This bizarre notion that Arizona can’t pass a State law authorizing its law enforcement to enforce Federal laws has an interesting parallel in the Prohibition era
While looking for something else, I stumbled on this
http://www.cobbledstones.com/2009/09/chesapeake-bay-played-large-role-in.html
which covers the details that after Prohibition was put into the US Constitution, every state except Maryland passed State laws to enforce the Federal ban on alcohol. Using the Arizona rationale, would that mean the only enforcement of prohibition had to be done by BATF and that if a local sheriff discovered a still or a place selling booze in the back that he was prohibited from doing anything about it?
Illegality is the simple keyword here.
Things have turned upside down since Prohibition. Now college instructors who teach Constitutional Law (who could he be talking about?) do so only so they can figure how to get around it. And do things to get laws passed (ObamaCare) that are only now turning out to be declared illegal.
Let’s suppose someone was here from the UK (so we can at least delay any “racist stereotypes” of our neighbors to the south) on a 6 month visa, and they decided to stay longer than the original six months. We would say that person was here illegally.
(But at least they made the effort to get SOME paper along the way). That’s why people who cross borders without papers are called “illegal aliens.”
Simple concept. And we cannot let the amnesty folks change the definition of this simple concept with “undocumented” or some other crap legal term.
Arizona is just basically saying that if the Feds are NOT going to enforce the law, they have the right to enforce it. The Federal govt. is reacting to this with this lunatic stance: If we don’t enforce the law, then you can’t pass a law saying you will enforce it (unless you don’t intend to enforce it either).
There you go.
Your example is more than theoretical. I frequently bring up Canadians. It’s very easy for Canadians to live and work in the United States without being detected. Many women from the UK come to the US to work as nannies or housekeepers. There are some jobs Americans just won’t do
“There are some jobs Americans just won’t do” is fast becoming my favorite phrase. So now we are importing workers from “third world nations” like England and Canada? Could it be that our government pays its citizens not to work for the wages that make some services economic? Most unemployment benefits are collected for up to 1.9 years without the slightest attempt to verify that the recipient is searching for work. The disability insurance industry has shown that benefit payments greater than 50% of the lost wage eliminate economic incentives to find work. Ever wondered where the unemployment stat “given up looking for work” came from? How could anyone in need have “given up looking for work”? Just double the unemployment benefit to find the real minimum wage at which it begins to pay to take a job.