Oregon’s Attorney General versus Arizona SB 1070
When Oregon Attorney General John Kroger filed an amicus brief in support of the United States federal government’s lawsuit against the State of Arizona over an Arizona law SB 1070, a case that will be heard on April 25, 2012 before the U.S. Supreme Court, most Oregonians with any common sense would naturally ask the following question: What do the internal affairs of Arizona have to do with Oregon?
Answering the question, the Attorney General Kroger believes Arizona SB 1070 is civil rights issue.
What should be particularly troubling to Oregonians about the misguided actions of the Attorney General against SB 1070 is his inability to differentiate, call it a cognitive dissonance, between what is an actual civil rights issue and what is a public safety issue.
An actual reading of the law would inform the Attorney General SB 1070 only allows the State of Arizona law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration law not create Arizona immigration law. To protect civil rights SB 1070 has provisos that prohibit any form of profiling of individuals based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin.
Some background history, the State of Arizona, a border state, passed SB 1070 in 2010 simply to mitigate the collateral damage, the criminal activity, of hundreds of thousands undocumented foreign nationals (illegal aliens) present or entering the state primarily from Mexico.
With so many crimes being committed on a regular basis locally and nationwide by illegal aliens, remember “Operation Icebreaker Two”, the Attorney General’s office is prosecuting the case, four out of the fifteen individuals being held in local jails have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds, Attorney General Kroger seems to be engaging in feigned ignorance as to the source of the crime, the country of origin of the majority of the illegal aliens.
The Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) prison system in February of 2012 had 1,176 foreign nationals (criminal aliens); 992 prisoners were from Mexico — 84.35 percent.
At the same time, the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) prison system in February of 2012 had 5,291 who were criminal aliens; 4,820 prisoners were from Mexico — 91.10 percent.
Oregon Attorney General John Kroger should withdraw from any legal action in the nation’s highest court against the State of Arizona over SB 1070 because Arizona’s ability to fully implement SB 1070 will empower the state’s law enforcement officials to more effectively protect the residents of both Arizona and Oregon from the invasion of criminal aliens primarily from Mexico.
David Olen Cross of Salem (docfnc@yahoo.com) writes on the subjects of immigration and foreign national crime.
