Arizona’s illegal immigrants in for a “bad day”.

Today’s front page of the Arizona Daily Star headlines the arrest of 68 individuals involved in the smuggling of illegal immigrants into the country. It also appears to have been picked up by the Associated Press and went out across the country. As one follows along the events as they emerge you abruptly run into the never ending barrage of criticism from civil rights groups, advocates and defenders. Sooner or later the ACLU will drop by to put in their two cents worth. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized about $10 million worth of assets including several weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Noted comments were that the raid was “an intimidating tactic” meant to “put fear into the Hispanic community”. One observer called the raid a disgusting “perp walk” and was quoted as saying “ I hope they are ashamed of themselves”. I confess, I had to look up the definition of a perp walk and found that it refers to the police practice of parading arrested suspects. Join with me and lets go back over the past few years and briefly recall all of the incidents involving crimes of illegal immigrants. I will name a few and you can take it from there. Most recently of course is the murder of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz. Surely your recall the almost weekly stories of vehicle rollovers involving the smuggling of illegals. I could go on and on, but you get the message, right?

I congratulate the ICE people for their actions yesterday and hope that the tactic did, in fact, put fear into those who watched. Maybe seeing more “perp walks” and the confiscation of the vehicles and weapons will start to have an effect on the depredation of innocent people. However, I note in the editorial section that “Our View”, meaning the newspaper, is opposed to the new legislation that allows law enforcement officers the right to verify an individuals immigration documents. There are pros and cons on this issue just like everything else. So weigh in and let both the Star and your legislators know what you think. For what it’s worth, I like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, need I say more?

Moving right along I see that Arizona’s unemployment rate crept up to 9.6% for March. Interesting note is the fact that government and education/healthcare were the only categories of the 11 listed to rise or remain level. Same old story folks, “raise taxes and grow the government” and we’re not alone.

In looking at statistics from the Arizona Commerce Department I note that as of April 1^st 2010, there were 1,356,424 Arizona residents enrolled in AHCCCS programs. This is an increase of 159,751 (or 13.3%) over a year ago and a 25.6% increase since the beginning of the economic downturn in December 2007. With the current population hovering around 6.6 million it would appear that approximately 21%, or 1 out of 5 residents are on taxpayer provided healthcare. Wonder how many are illegal immigrants?

Alright all you complainers, bitchers and procrastinators, take the offense(the “verb”) or offense(the “noun”) and at least write your legislators and either support “em or trash em”.