Illegal Immigration Watch: Arizona Court Upholds Immigration Smuggling Law

Members of the 116th Construction Equipment Support Company of the Utah National Guard extend a wall along the US border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigration,a few miles from the border crossing point at San Luis, Arizona. US President George W. Bush said that US lawmakers were narrowing their differences on sweeping immigration reforms, five months before hotly contested legislative elections.

ASSociated Press: Arizona Upholds Immigrant Smuggling Law

A judge on Friday upheld an Arizona law that made immigrant smuggling a state crime, rejecting arguments that it was never intended to target immigrants _ only the human traffickers they hire.

Judge Thomas O’Toole said there was no evidence that lawmakers “intended to exclude any prosecution for conspiracy to commit human smuggling.”

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has used the law to charge more than 200 people, most of them immigrants accused of paying to be smuggled into Arizona.

Defense lawyers and the law’s author said it was intended to apply only to smugglers. Defense attorneys also called it an unconstitutional attempt by the state to regulate immigration, which they contend is under the exclusive control of the federal government.

The Arizona Legislature passed the law in August amid growing frustration over the state’s porous 375-mile border with Mexico and the huge health care and education costs for illegal immigrants and their families.

Good for Arizona and their legislature. Any impediment to illegal immigration is welcome because the border must be secured.

Remember this case?

The federal government and President Bush must support the states in securing the border. This has not been the case during the entire six previous years of the Bush Administration.

First, secure the border with fencing, walls and surveillance. Hire additonal border patrol officers.
Next, aggressively enforce the existing immigration laws and target employers who hire and violate the law on a grand scale.

And we know who they are, don’t we?

Send the employers to jail or fine them sufficeintely to deter them from hiring illegal aliens.

Stay tuned…….