Nine States(and the Mariana Islands)Have Arizona's Back

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Nine states (and the Mariana Islands) have Arizona’s back
By: BARBARA HOLLINGSWORTH
Local Opinion Editor
07/15/10 10:35 AM EDT

Nine states, including Virginia, have filed legal briefs in support of Arizona’s new immigration law, arguing that they have preexisting constitutional authority to enforce federal immigration laws within their borders. The filings add political gunpowder to a tense legal showdown between Arizona State officials and the U.S. Department of Justice, which has filed a lawsuit to stop the Arizona law from going into effect July 29.

The public overwhelming supports the Arizona law, which requires police officers to inquire about legal presence if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that people they’ve stopped for another offense are in the country unlawfully.

Even some Democratic governors questioned the Obama administration’s strategy at a private White House meeting last weekend. “Universally the governors are saying ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’ ” said Gov. Phil Bredesen, D-Tenn. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on.”

The amicus briefs point out that federal law already allows states to enforce immigration statutes. “While much of border enforcement is left to the federal government, federal law expressly allows states to arrest people who are not legally present in the United States. Arizona’s law doesn’t change any of this. That’s why we are stunned that the government has sued Arizona,” Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said.

Virginia is one of two states that has implemented the federal Secure Communities program statewide. The automated program uses biometric information sharing to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to identify any illegal alien arrested by local law enforcement. The program is currently in use in 336 jurisdictions in 22 states and has been credited with the deportation of more than 8,500 criminal aliens convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping and more than 22,500 convicted of lesser crimes.

Michigan State Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican who is running for governor, said “it is appalling to see President Obama use taxpayer dollars to stop a state’s efforts to protect its own borders.”

Virginia and Michigan were joined by Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

[NCTexan]

And our State Department just apologized for the "situation in AZ" to the Chinese!

 

The difference is that the guys behind the fence in the article are legal Chinese citizens in Beijing.

 

AP on Yahoo

 

Beijing starts gating, locking migrant villages

 

By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer Cara Anna, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 14, 12:31 pm ET

 

BEIJING – The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.

 

It's Beijing's latest effort to reduce rising crime often blamed on the millions of rural Chinese migrating to cities for work. The capital's Communist Party secretary wants the approach promoted citywide. But some state media and experts say the move not only looks bad but imposes another layer of control on the already stigmatized, vulnerable migrants.

 

So far, gates have sealed off 16 villages in the sprawling southern suburbs, where migrants are attracted to cheaper rents and in some villages outnumber permanent residents 10 to one.

 

"In some ways, this is like the conflict between Americans and illegal immigrants in the States. The local residents feel threatened by the influx of migrants," Huang Youqin, an associate professor of geography at the University at Albany in New York who has studied gating and political control in China, said in an e-mail. "The risk is that the government can control people's private life if it wants to."

 

The gated villages are the latest indignity for China's migrant workers, who already face limited access to schooling and government services and are routinely blamed by city folk for rising crime. Used to the hardship of the farm and the lack of privilege, migrants seem to be taking the new controls in their stride.

 

Jia Yangui said he accepts the new system as a trade-off for escaping farm work in the northern province of Shanxi. He arrived in Beijing less than two months ago and lives with a relative in one of the gated villages, Dashengzhuang. He sells oily pancakes just inside one of the gates.