Your Vote, Your Opinion: Are the President's Actions Really "Impeachable"?

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Arizona Legislator Calls Obama’s Actions “Impeachable”

The campaign to impeach Barack Obama has a distinguished new advocate: Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, who authored Arizona’s immigration law S.B. 1070. During a speech on November 19, Pearce told an audience:

Think about it. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a sitting president has sided with a foreign government to sue the citizens of its country. For defending our laws? For defending and protecting the citizens of the state of Arizona? It’s outrageous, and it’s impeachable.

Senator Pearce was referring to the Obama administration’s decision to invite 11 Central and South American nations to join the federal government’s lawsuit against Arizona. This outsourcing ignores the president’s numerous lawsuits against the state, as well as motions against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for “racial profiling,” on the grounds he arrested too many Hispanics near our open border with Mexico.

The lawsuit was perhaps the least offensive or forceful measure the president has taken against the will of his own citizens. The Obama administration hauled Arizona before the UN Human Rights Council after it passed Pearce’s bill.

After Governor Jan Brewer learned about Obama’s outrage, she sent a letter demanding Hillary Clinton strike the reference from the UNHRC report. Hillary refused.

In September, a UN committee issued a thinly veiled denunciation of Arizonans as “xenophobes and racists.” Then Obama allowed human rights violators to humiliate the United States in the Geneva forum while appointing milquetoast globalists like “transnationalist” Harold Koh to “defend” America.

His efforts to enlist foreign nations and the UN to overturn state policies with which he disagrees is indeed unconstitutional, and one of many grounds for impeachment. This author is pleased to have perhaps the best state senator in the United States voicing such truths, especially to those who are hostile to them.

Sheriff Trowbridge tells state lawmakers illegals are a "security problem", Commissioner Simpson disagrees

Immigration proposal sparks legislative hearing

A Mississippi sheriff told state lawmakers Tuesday his deputies take illegal immigrants into custody on a nearly hourly basis, and the booking process has burdened his department.

Madison County Sheriff Toby Trowbridge told a Senate panel it's difficult to keep track of illegal immigrants because they don't have identification and they may use variations of their names each time they're picked up.

"We encounter one or two people an hour in Madison County," Trowbridge said. "It's a security problem. Anytime you encounter anyone without identification, we view it as a homeland security problem." Not all of them face charges in Mississippi; many are being held for immigration authorities, he said.

The Senate Judiciary A Committee was holding hearings this week to gather information for a plan to introduce a bill like the law in Arizona that allows police officers to check the status of people they think might be in the country illegally.

Some lawmakers have said they would support such a measure during the 2011 session that starts in January. Opponents say the proposal could foster racial-profiling and harassment.

Mississippi isn't a border state like Arizona. Officials don't know the size of the state's illegal immigrant population, but most agree it is far smaller than Arizona's.

Trowbridge said the proposed law would help police and sheriff's departments by forcing immigrants to pursue legal status and get identification. But Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Steve Simpson said he doesn't want legislators to pass an unfunded mandate.

Simpson said state troopers routinely ask for identification after stopping someone for a violation. He said detaining illegal immigrants isn't a "widespread" problem for troopers.

"We're stretched very thin right now and do not need a lot of unfunded mandates on us," Simpson said.

Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who observed the hearing, said the federal government's lawsuit to block Arizona's law shouldn't prevent Mississippi from pursuing its own legislation "that would stand up to a federal challenge."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said the hearing would help determine how the proposal could be tweaked to fit Mississippi's needs. After the hearing, Fillingane said the proposal "had merit."

Karla Valez, a case worker who works with immigrants for Catholic Charities, said immigrants already live in fear of being harassed. She said many would leave the state if a tougher law was enacted.

"Mississippi would be hostile," Valez said. "They would be targeting people who don't look white or African American."

Read more: TU

Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah may follow Arizona's lead on immigration law

Attention is focused on Arizona and the federal government's challenge to the state's strict new immigration law, but three other states could adopt similar legislation next year.

Lawmakers in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, which have already taken steps against illegal immigration, say that Arizona-style measures have a realistic chance of passing when their legislatures reconvene in 2011.

