Illegal immigration is a crisis that threatens the very sovereignty of our nation. While the United States is a nation of immigrants, it is also a nation of laws, governed by a constitution that gives the federal government authority to regulate citizenship. The American government is only responsible to Americans; it bears no legal or moral burden to aliens that, having willfully defied the law, demand respect and accommodation at the expense of naturalized citizens. The federal government has the right to seal the borders to all immigrants or open the borders to unlimited immigration, but in either case, aliens that do not follow the legal naturalization process possess no legal or constitutional rights. No matter the contribution of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants presently residing within the United States, their presence represents a failure of the federal government to fulfill one of its basic responsibilities. Arizona’s newest immigration law simply enforces the law, something the government should have been doing all along.

Contrary to the misinformation propagated by the Left and its media parrots, the Arizona law is neither stringent nor discriminatory. The legislation restates federal law by making it illegal in the state of Arizona to be an alien not registered with the government. It bans sanctuary cities, which the federal government already prohibits, and allows citizens to sue those cities that fail to enforce immigration law. Furthermore, it allows the police to detain criminals when there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal aliens.

But just to make sure there was no confusion, the Arizona law was written with explicit prohibitions against the use of racial profiling in stopping or detaining a potential illegal alien. Law enforcement can only detain a person reasonably suspected of breaking immigration law after having already stopped him for other criminal activity. In addition, such suspicion can be quickly and easily clarified by producing simple documentation, such as a green card or driver’s license. This is not a novel regulation, as federal law dating back to 1940 requires that aliens possess registration documents or face a penalty. The Arizona government is not introducing revolutionary legislation, but rather punishing lawbreakers who have been freely violating the rules of our civil society.

President Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration law has brought the state of Arizona to its knees. Drug cartel violence has turned its border regions into virtual war-zones. Kidnappings by illegals involved in the drug trade have made the city of Phoenix the kidnapping capital of the world, second only to Mexico City. Illegal workers, hired by American companies in order to avoid minimum wage laws and other regulations, have created an artificial scarcity of jobs and made it difficult for American citizens to find work during a time of economic recession. The federal government’s incompetence has created an unsustainable crisis, and they have left the state governments with no recourse but to act on their own. If the President of the United States will not defend our sovereignty, perhaps the state of Arizona will.

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