Tacos tacos, burritos burritos.
“The Supreme Court’s Arizona decision makes Mitt Romney’s life more difficult” – David A. Graham (The Atlantic)
“Jon Kyl blames Obama for failure of immigration reform under Bush” – Sahil Kapur (TPM)
“Top Republican Senator suggests impeaching Obama over immigration policies” – Igor Volsky (ThinkProgress)
“Immigrant groups fear the Supreme Court just created an army of Joe Arpaios” – Nick R. Martin (TPM)
I honestly don’t know how much longer Mitt Romney is going to be able to straddle the fence between his virulently anti-immigrant base that wants to electrify the border between the US and Mexico, and the Hispanic voters he’ll need to win key toss-up states who want things like the DREAM Act.
Not only that, but members of his party like Jon Kyl (R-Asshole) aren’t doing him any favors by suggesting that A) Obama is responsible for the failure of immigration reform, even though Obama voted for it as a Senator and has promised to sign it if it hits his desk as President (notably, Kyl voted against it), and B) Obama should be impeached for implementing a policy that has widespread popular support.
I don’t agree with the notion that the Supreme Court’s ruling will create an army of Sheriff Joe’s. Let’s remember that Arpaio is being sued by the Justice Department for basically abdicating his responsibilities as Maricopa County Sheriff and appointing himself General of the Arizona/Mexico Border Army, and the only reason he keeps getting reelected is because Maricopa County is right up there with Orange County for Oldest, Whitest Places On The Planet. Moreover, I think all it’s going to take to slap down the remaining provision of SB1070 will be the harassment of a prominent Latino by a dumbfuck police officer for the crime of driving while brown in Arizona.
This issue speaks to one of the major long term demographic problems facing the Republican party. Latino voters are more conservative than pretty much all of the current Democratic constituencies. They would be among the easiest to peel away from the Democratic party. However, doing so would force the GOP to cut loose large portions of their old white base that are terrified at the prospect of the United States being run by someone that isn’t as lily white as them, and right now that’s just not feasible for them to do.
What makes the whole argument even sillier is the fact that Latino immigration has basically dropped to zero. The wholesale destruction of the US economy due to thirty years of conservative ass backwards economics has made Mexico and the other Central American countries better places to live than the US. So really, we’re not talking about some mass influx of illegal immigrants anymore. We’re talking about folks that are already here. They’ve been here. They’ve had kids here. They have jobs and lives and have been woven into the tapestries of their communities. Some of them were children when they were brought here, and have been raised as Americans. Can’t we say hey, if you’re a criminal or commit a crime, we’re sending you back to wherever you came from. Otherwise, stay here, work, pay taxes, and eventually become a citizen.
The sooner we get over the notion that the states have purview over a number of issues like immigration, the sooner we can come up with coherent answers to our national problems.