The Obama administration sued Arizona in federal court Tuesday, charging that the state law usurps federal authority, would hamper immigration enforcement and would lead to police harassment of those who have no proof of lawful status. The government asked that a federal judge stop the law from taking effect July 29.

Legislators in at least 17 other states introduced bills this year similar to the Arizona law, which allows officers to question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. But most of those measures are not considered likely to be adopted or signed by governors.

The political climate in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, however, improves the chances that state legislatures there could follow Arizona's lead in 2011.

In 2007, Oklahoma led the way on such laws by adopting legislation that makes it a felony to knowingly transport or shelter an illegal immigrant. It also blocked illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses and in-state tuition.

State Rep. Randy Terrill (R), who sponsored the measure, has expressed a desire to go beyond the Arizona law when he introduces a bill next year that would seize property from businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants.

Terrill cited the arrest last week of an alleged Mexican drug cartel member in Oklahoma as evidence that an "Arizona-plus" measure is needed urgently. He said the effect of Arizona's law has been to push illegal immigrants "straight down Interstate 40" toward Oklahoma.

Vivek Malhotra, advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the administration's decision to sue Arizona could discourage other states from doing the same. But he also said that similar legislation may be adopted in 2011.

"After the other border states, it is natural to look at the states that have enacted the most anti-immigrant laws" before Arizona, Malhotra said. He said he expected Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah to make the "most vigorous effort" to enact similar legislation early next year.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said he thinks the Obama administration designed the lawsuit against Arizona as a "shot across the bows" of all states considering similar moves. He said he doubts, though, that Terrill will be deterred.

"Randy Terrill has made this his issue in Oklahoma and has earned bipartisan support in the past," he said. "He is a determined guy and he is not going to back down too easily."

In Utah, state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (R) has been making regular fact-finding trips to Arizona as he finalizes a draft bill. But, following the announcement of the federal suit, he said he may consider watering down one of the Arizona law's most contentious elements.

Under the law, state officers are instructed to check immigration status if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is in the country illegally. Sandstrom said his measure may require officers to meet the higher legal standard of "probable cause" to suspect someone of being undocumented before checking.

"I don't want people of Hispanic descent to feel my bill is aimed at them," he said.

A Utah law that took effect last year made it illegal to harbor or employ undocumented workers. Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R) has said he expects to sign new immigration legislation next year and is meeting with all sides to find a way forward.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) touted a comprehensive set of measures against illegal immigration as the nation's strictest when he signed it into law in 2008. The far-reaching legislation forced businesses to check the immigration status of their workers. Harboring and transporting illegal immigrants also became a state crime. State lawmakers are seeking to build on it and were quick this year to draw up an Arizona-style bill, introducing it less than a week after the Arizona measure was signed.

State Sen. Larry Martin (R) said in an interview that an Arizona-type measure was introduced too late this year. "But I have every expectation a new bill will be introduced in January," he said. "As long as an officer has a lawful reason to question someone, and then a suspicion develops [that] they are an undocumented person, then I think our law enforcement folks ought to be able to pursue that," he said.

Washington Post



Immigration

No Surprise: Arizona Law Is Working

Immigrant families leave Arizona and tough new law

PHOENIX -- "Cuanto?" asks a young man pointing to four bottles of car polish at a recent garage sale in an east Phoenix neighborhood.

The question, Spanish for "How much?" sends Minerva Ruiz and Claudia Suriano scrambling and calling out to their friend, Silvia Arias, who's selling the polish. "Silvia!"

Arias is out of earshot, so Suriano improvises.

"Cinco dolares," she says. "Five dollars." And another sale is made.

As the women await their next customer in the rising heat of an Arizona morning, they talk quietly about food and clothes, about their children and husbands. They are best friends, all mothers who are viewed as pillars of parental support at the neighborhood elementary school.

All three are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

They're holding the garage sale to raise money to leave Arizona, along with many others, and to escape the state's tough new law that cracks down on people just like them.

The law's stated intention is unambiguous: It seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and to discourage them from coming here.

