Regarding the proposal to "secure the borders" which is included in the Senate 844 page immigration reform bill, Congressman Sam Farr commented that a fourteen foot ladder defeats a thirteen foot fence. This is true, of course, but offers little toward solving illegal immigration. American farmers and large landowners have fenced their properties for years. Some have put up "No Trespassing" signs to inform strangers that crossing the fence line could well lead to prosecution.
Common sense tells us that after creating a visible boundary of U.S. territory, there are two additional and significant ways to enforce compliance of immigration laws. The primary one is a requirement that employers check the legal status of their employees. If an illegal cannot secure a job, he cannot survive. The other method of immigration enforcement occurs when an illegal gets in trouble with the law.
Arizona was criticized for "racial profiling" because a traffic ticket could result in an undocumented immigrant being handed over to federal authorities. The argument, of course, was that police officers were stopping Hispanic motorists based on the appearance rather than a traffic violation. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of Arizona's immigration law, but upheld the provision which required police officers to check the immigration status of people they stopped and reasonably suspected as being in the country illegally.
The California Legislature, August 31, 2012, passed "The Trust Act" referred to as the "Anti-Arizona" Bill. AB 1081, introduced by Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Assemblyman, had three Co-authors in the State Senate and eight co-authors in the State Assembly which included a couple of local boys Bill Monning and Luis Alejo. This bill passed both houses of the State Legislature but was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown.
Incredibly, the thrust of this legislation encouraged local authorities to ignore an agreement with the Obama administration allowing federal immigration agents to review fingerprints under the "Secure Communities Program" in order to track down and pick up every deportable immigrant arrested by local police. Instead, it proposed that, after paying fines or resolving some sort of "minor" offense, a perpetrator should be turned loose without waiting for any sort of review by federal immigration authorities.
We can conclude, therefore, that, according to many California Legislators, it would be o.k. to continue violating our country's immigration laws so long as illegal aliens refrain from killing someone, or otherwise engaging in a major felony.
To confuse the issue even further, the Obama Administration recently decided to halt deportations of certain undocumented young people who were brought into the United States as children and do not present a risk to national security or public safety. This group of "young people" includes students, service members, engineers, teachers, nurses, entrepreneurs and veterans who know no other country other than the U.S. It is not clear at what age a young person becomes old enough to be deported! And who determines whether a "young person" should be deported based on national security or public safety issues?
One wonders what good can come out of Federal Legislation to solve immigration problems if those in responsible positions on a State and Federal level, not only ignore U.S. immigration laws, but encourage others to ignore them as well? One might hope these brilliant State Legislators would work with Federal Legislators to revise existing Federal Guest Worker laws to solve the growing problems of illegal immigration which has become a national disgrace.