[quote=Diego Mamani]According to the law of the land, only the Federal government has jurisdiction over immigration matters. The bigoted Arizona law may be popular with the majority now, but that doesn’t make it constitutional. (The National Socialist party in Germany was very popular with the majority in the 1930s, but they were still on the wrong side of history.)[/quote]
According to the law of the land, the Federal government has jurisdiction over bank robberies. Then why are local police the ones that apprehend and arrest the perps only to hand them over to the Feds. The state has laws that make robbery a crime that the police must enforce. Should the state change the law so bank robbery is not a crime because it is under the jurisdiction of the Fed. Should the local police just look the other way and make the FBI police its own jurisdiction and catch the robbers? This makes just as much sense.
It is not a question of jurisdiction of prosecution but jurisdiction of enforcement. For bank robberies, local police has jurisdiction of enforcement, but not prosecution. The FBI comes in ‘afterwards’ to prosecute the perps under Federal jurisdiction. This is because the Fed does not have enough personnel to secure and patrol every federal banking institution. The Fed relies on local police. Why should the illegal immigration problem be any different? If the Fed does not have enough resources to cover the banks, how could they possibly have enough resources to find 12 million illegal aliens without the help of local police?
That is all the law in Arizona is providing – additional enforcement. It is still up to the Government to prosecute illegal aliens. The local police should be able enforce all federal, state, and local laws that provide for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to its citizenry.