There is no official data tracking how many are leaving because of the new law. "It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"

But anecdotal evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by healthcare clinics suggest that sizable numbers are departing. Ignacio Rodriguez, associate director for the Phoenix Roman Catholic diocese's Office of Hispanic Ministries, said churches in the area are also seeing families leave.

Priests are "seeing some people approach them and ask for a blessing because they're leaving the state to go back to their country of origin or another state," he said. "Unless they approach and ask for a sending-off blessing, we wouldn't have any idea they're leaving or why."

Ruiz and Suriano and their families plan to move this month. Arias and her family are considering leaving, but are waiting to see if the law will go into effect as scheduled July 29, and, if so, how it will be enforced.

The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.

Read more at the Sun Herald

Ariz. lawmaker takes aim at automatic citizenship

PHOENIX – Emboldened by passage of the nation's toughest law against illegal immigration, the Arizona politician who sponsored the measure now wants to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in this country to undocumented parents.

Legal scholars laugh out loud at Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce's proposal and warn that it would be blatantly unconstitutional, since the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.

But Pearce brushes aside such concerns. And given the charged political atmosphere in Arizona, and public anger over what many regard as a failure by the federal government to secure the border, some politicians think the idea has a chance of passage.

"I think the time is right," said state Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican from suburban Phoenix who is chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. "Federal inaction is unacceptable, so the states have to start the process."

Earlier this year, the Legislature set off a storm of protests around the country when it passed a law that directs police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. The law also makes it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant. The measure, which takes effect July 29 unless blocked in court, has inflamed the national debate over immigration and led to boycotts against the state.

An estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. as of January 2009, according to the Homeland Security Department. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that as of 2008, there were 3.8 million illegal immigrants in this country whose children are U.S. citizens.

Pearce, who has yet to draft the legislation, proposes that the state of Arizona no longer issue birth certificates unless at least one parent can prove legal status. He contends that the practice of granting citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. encourages illegal immigrants to come to this country to give birth and secure full rights for their children.

"We create the greatest inducement for breaking our laws," he said.

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." But Pearce argues that the amendment was meant to protect black people.

"It's been hijacked and abused," he said. "There is no provision in the 14th Amendment for the declaration of citizenship to children born here to illegal aliens."

John McGinnis, a conservative law professor at Northwestern University, said Pearce's interpretation is "just completely wrong." The "plain meaning" of the amendment is clear, he said.

Senate candidate Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and darling of the tea party movement, made headlines last month after he told a Russian TV station that he favors denying citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

A similar bill was introduced at the federal level in 2009 by former Rep. Nathan Deal, a Georgia Republican, but it has gone nowhere.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, based in Washington, said Pearce's idea would stop immigrants from traveling to the U.S. to give birth.

"Essentially we are talking about people who have absolutely no connection whatever with this country," spokesman Ira Mehlman said. "The whole idea of citizenship means that you have some connection other than mere happenstance that you were born on U.S. soil."

Citizenship as a birthright is rare elsewhere in the world. Many countries require at least one parent to be a citizen or legal resident.

Adopting such a practice in the U.S. would be not only unconstitutional but also impractical and expensive, said Michele Waslin, a policy analyst with the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center in Washington.

"Every single parent who has a child would have to go through this bureaucratic process of proving their own citizenship and therefore proving their child's citizenship," she said.

Araceli Viveros, 27, and her husband, Saul, 34, are illegal immigrants from the Mexican state of Guerrero. He has been in Phoenix for 20 years, she for 10, and their 2- and 9-year-old children are U.S. citizens.

"I am so proud my children were born here. They can learn English and keep studying," Viveros said in Spanish.

She said her husband has been working hard in Phoenix as a landscaper, and their children deserve to be citizens. The lawmaker's proposal "is very bad," she said. "It's changing the Constitution, and some children won't have the same rights as other children."

Associated Press

17 States Now Filing Versions of Arizona's Immigration Bill SB 1070

One of America's national organizations fighting against illegal immigration is announcing that 17 states are now filing versions of Arizona's SB 1070 law which is designed to help local police enforce America's existing immigration laws.

Numerous national and local polls indicated that 60-81% of Americans support local police enforcing immigration laws.

