Officials in a Mexican border town are weighing their options for dealing with the large number of migrants that they expect to see returning to Mexico as Arizona’s employer sanctions law takes hold.The officials in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico, across the border from San Luis, Ariz., are looking at the possibility of establishing a city-run assistance center for repatriated immigrants, said Mayor Ruben Espino. They’re also looking at an alternative idea of allocating city funds for the city’s existing Casa del Migrante, an immigrant shelter also under city jurisdiction, Espino said.
The mayor said he would prefer to put more funding into the existing shelter since that would appear to be less costly than creating and staffing an assistance center. Espino said the city will need financial assistance from Mexico’s federal government to handle the anticipated influx of immigrants, who sometimes remain homeless in cities across the border from the United States after their deportations. Espino and officials in other Mexican border cities have predicted the Arizona law will cause a reverse wave of migration.
Under the law, which took effect Jan. 1, businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants could have their licenses suspended for up to 10 days.
Second-time violators would have their business licenses permanently revoked.
Hallelujah! It’s about damned time. Now, maybe the other 49 states will pick up the slack.
In response to Arizona finally enforcing U.S. law, the south-of-the-border pissants sent a gaggle of ‘delegates’ to Arizona to whine about the consequences:
A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to say Arizona’s new employer sanctions law will have a devastating effect on the Mexican state.
At a news conference, the legislators said Sonora – Arizona’s southern neighbor, made up of mostly small towns – cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers here return to their hometowns without jobs or money.
Well, let’s see….if Mexico had taken some responsiblity for developing economic opportunities for their own people and used Bubba Clinton’s 1995 $50 Billion bailout for something other than propping up it’s kakistocracy, they might already have some housing, jobs, and schools.
The law, which took effect Jan.1, punishes employers who knowingly hire individuals who don’t have valid legal documents to work in the United States. Penalties include suspension or loss of a business license.
Its intent is to eliminate or curtail the top draw for immigrants to this country – jobs.The Mexican delegation, members of Sonora’s 58th Legislature, belong to the National Action Party (PAN), the party of Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón.
They spoke at the offices of Project PPEP, a nonprofit that provides job retraining for farmworkers and other programs.
The lawmakers were to travel to Phoenix for a Wednesday breakfast meeting with Hispanic legislators.They want to tell them how the law will affect Mexican families on both sides of the border.
“How can they pass a law like this?” asked Mexican Rep. Leticia Amparano Gamez, who represents Nogales.
You know how they can pass laws like this? Because it’s another step in enforcing the Federal Statutes of our country. Calderón, like his predecessor Vincente Fox, wants to dictate what our immigration laws are and how they will be applied.
“There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona,” she said in Spanish.
Translation: There isn’t one illegal alien residing in Arizona that isn’t sending money home to their relatives and freinds in Mexico.
“Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems” it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and sending money to their families return to hometowns in Sonora without jobs, she said.
If they legally obtained those jobs in Arizona, there would be no problem.
“We are one family, socially and economically,” she said of the people of Sonora and Arizona.
Uh no, you’re not. You’ve unloaded your indigents, uneducated, and criminal debris across our border like stray animals.
The trouble is that none of you; Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and all other points South, never expected Americans to get fed up with the illegal tresspass, increase in vicious crimes, the burden on our health care system, and the government giving you benefits you’re neither entitled to, nor have you earned.
“What do we do with the repatriated?” he asked. “As Mexicans, we are worried. They are Mexicans but they are also people – fathers and mothers and young people with jobs” who won’t have work in Sonora.”
You dumped them off on us, we’re sending them back. The “Mexicans are people,too” job issue is your problem.
He said the Arizona law will lead to “disintegration of the family,” as one “legal” Mexican parent remains in Arizona and the other returns to Mexico.
Tough. The days of tolerating the ‘anchor baby’ tactic and bringing your illegal spouse with you, are over.
Gov. Janet Napolitano, in her State of the State speech Monday, said the new law needs some modifications, including a better definition of what constitutes a complaint.
Here’s what constitutes a complaint, Napolitano: Hiring people that do not have valid INS documents permitting them to live and work in this country. It’s pretty cut and dry. Keep in mind, that this is the elected official who opposed Proposition 200, which denies welfare benefits to illegals and was approved by voters. She also favors allowing illegal immigrants to receive state driver’s licenses. In 2005, she vetoed measures requiring valid identification to receive government services and to vote, and making English the official state language.
Her reasoning for lax enforcement? She defers the responsibility of securing the border and dealing with immigration problems as a “federal issue” in conjuction with Mexican economic development and enforcement on their side.
Well, The federal government has finally been shoved into action by angry citizens, but it’s still a legal obligation of state and local authorities to follow and administrate federal law. A criminal who violates federal statute is just as guilty regardless of where they are in the continental U.S. As for Mexican border cooperation and economic improvement, don’t hold your breath.
Barrett Marson, director of communications for the Arizona House of Representatives, said Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, “has some concerns about how the law will be administered and applied.”
He said the speaker sought testimony from the business community last fall “to get ideas about how to make following the law easier. In the end, that’s what he wants – compliance, but make it as easy as possible to do.”Marson said Weiers is “waiting for the governor to come out with her idea of what she wants to do” before he makes his own recommendations.
Link: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/74193.php
There are a lot of immigrants from different countries, who are here legally and they’re sick of footing the bill for those who are not. Aren’t law-abiding immigrants angry at being scrutinized because of those countrymen who have no respect for the law or others?
Forget Napolitano’s “recommendations”, listen to your own citizenry.