It’s amazing what a sensible law can accomplish — if the people who are subject to it know that it will be enforced.
Arizona lawmakers recently passed a bill to require law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably believe is in this country illegally, once they have stopped that person for some legitimate reason. The law was a response to the multimillion-dollar cost to Arizona taxpayers of providing social services to illegal aliens and fighting the criminal activity in which some illegals engage.
Here is the interesting part: The law does not even take effect until the end of July, but already it is having beneficial effects for Arizona.
The Arizona Republic newspaper reported that Arizona’s law is driving illegal aliens out of the state. Some are leaving for Mexico, while others are heading to states that do not have a tough law similar to Arizona’s.
Why? Because they know that Arizona legislators and no-nonsense Gov. Jan Brewer mean business and intend to see that the law is enforced.
The early success of Arizona’s law has its critics scrambling. They hope the Obama administration’s plan to sue to stop the Arizona law from taking effect will keep other states from following Arizona’s lead and enacting their own laws.
Unfortunately, the administration has done little to enforce existing federal laws against illegal immigration, or to seal our border with Mexico, so the states have little choice but to take action on their own. States that enact — and enforce — laws similar to Arizona’s can expect to have the same benefit.