor, asked that we send drones to help with surveillance. Arizona Sen. McCain called for some 6,000 new soldiers for the border.

In a surprise, the administration yesterday pledged 1,200 National Guard to be sent to the border. Added surveillance would be their job. The cost: $500 million. It looks like a lot of money. But by comparison, for example, we spend $720 million a year sending condoms to the third world. 

And elsewhere in America, organizations such as La Raza, Maldef, LULAC, and Azlatan get millions in public money to keep the border open. In my state of Maryland, Casa de Maryland openly helps migrants illegally in the United States. It receives $4 million from the state of Maryland and Montgomery County out of a total budget of $9.5 million a year. Amazingly, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela’s gives them $1 million a year.

Illegal immigration costs Maryland taxpayers at least $1.4 billion a year in health, education and incarceration. At a recent community event in Maryland, a veteran liberal legislator Anna Gutierrez told me there was no problem in Casa de Maryland receiving funding to help illegal immigrants. She explained: “They are just helping them.” As for Chavez, that was fine because “Venezuela is a model for Latin and Central American development.” By way of background, when in 2008 I testified before the Maryland assembly that illegal aliens should not be given drivers licenses, she told Mexico television which was covering the hearings, “There are no illegals in America; these people are simply waiting to adjust their status”.

Why would anyone hold up Venezuela as any kind of economic model? It would be like favoring Greece for “budget discipline.” Inflation in the country is over 30 percent and may reach twice that. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Corruption is rampant. Chavez has so mismanaged the economy the country does not produce enough coffee for domestic consumption for the first time ever. The currency has dropped in value by over half as Chavez prints money wildly. The only thing Chavez is doing is causing people to flee. Do this throughout the America’s and everyone will be in the United States soon! 

But it is worse. Chavez is knee deep in a terrorist conspiracy to ship Russian weapons to terrorist organizations – Hezbollah – and criminal drug cartels – FARC – to facilitate terrorist acts against the United States, including blowing up pipelines carrying oil to the United States. He has also promised to ship both uranium to Iran to help Tehran make nuclear weapons material and oil to help break a possible refined petroleum products sanctions law now before the U.S. Congress. All this is public knowledge. 

Casa de Maryland condemns those who advocate effective limits on immigration as racists, as does Chavez. It has threatened civil disobedience should the U.S. Congress not approve amnesty. It publishes pamphlets that instruct people to refuse to cooperate with immigration and law enforcement officials. Why are we giving tax-exempt status to those who actively seek to leave unprotected our borders while supporting themselves with funds from terror supporting states?

Open borders with the world pose grave dangers to the United States. The San Diego Union described the chaos on our borders this way: “Every night, the understaffed and outnumbered Border Patrol engaged in a losing battle of cat-and-mouse with thousands of illegal immigrants being led by ruthless smugglers. … San Ysidro residents locked themselves in at night as smugglers and immigrants traipsed through their yards. Caches of drugs were carried across the border by smugglers and the people they were leading. Hundreds of illegal immigrants lingered in the median strip of Interstate 5 waiting for rides northward. Immigrants running across freeways were hit and killed by motorists.”

A USA columnist visited the border to examine the prospects for a fence. She wrote, “The carnage makes one wonder why environmental groups aren’t out lobbying for a sturdy border fence – instead of arguing against tougher border enforcement.” 

My grandfather once said, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Our sovereignty is not divisible. The State of Arizona recognizes that elementary truth. More and more Americans do as well. Too many others do not. There is now hope that, too, will change. Arizona has led the way.

 

Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.

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