Saturday, July 16, 2011

Faye Discusses Lamar Smith's HR 2164

Ok, I've fiddled with this until I'm blue in the face.  I may do one more thing and call Smith's office to get their opinion on the pre-emptive aspects of this bill before making a final decision, but as the bill stands, I cannot support it.  We've been hoodwinked so many times and had victories trashed that I can't trust there will be amendments prior to passage or more laws forthcoming to maintain our 10th Amendment rights.  And Arizona got a Supreme Court ruling on this.  I can't support a bill that would undermine that.  It looks like the bill has enough support from the big organizations and has a pretty fair chance of passing if it ever comes to the floor.  It may not make it to the floor under the current situation with the debt ceiling crisis.  You just never know with those congressional jokers playing tricks in the middle of the night.  As much as we've wanted federally-mandated E-Verify, this is a compromise I can't, in good conscience, make.  If it does pass as it is and we lose the protection of what we currently have and wind up being forced to accept God only knows what not even pertaining to illegal immigration, the only comfort I'll have is the ability to say, "I told you so."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I really think what Kobach has to say about the opinion of the Court means so much.

For those who are in favor of Rep. Smith's E-Verify bill, without being amended, and who believe that there should be uniformity of E-Verify laws between the states; Kris Kobach points out in his article Law and Border what the Supreme Court said about this argument in their opinion that upheld the Arizona law. Thus the Supreme Court gave a victory for states rights.

"Their (ACLU) favorite argument to demonstrate “tension” with federal law is to declare that Congress intended for immigration laws to be enforced uniformly across the land. They claim that aggressively enforced state laws in places such as Arizona disrupt this uniformity, and therefore the courts should throw them out. But the Supreme Court emphatically rejected this argument, stating: “Congress expressly preserved the ability of the States to impose their own sanctions through licensing; that — like our federal system in general — necessarily entails the prospect of some departure from homogeneity.” (pg. 3 on the print out of his article.)

I keep thinking about what the un-intended consequences will be with the passage of this bill without being amended.

~Jean Towell via e-mail

Unknown said...

I've about had it up to ying-yang with the "unintended consequences" of the legislation passed. If a legislator uses this excuse, I find him/her to be either deceitful or stupid.