steeler wrote: 
Thanks.  I'm formulating a response.

Noticeably absent from your response however was the case of Sanctuary Cities and Obama's selective enforcement of immigration laws as illustrated by his lack of actions towards Sanctuary Cities, yet suing states that try to reinforce the federal government.

 kurtster wrote: 

I had not forgotten about you and your comment. Been a bit busy at work the last several days.

It is a pre-emption issue.  Pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, regulating immigration is one of the enumerated powers of the feds (naturalization clause).  Essentially what the Supreme Court was discussing on Wednesday during oral argument is whether Arizona's state law was permissibily supplementing that federal power or impermissibly undermining it. The reason a state cannot pre-empt a federal law is that the goal is to have the laws/regulations be uniform across the various states. Obviously, if each state is free to legislate in any manner it sees fit regarding immigration, there not only would be a non-uniform set of laws, there also would be conflicts between the state laws and the federal law. So, a court will look to see whether the feds have "occupied the field" or whether there has been room left for the states to legislate.  

From the accounts I read, the Court seemed disinclined to view the Arizona law requiring state and local law enforcement to verify citizenship status of anyone stopped, detained, or arrested as an impermissible intrusion on the power of Congress to set immigration policy.  The apparent reasoning was that if an immigration violation were detected, the information would be turned over to the feds for them to decide on what sanction was warranted. As Roberts said during oral argument: "What the state is saying, 'Here are people who are here in violation of federal law, you make the decision.' And if your decision is you don't want to prosecute those people, fine, that's entirely up to you." Sotomayer noted that Arizona alerting the feds that a person may be in the country illegally does not force the feds "to change your enforcement priorities." In other words, they were not viewing this as an impermissible intrusion on the power conferred upon the feds by the Constitution (by contrast, a 10th Amendment issue conceptually is about whether the feds have usurped a state's power by trying to exercise an unenumerated power)  

Other parts of the Arizona law may have problems under a pre-emption analysis. For example, provisions making it a crime to seek work or not to register with the federal government are not federal crimes, meaning that Arizona could be viewed, as argued by the Solicitor General, as seeking to "expand the federal government's determination about the types of sanctions that should govern the employment relationship."  In other words, an impermissible intrusion into power conferred upon the feds by the Constitution.

All this is why I referenced, in a post a while back, a District law several years ago that would have prohibited transport by rail of hazmat materials through the District, and near the Capitol.  No one actually said there was not a good reason for seeking to get those trains away from the obvious target of the Nation's Capital. But the U.S. DOJ still entered the case (CSX had sued) to enjoin the District law from going into effect, arguing that it was pre-empted by federal laws that occupied the field of transport of hazmat materials, leaving no room for states to regulate the activity.  

Raising pre-emption is a legitimate exercise.  It should not be written off as just an excuse to achieve some political purpose or defy state rights or some other nefarious purpose.

The next topic: We need to define what we mean by illegal immigration for purposes of this discussion because you have been making reference to Fast and Furious and seemingly lumping it together with illegal immigraton.  I do not see that as being about illegal immigration. The smuggling of guns and drugs into this country, and the violence that surrounds those activities, is not necessarily an immigration issue.  Immigration is when someone comes to reside in this country without having obtained the authorization to do so.  I don't think someone who crosses over the border to commit a crime and goes back across the border has illegally immigrated to the United States.  If you are talking about border security in general, then we could talk about the problems of illegal immigration (those sneaking across the border) and drug and gun smuggling (those committing crimes on or through he border) having a common link.  Otherwise, they are not the same.

I do not purport to have the answer to illegal immigration. It is a complex problem.  I have not seen your answer to that.  I'm not sure that illegal immigration across the border with Mexico has increased dramatically during the Obama administration. As I stated in an earlier post, violence near and on the border has increased, I believe, but that is more due, I believe, to an exponential increase in gun and drug violence in Mexico itself, which has been engaged in recent years in an incredibly violent war between warring drug cartels that have become increasingly bold.  