"Our national network of activists have been working overtime trying to help the state of Arizona and the brave Arizonans who have passed this bill," said William Gheen, President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. "Arizona no longer stands alone and we have now documented state lawmakers filing, or announcing they will file, versions of the Arizona bill in seventeen states! We will not stop until all states are protected from invasion as required by the US Constitution."

ALIPAC has documented the following 17 states are following Arizona's lead in response to citizen pressure.

ARKANSAS, IDAHO, INDIANA, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEVADA, NEW JERSEY, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, TEXAS, UTAH

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) has helped to pass some form of immigration enforcement legislation in over 30 states, while the group has also gained a national reputation for defeating legislation designed to give licenses, in-state tuition, and other taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens in 20 states.

ALIPAC's President, William Gheen is a former campaign consultant, Legislative Assistant, state lobbyist, and Assistant Sgt-At-Arms staffer in North Carolina who has turned his local experiences into a political battle plan by driving the national operations of ALIPAC.

"The Federal government has been hijacked by special interests that are neglectful of their duties and even hostile towards the rightful citizens of America," said William Gheen. "It is incumbent upon our states to protect American lives, property, jobs, wages, security, and health, when the Executive Branch fails to honor its Constitutional responsibility to do so by enforcing our existing border and immigration laws."

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC lobbied state lawmakers and AZ Governor Jan Brewer to pass SB 1070, which strictly prohibits racial profiling while empowering local police officers to enforce immigration laws.

ALIPAC's activists have been working for almost four weeks now to encourage state lawmakers across the nation to file versions of SB 1070, to help alleviate boycotts and other political antagonism towards Arizona. Citizen activist are being asked to call, e-mail, visit, and fax their state lawmakers to encourage them to support existing SB 1070 type bills or to file them as soon as possible.

For a list of the 17 states joining Arizona's push for this kind of legislation, and to view the associated documentation, please visit our tracking link for updated information at....

Americans for Legal Immigration

Investigation finds terrorist slipping in through Mexico via Europe to South America

This report by Atlanta's Channel 2 television station, shows the evidence many have been talking about for over a year now. We are leaving ourselves vulnerable to attack.

Channel 2 Investigates U.S. Border Security--Part One

Channel 2 Investigates U.S. Border Security--Part Two

Immigration Boycotts: Two can play that game!

Boycotts of Arizona not working out so well.

New law ups the Arizona ante

The newest law signed by Arizona governor Jan Brewer has upped the rhetoric in the brewing conflict between her office and the state's large Hispanic community.

The new law approved late Tuesday is tailored to ban ethnic studies programs run by school districts in Arizona. It's especially targeted against the Tucson school district and its Chicano studies program. The law's proponents say these programs promote division and racism. Others believe this is evidence that Brewer is attacking Hispanics, especially in light of her recent signing of a bill allowing police to more easily investigate if people are illegal immigrants.

Boycott the boycotters.

Liberal organizations and governments and other entities who fear the backlash of not appearing politically correct enough are lining up to jump on the Arizona boycott bandwagon. Keep a list, and boycott the boycotters. Better yet, plan a trip to Arizona this year and show your support.

The Arizona boycott: Everybody's doing it


Calls to boycott Arizona because of its new immigration law appear to be gaining deep traction and could end up costing the state millions of dollars.

Here are just a few of the confirmed boycotts, as reported by the Service Employees International Union:

• At least six conventions have pulled out of the Phoenix area, according to Fox's Phoenix affiliate. Those include college fraternities, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

• St. Paul, Minn., Mineapolis and San Francisco city governments are trying to ban city officials from traveling to Arizona on official business.

• The Denver public school system is banning work-related travel to Arizona.

• There have been pickets at Arizona Diamondbacks games and there's a brewing movement to boycott the baseball team. Today we also got an email about a drive to get Major League Baseball to hold its All-Star game outside the state next year.

This is just a snapshot of the boycott movement - there's actually a lot more going on than this. For imormation, check out this NPR article.

Update: 19 groups totaling 15,000 room nights have canceled events in Arizona, according to the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association.