By Raoul Lowery Contreras
P. T. Barnum’s oft-quoted “There’s a sucker born every minute” is appropriate today in the US of A. Why? Because of illegal immigration that has generated an April session in the Supreme Court of the United States on the State of Arizona’s declaration of war on the United States and the Constitution that formed and governs the country.
Defenders of Arizona’s anti-Mexican SB 1070 law often insist that the infamous law enjoys considerable public support. It certainly doesn’t have much support in the federal courts what with an Arizona-based federal district judge stopping the law’s critical provisions cold. The 9th Circuit upheld the judge’s injunctions and now those injunctions are up for review by the United States Supreme Court.
Most polls taken after the law’s passage showed something between 60 and 70% public support nationally. Of course, most people are ignorant of the Constitution as a whole in particular of Article 1, Section 8 which explicitly enumerates the power of the United States Congress “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” which means immigration.
Millions of people are unaware of the constitutional congressional mandate on naturalization/immigration, nonetheless P.T. Barnum “suckers” line up to support the Arizona law, especially the “usual suspects” who apparently lack detailed knowledge of the Constitution.
When I speak, I speak of people like Bill O’Reilly at Fox News and Laura Ingrahm, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity of radio fame and myriad other constitutionally unread public figures, the “suckers.”
There really aren’t that many suckers because if there were the Supreme Court would have been inundated by mountains of legal briefs supporting Arizona’s law. It wasn’t and those that were submitted look like “cut and paste” jobs by legal shops that represent a monolithic Arizona defense that is at best ludicrous and unconstitutional in spirit and in word. These silly supporting briefs are mostly from ultra-conservative congress people, a few other conservative officials and a number of hate groups organized by the country’s most active racist, Dr. John Tanton. These are hate groups like FAIR and its non-profit arm, the Center for Immigration Studies (organized by Tanton to fight any immigration including legal especially Catholics from Mexico).
Numerous well-known and influential outside parties oppose the law:
- Sixteen current and former chief law enforcement officers filed briefs opposing SB 1070, including the former Phoenix police chief and the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, which shares a longer border with Mexico than any county in Arizona. Two law enforcement officials – only – filed supporting SB 1070, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio who is being investigated by the federal government that accuses his deputies of the worst racial profiling in the country.
- One brief filed to oppose SB 1070 was joined by a former Secretary of State (Madeline Albright, Democrat), a former Secretary of Defense (William Cohen, Republican), and two former ambassadors to the United Nations (Albright and John Negroponte, Republican).
- Another was submitted on behalf of two former commissioners of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Doris Meissner, Republican and James Ziglar, Republican). No member of any prior Presidential administration (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II) joined a brief supporting SB 1070.
- Eleven states with a combined population of nearly 100 million—submitted a brief opposing SB 1070, including California, New York, and Illinois. More than 40 cities and counties filed opposition to 1070, three of which are in Arizona (Tucson, Flagstaff, and San Luis).
- A brief filed on behalf of 68 pro-immigrant members of Congress was joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other high-ranking members of the House Democratic leadership. No member of the House Republican leadership signed a pro-SB 1070 brief filed on behalf of fifty conservative lawmakers.
- The government of Mexico filed opposition to SB 1070 that was joined by sixteen other Latin American countries.
- Finally, a dozen briefs were filed on behalf of more than 50 national organizations ranging from the ultra-liberal ACLU, to the AFL/CIO, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Briefs here, briefs there, briefs everywhere. None with pro-signatures from the Republican Congressional leadership, none with pro-Governors other than the high school-only educated Arizona governor who did not attend a four year college or took academic college courses even in community college unless they came under her medical office worker certificate program.
The law’s sponsor, Russell Pearce (who was the Arizona Senate President then) was flushed down a recall toilet last November when his conservative constituency threw him out of office.
Arpaio is being investigated by the feds for alleged criminal acts. SB1070 supporting Arizona sheriff Paul Babeu (Boo-Boo) is also being investigated for criminal acts.
Support for and supporters of SB1070 are narrow in scope and numbers. Question: do they have five “sucker” supporters on the Court?
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Raoul Lowery Contreras (1941) was born in Mexico, raised in the USA. Former U.S. Marine, athlete, Dean’s List at San Diego State. Professional political consultant and California Republican Party official(1963-65)…Television news commentator, radio talk show host…published Op-Ed writer (1988 to present)…author of 12 books (as of 1-05-12). His books are available on Amazon.com.
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