As for Fast and Furious, I have not read a lot about that, but I believe it to be a botched and ill-conceived mission.  I do not see how it possibly could be seen as an attempt to undermine the 2nd Amendment.  How would it have done so?  Supreme Court has ruled  that it is a Constitutional right for individuals to bear arms, subject to reasonable restrictions.  

Also:  I brought up the fence on the border as  having preceded the Obama administration because the tenor of your comments, per usual, was that the problem in question — this time, immigration — had gotten out of control under his watch, implying that no one was desperately seeking solutions prior to his presidency. 

As for my powers to deconstruct arguments, it is not that difficult when the arguments are devoid of logic and common sense.

Cheers!

         

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
There are a lot of "if's" this election season, like:

• the economic environment and world political climate at election time
• Citizens United and the insane ridiculous amount of money that are pouring in by BIG MONEY to get Romney and other corporate whores elected
• Whether or not people actually believe the lies from the Right
• the effect of social media
• who gets out to vote

 

 hippiechick wrote: 
Yet you seem so confident in your postings that the President will win...and that the Dem's will regain the house. Or am I wrong in my observations???

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
Well, yeah!

 steeler wrote: 
You started talking about fences before I did.  You brought them up not me.

I was refering to your statement below :

No terrorism, either.  And no al-Queda, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, strife in Pakistan. All that amped up when Obama took office. Bin Laden did not exist as a threat until he was taken out under Obama's watch.  Wait . . . that last one isn't coming out the way it should.

But no worries.  Moving on.  Is the premeption issue a state's rights issue, in essence, or what please educate me ?

You are great at deconstructing positions of others, yet offer no stands or positions in rebuttal. 

What exactly is your position on the problem with legal and illegal immigration ?  Mine are well known.  Sanctuary Cities and the rule of law ?  Fast and Furious ?  A program developed in the wake of the immigration problems we are facing.  Is it a veiled attempt to discredit the 2nd Amendment and further limit gun rights, or just the incompetent bungling of the present administration and its DOJ leadership or something else altogether ?  Do we even have an immigration problem in your opinion and if you think there is one, what is it about and how should we fix it ?

 oldslabsides wrote: 
YOU DIDN"T PUT ENOUGH COLOR OR LARGE SIZE FONTS IN THE POST TO ATTRACT ATTENTION.

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Just got home and haven't caught up, yet, but let's add this to the above. 

About two years ago according to the LA Times which I posted in the old illegal immigrant thread, the cost of illegals to just the County of Los Angeles was $1 Billion per year.  That's just the county ! 

Easy to google for those that do not believe me. 

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Interesting article.
Okay, I won't jack this forum with anything else about taxes but I thought it was relevant....

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Well yeah, there's that....

 Monkeysdad wrote: 

I find it amusing that people actually think it makes a difference.

 hippiechick wrote: 
You sound nervous that he might actually win.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I'd rather vote for him than feel partly responsable for helping one of the others get in. And then I can't be blamed when they f*ck up.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
"Group W bench for Johnson"

 islander wrote: 
Ain't now way someone with that much common sense will ever sniff the White House, but he does have my vote which of course will do him absolutely no good!

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
Because Romney is one of the biggest tax offenders around.

 hippiechick wrote: 

Okay, I went back a reread the article, how'd you go from the rich stealing OR illegals getting a windfall from tax credits/stealing  to how I'm going to vote?

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I wish Gary Johnson could just go for the cool vote:

Gary Johnson is cooler than you. He lost toes to frostbite on Mount Everest (he made the summit). He's also stood atop McKinley and Kilimanjaro. He competes in mountain bike races. He broke his knee and back in a parachute mishap. 

Oh, and during his two terms as governer of New Mexico he fixed the budget problems, dealt with immigration, increased jobs and remodeled the governor's mansion. 

 DaveInVA wrote: 

Gary Johnson awaits your vote Dave!

 DaveInVA wrote: 
 I was actually asking MD but thanks for playing