NYC Mayor Bloomberg blasts Arizona immigration law
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg — who until he quit the Republican party was the most powerful Republican in the state — has penned an editorial in the Daily News blasting Arizona’s harsh illegal-immigrant law.
The law is so vaguely written that it may force officers to stop people who look or dress differently – or who speak a foreign language, or English with an accent.
Bloomberg is calling for comprehensive immigration reform that effectively grants legal residency to all undocumented workers — though he says some “illegals” may not qualify for full citizenship.
In a follow-up interview with the newspaper, Bloomberg had this to say:
“This country is committing national suicide. We just passed a health care bill to give coverage to millions of people, tens of millions of people and we don’t have doctors and we’re not allowing people who want to come here and be doctors to come here. This is just craziness. People are developing new drugs in India, rather than here. They’re going to win the next Nobel prize in China or in Europe, not here. If we want to have a future, we need to have more immigrants here and we should get control of our borders and we should decide who we want, what languages, what skills we need; people who work with their hands and people who work with their minds and we have to get real about the 12 million undocumented here. We’re not going to deport them. Give them permanent status. Don’t make them citizens unless they can qualify, but give them permanent status and let’s get on with this.”
I’m sorry, where exactly in the Arizona law does it provide for not letting doctors emmigrate LEGALLY to our country? The Arizona law is sound, is based in the rule of law and is wildly popular with the people who are most affected by it- Arizonans.
As with the attempt to grant Puerto Rico Statehood overnight, this is nothing but a ploy to get Progressives a new voting block. Legal immigrants are more than welcome here, PR’s statehood is something I’ve felt was appropriate for some time, but to use either issue to gaina voting block is wrong.
Wildly popular? Perhaps, but it seems protests are growing by the day against the legislation. While I don’t know all the specifics of the legislation, there must be better ways to address the immigration problem than by creating a police state. As a conservative (unless I’m wrong about that characterization….If so, I’m sorry) I would assume, Bret4207, that you’re against such violations of the constitution, correct? I know I sure as h@ll don’t want the police to have such powers.
“Bloomberg blasts Arizona immigration law”
As well he should. I have no problem with local and state law enforcement asking criminal suspects for ID, because they’re dealing with them anyway. But the AZ law essentially makes it a crime (or at least subject to police harassment) for actual citizens and legal residents to leave their house without their ID… like a police state! The job of police should be to fight and prevent crimes of harm, not crimes of being.
The law is not very realistic and will probably be found unconstitutional. It is not the states job to enforce federal immigration law.
The problem is though southern AZ is not secure; it is easy to sit up in NYS and complain but try being a rancher (several have been killed in TX and AZ) in southern az where you basically have an invasion of foreigners marching through your private property from another country, some simply workers, but others traffickers and drug dealers who are armed. What kind of a country simply abandons private citizens to take care of themselves against armed Foreigners?
The AZ law is a response to the federal government not living up to its very very basic role of protecting our borders and sovereignty.
“But the AZ law essentially makes it a crime (or at least subject to police harassment) for actual citizens and legal residents to leave their house without their ID”
Brian: You’re going to have to copy a section of the law or give a reference to a section in it to make this claim.
Why does a sponsor link appear on the word “claim” in my previous post?
If Clapton- I was a cop along the northern border for well over 20 years. We regularly intercepted illegals and asking someone their status was nothing new. Probable Cause and Reasonable Suspicion were never a problem to articulate even with Russians and other white/non-Hispanic groups. From what I’ve seen the Az law specifically requires Probable Cause for the stop in the first place, completely with in law. That’s not a police state, that’s law enforcement in answer to the Federal Gov’t REFUSING to address the issues. It’s also a States Rights issue.
BTW- States regularly enforce Federal Law. Duck Stamps, Interstate Commerce, FDA, Labor Laws, etc. That argument is going nowhere.
CNN.com has an interesting cover story right now about ranchers in southern AZ. I guess no one is really protesting for their rights.
Rural ranchers don’t make up a big voting block and probably a good number of them just don;t make the DNC “Top 5000 contributors” list….