The Arizona Immigration Law is fair and reasonable

My opponent has effectively granted that virtually every criticism of the Arizona Law is wrong, including Obama's nonsense about it allowing random harassment. Con's objections are built on the notion that Arizona should have its own open borders immigration policy contrary to Federal law because even though Arizona believes it is being crushed by the costs of providing benefits to illegals, a computer simulation in Australia shows Arizona ought to benefiting economically. We'll see. 1. Of course one intent of the bill is to discourage courage illegal immigration. The costs are breaking the back of the state. Con describes a fantasy he has in which Arizona police behave unfairly in an odd situation. If fantasies are evidence, how about constructing a fantasy in which two guys are found standing over a dead body, but the police cheerfully release the white guy while holding the Hispanic for interrogation? Would constructing that fantasy prove that there was a defect in the Arizona homicide law? Would it prove that Arizona police are a bunch of racists? It does neither. What it proves is that it is not possible to write any law that is immune from possibility of police misconduct. The debate topic is about whether the law is fair and reasonable, not whether it is makes police misconduct utterly impossible, because no law does. Con offered no evidence that Arizona police characteristically act out of racial prejudice. If the police were prejudiced, we would know about it because there would be no end of successful lawsuits charging prejudice and throwing out court verdicts. We have no shortage of lawyers in this country willing to bring such suits. No such thing has happened. I challenged Con to explain why, if the State of Arizona was prejudiced against Hispanics, that the police would be composed of 30% Hispanics, about the same proportion as in the state population. Con did not explain. Moreover, if it were true that police misconduct was rampant, the correct remedy would be to improve procedures for expelling errant law officers, improve training, and tighten review of cases. The cure is not to legalize everything that is illegal, so that law enforcement would not be required and therefore power could not be abused. A recent TV story interviewed a man of Hispanic ancestry who was caught near the Mexican border under somewhat suspicious circumstances with respect to his immigration status. The man said the authorities let him go after speaking with him for only a few minutes, because he spoke English without an accent even though he also spoke Spanish. That is a more likely outcome for Con's fantasy. 2. Con argues that a law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court might not be fair and reasonable, and he cites a slavery case from 1858. I agree that it isn't an absolute guarantee, but a lot has happened to the laws and the Court since 1858, particularly with respect to civil rights. Consequently, there is now a good presumption that tested laws are fair and reasonable with respect to the rights of suspects. The additional safeguards in the Arizona Law over Federal law clearly make it fair. While offering the possibility that the Arizona law might be unfair, Con never got around to saying what about it was unfair. He made the dubious argument that nullifying Federal Law would be economically beneficial, but even if true that doesn't make the Arizona Law unfair or unreasonable. He constructed a fantasy to show that the law could theoretically be enforced unfairly, but that doesn't make the law unfair. He claimed that other immigration policies might be better. None of that proves the law unfair or unreasonable. It is fair and reasonable for a State to mirror Federal law, especially with additional safeguards. 3. We are talking about immigration laws. Immigration affects national security, interstate commerce, and Federal expenses related to public benefits. It is unreasonable for a state to preempt Federal law because each of those issues affects the country as a whole, and therefore is properly in the Federal domain. 4. An Australian University is supposedly telling Arizona that illegal immigration benefits the state economically, based upon a computer simulation. It's easy to spot one huge error in the study. They assume that immigrants will only come to the US in proportion to the jobs available for them, and that therefore virtually all immigrants will be employed. However, the US Constitution requires that all public benefits be given to everyone within US borders. That includes welfare payments, unemployment insurance, education, and medical care. Failure to enforce immigration laws would crush the United States as every poor person in the world who can travel here (and those from Mexico and Central America clearly can) rushes in to enjoy a dramatic improvement in life style, job or not. Later on in the article, the authors say that number of guest workers would be limited by imposing a visa tax of 14% on employers. The unspoken premise is that entry is limited to only immigrants who are employed and only for so long as they remain employed. That condition can only assumed by strict enforcement of immigration laws. Finally, we should not trust a computer simulation that is not tested and verified by experience. The state has made drastic cuts in social services because of the load of illegals on those services. http://www.tucsonweekly.com... Does Con suggest that Arizona be satisfied with a computer simulation that shows that couldn't happen because illegal immigration is economically beneficial? The study ignores the need for immigration enforcement to apprehend drug smugglers, criminals, and terrorists. Con ignores that throughout his arguments as well. Even if there were no illegal immigration by job seekers, we would need to verify citizenship of lawbreakers. Counting actual costs, the National Research Council puts the total cost of illegal immigration at $346 billion. http://www.rense.com... 5. Con claims he has a better solution to immigration. That is not part of this debate. The debate is solely about whether the Arizona Law is fair and reasonable, not whether something else might be better. Even if there is a better immigration policy, it still reasonable for a state to defer to the Federal government in deciding immigration policy, and to help enforce that policy through fair means. Con states that Arizona expects immigrants to panic. He already contradicted that in (1) above when he correctly asserted the Arizona objective was attrition. Con goes on to assert that law enforcement will fail, because those violating the laws will just hide. That argument applies to every law. Making homicide illegal just makes murders try harder to conceal their crimes. In fact law enforcement is a necessary step to comprehensive immigration reform. Immigration reform was enacted under Reagan, with the amnesty granted under the condition that in the future immigration laws would be enforced. The government then refused to enforce the laws, because politicians wanted votes from the Hispanic community and thought that abandoning rule of law would help them get votes. Because of that history of lying and double dealing, comprehensive immigration reform requires that enforcement be the first step. I don't think that the main objective of the law is attrition. I think that the main objective is to get the Federal government to live up to its responsibilities. Con argues that we need comprehensive immigration reform, and I agree. Arizona is doing its best to draw attention to the need for action. All of Con's arguments favoring new policies support Arizona's law as a fair and reasonable way to provoke action. The resolution is affirmed.