Unconstitutional and Racist

Yesterday evening during a commercial in the baseball game, I happened to flip past Fox News and I saw snippet of a "debate" between Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas about the Arizona immigration law. To say the least, neither Beckel or Thomas seems to have read the law, which puts them in the company of Attorney General Eric Holder. that did not stop Beckel from denouncing the law as both racist and unconstitutional -- pretty much what Holder has said. It seems to me that this nonsense is making its way through the country and that informed people ought to know the truth (as opposed to the talking points of the Obamacrats). Accordingly, here are the correct points that need to be made about the Arizona law:

First, the law itself is not racist. It does not allow racial profiling. Indeed, it specifically prohibits it. No one can be stopped by the police because he or she is Hispanic. The law only allows police to check on the immigration status of an individual if that individual is validly stopped for other reasons. So what does that mean? If someone is pulled over for speeding, the police are allowed to ask for identification -- hardly racist. If someone is stopped in the middle of a robbery, the police are allowed to ask for identification -- again hardly racist. In short, those who say the law is racist do not know what they are talking about.

Second, the opponents claim that the law could be applied in a racist manner. that is true, but it is also true of any other law. If the police in Arizona are racist, they could stop Hispanics for speeding even if the driver was going within the speed limit. They could arrest Hispanics for disturbing the peace even if they were not. In short, if the police are racist, they do not need this new law to use against Hispanics. And since there is no proof that the Arizona State Police are racist, the law will not be applied in a racist manner. Indeed, the Arizona policemen deserve an apology from those who blindly accuse them of racism without any knowledge of the facts. If Eric Holder actually believes that the Arizona police are racist, then it is his lefal duty under the civil rights laws to use the Justice Department to stop it. We all know that Holder has taken no such action because there is no claim that the Arizona police are racist.

Third, the law is not unconstitutional. There are two main reasons given by opponents to claim the law unconstitutional. The main claim is that the law denies Hispanics equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is nonsense. Here, the key is that the Arizona police have been given no authorization to anything that the federal authorities cannot. Indeed, the feds from the INS can go further in enforcing the immigration laws than the Arizona police. No one can or has argued that the federal immigration laws are unconstitutional. If it is illegal to enter the country without proper authorization, then it is perfectly ok to enforce that law.

The other claim of unconstitutionality is that immigration is the sole province of the federal government and states cannot take part in the enforcement. This claim is also bogus. The federal government could take over exclusive enforcement of immigration matters, but to do so, it would have to make clear that it has done so. Otherwise, a state can act as well so long as it does not take action which conflicts with the federal statute. There is no federal statute that bars states from acting on immigration matters, and the Arizona law mirrors the federal law and does not conflict in any way with federal law. So, there is nothing unconstitutional about the law.

These points are enough to win any argument about the new law. Of course, that assumes that the person screaming racism cares about the truth rather than about stirring up racial hatred. Right now, it seems clear that the main goal of the Obamacrats is to do just that; by stirring up racial hatred in the Hispanic community, Obama and his minions hope to bring those voters to the polls in November. Instead of the first post racial president, we got the most racist president of modern times, sort of like the twenty first century's version of Woodrow Wilson.