Eric Lee dot net

I down­loaded a tran­script of Pres­i­dent Obama’s immi­gra­tion speech yes­ter­day at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  You can read it in its entirety here.

But as I was read­ing it, a cou­ple of more pas­sages grabbed my atten­tion.  Here’s the first one:

Into this breach, states like Ari­zona have decided to take mat­ters into their own hands. Given the lev­els of frus­tra­tion across the coun­try, this is under­stand­able. But it is also ill con­ceived. And it’s not just that the law Ari­zona passed is divi­sive -– although it has fanned the flames of an already con­tentious debate. Laws like Arizona’s put huge pres­sures on local law enforce­ment to enforce rules that ulti­mately are unen­force­able. It puts pres­sure on already hard-strapped state and local bud­gets. It makes it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple here ille­gally to report crimes -– dri­ving a wedge between com­mu­ni­ties and law enforce­ment, mak­ing our streets more dan­ger­ous and the jobs of our police offi­cers more dif­fi­cult.  (Empha­sis mine.)

This is curi­ous, as S.B. 1070 is mod­eled after the fed­eral law.  Does Obama think the fed­eral law is unen­force­able as well?  That’s what this pas­sage would lead you to think.  And for the record, if the fed­eral gov­ern­ment would do its job to secure our bor­ders, the states wouldn’t have to step in and fill the void, putting pres­sure “on already hard-strapped state and local budgets”.

The final sen­tence in that pas­sage just irks me to no end.  It also irks me that Obama said, when refer­ring to the ille­gal immi­grants in this coun­try, “The over­whelm­ing major­ity of these men and women are sim­ply seek­ing a bet­ter life for them­selves and their chil­dren.”    Here’s you some sta­tis­tics (and this is from 2006):

• 95% of war­rants for mur­der in Los Ange­les are for ille­gal aliens.
• 83% of war­rants for mur­der in Phoenix are for ille­gal aliens.
• 86% of war­rants for mur­der in Albu­querque are for ille­gal aliens.
• 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Ange­les, Phoenix and Albu­querque are ille­gal aliens.
• 24.9% of all inmates in Cal­i­for­nia deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
• 40.1% of all inmates in Ari­zona deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
• 48.2% of all inmates in New Mex­ico deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
• 29% (630,000) con­victed ille­gal alien felons fill our state and fed­eral pris­ons at a cost of $1.6 bil­lion annually.
• 53% plus of all inves­ti­gated bur­glar­ies reported in Cal­i­for­nia, New Mex­ico, Nevada, Ari­zona and Texas are per­pe­trated by ille­gal aliens.
• 50% plus of all gang mem­bers in Los Ange­les are ille­gal aliens from south of the border.
• 71% plus of all appre­hended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mex­ico, Ari­zona, Nevada and Cal­i­for­nia were stolen by Ille­gal aliens or “trans­port coyotes”.
• 47% of cited/stopped dri­vers in Cal­i­for­nia have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 47%, 92% are ille­gal aliens.
• 63% of cited/stopped dri­vers in Ari­zona have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 63%, 97% are ille­gal aliens
• 66% of cited/stopped dri­vers in New Mex­ico have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 66%, 98% are ille­gal aliens.
• BIRTH STATISTICS 380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to ille­gal alien par­ents, mak­ing 380,000 babies auto­mat­i­cally U.S.citizens.
• 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the Amer­i­can taxpayers.
• 66% plus of all births in Cal­i­for­nia are to ille­gal alien Mex­i­cans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

Con­tin­u­ing his den­i­gra­tion of Ari­zona, Obama said, “These laws also have the poten­tial of vio­lat­ing the rights of inno­cent Amer­i­can cit­i­zens and legal res­i­dents, mak­ing them sub­ject to pos­si­ble stops or ques­tion­ing because of what they look like or how they sound.”  Again, this is a bla­tant lie.  The law absolutely pro­hibits pro­fil­ing.  Law enforce­ment offi­cers can only ask for papers if the per­son in ques­tion is already in the process of com­mit­ting a crime.

Pres­i­dent Obama does go on and say that blan­ket amnesty would be “unwise and unfair”, but also that mass depor­ta­tions of 11 mil­lion peo­ple is impos­si­ble.  On those points, I agree.  But then, he says this:

But our bor­ders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the prob­lem only with fences and bor­der patrols. It won’t work. Our bor­ders will not be secure as long as our lim­ited resources are devoted to not only stop­ping gangs and poten­tial ter­ror­ists, but also the hun­dreds of thou­sands who attempt to cross each year sim­ply to find work.

Did he say, “No we can’t”?  What ever hap­pened to “Yes We Can”?  The laws are there, Mr. Pres­i­dent, to stem the tide of ille­gal immi­gra­tion.  It’s time for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to step up and do their job and enforce the laws that are already on the books, instead of try­ing to re-invent the wheel.