Our legislature here in Arizona has a reputation for being, well, bone-headed. For example, our legislators couldn't come up with a state budget for months, but they did have time to name milk our official state beverage. However, with Senate Bill 1070, our legislature has finally tackled a really important issue, immigration.
For years, the good citizens of Arizona, and Phoenix in particular, have had to put up with immigrants. They use the city services that we pay for. They fill our medical facilities. They take jobs under the table that Arizona citizens need. They even clog up our congested streets by driving so slow. So it's about time our legislature did something about those annoying winter visitors from Canada!
Our legislature has been brilliant in handling this problem. Arizona has a relatively high population of retired people, so legislature couldn't blatantly outlaw a large group of retired people; doing so would cause an uprising of a very politically active community. Instead, our legislature made it look like they were banning Mexican immigrants, which are generally despised by the conservative citizens who keep our legislators in office.
Their motives are clear. In these hard economic times, we all have to tighten our belts. If our legislators banned illegal Hispanic immigrants, who would cut their grass and clean their pools? Those lazy people on unemployment aren't pleading to work hard all day for half the minimum wage, No, they want higher paying jobs, like the jobs Canadians take under the table to supplement their retirement income.
Of course, people complain that the illegal immigrants from Mexico don't pay taxes, but our legislators know better. Everyone ends up paying sales tax, which is close to 10% now. Everyone who drives pays federal and state gas tax. Everyone who owns a house pays real estate tax, andpeople who rent pay twice as much real estate tax because commercial property is taxed at a higher rate than personal real estate. Our legislators know that illegal Mexican immigrants pay the same amount of income tax as anyone else who earns five dollars an hour for part time work; that's to say, none. On the other hand, Arizona does lose some income tax from those Canadians since they make more money than the Mexicans.
Our legislators even built some red herrings into the immigration bill to give the appearance that it's targeted at illegal Mexican immigrants. For example, they outlawed people from impeding traffic to pickup illegal [Mexican] day laborers. This section of the immigration is purely for show. Arizona already has laws against impeding traffic, and our legislators are sharp enough to know that federal immigration law explicitly prohibits state and local laws from imposing civil or criminal sanctions against people who employ or recruit unauthorized aliens. The section of the bill that requires immigrants to carry an immigration document issued by the United States is even better; it's tied to a federal law that only applies to immigrants who have actually been issued immigration documents.
Our legislature did make some mistakes when they drafted the bill. They accidentally included a section allowing the police to investigate the immigration status of victims and witnesses detained during investigation of crimes. While police may not actually want to check the immigration status of victims and witnesses, the mere threat of investigating their immigration status will prevent many victims from reporting crimes, and many witnesses from coming forward during criminal investigations. That section of the bill could lead to an increase in crime, particularly in areas with a large population of illegal immigrants.
Our legislature put a section in the bill that they say prevents racial profiling, but legal scholars who have reviewed the bill say that the wording used actually opens up the bill to allow for racial profiling. Of course, that helps our police officers target those pesky Canadian immigrants. I have it on good authority that our county sheriff's office is already teaching it's deputies how to identify Canadians. The racial profiling section of the bill allows Arizona police officers to focus on Caucasians rather than Hispanics since Canadian immigrants are overwhelmingly Caucasian. That, of course, allows the police to avoid Hispanics that may be part of our cheap illegal labor force. I also have it on good authority that, at this very moment, our governor is arranging to deploy National Guard troops along the northern border of Arizona in an attempt to stem the tide of recreational vehicles that bring hoards of Canadian immigrants into our state every fall.
Unfortunately, this ruse may be falling apart. The immigration bill in large part purports to prevent illegal immigrants from working. However there have been arguments that many of the illegal aliens from Mexico are only in the United states so that they can collect welfare and get other free social services that are paid for by law abiding American citizens. I'm afraid that people may be catching on the actual purpose of the new law since it would be silly for the legislature to prevent illegal Mexican immigrants from working if they're only here to collect welfare in the first place.
So long you hosers. Stay up in Canada where you belong, or at least stay out of Arizona.
