Tucson Weekly arts editor Margaret Regan, author of The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands, weighs in on SB 1070 in the Washington Post:
If the law survives the expected legal challenges, SB 1070 will clog the courts and the jails, and tangle the state in turf disputes with the federal government. It could dump migrants back over the line into the Mexican border towns already struggling to cope with the murderous onslaught of the drug cartels.
Worst of all, the new law will do nothing to solve Arizona’s real and pressing border problems: It addresses neither the growing violence of drug smugglers nor the escalating deaths of migrants who are coming to the United States only to work or re-unite with their families. It does nothing to prevent the loss of another Krentz or another Aroldo.
Read the whole thing here.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.
I agree with Regan on the impact this will have on our jails. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was stating this same concern of filling up the jails recently. Sheriff Joe? Well…
Putting people in jail costs money. Things that cost money are bad for our current budget. On first blush from a fiscal aspect, the bill will cost taxpayers if effectively enforced.
I would be interested in knowing the statistics on what percentage of illegal immigrants commit felony crimes. I would want to know this to help judge whether jail costs will skyrocket, and how many commit other crimes already.
I should clarify on my last paragraph: I would be interested in knowing what percentage of illegal immigrants already go to jail for other crimes. I suspect it would be low compared to the droves of illegal immigrants that would be jailed if this bill is effectively enforced.
Probably the most effective way to put the Pearce/Brewer/Maricopland fund raiser aka SB 1070 down is on pure constitutional grounds, in Federal courts, including USA Supreme Court if it comes to that. That doesn’t mean SB1070 is rational in other ways: as one would expect, SB 1070 is a dysfunctional move in a profoundly dysfunctional state. Complaints that SB 1070 will make any given TPD cop’s job more difficult, or that it will increase Pima County costs, though valid, are not likely to be of more than passing interest to competent jurists.
In a rare spasm of insight and intellect, Tucsoncitizen.com‘s Mark Evans wrote a couple of pieces…
“Tearing up the Constitution is no way to combat illegal immigration”
at:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/mark-evans/archiv…
and,
“Key part of SB 1070 not likely to be a law for long”
at:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/mark-evans/archiv…
I find it ironic that a State Legislature that considers illegal immigrants to be an unfunded Federal mandate has decided to just shift the costs to local governments and this is considered a bold move. It’s not bold: it’s simply another example of conservatives throwing a tantrum if they can’t get their way while simultaneously being unwilling to do any actual work.