Proposition 187 in California is hardly more than than a blip in the real confrontation we are facing with the federal government. This referendum is to end the federal government's forcing the states to provide state welfare benefits to people in violation of federal law, specifically illegal aliens. As states can not establish immigration laws nor enforce the federal laws, the states are acting at the mandated will of the federal government to give benefits to violators of federal law.
This is in no way different from mandating the states provide all state benefits to federal prisoners housed within the states. Think of the money it would save the federal government were all federal prisoners to be put on medicaid. Consider the savings from having their "housing" subsidized by rent supplements. And were prisoners to give food stamps to prisoners it would save the federal government enormous amounts of money.
And in requiring states to give benefits to aliens in violation of federal law the federal government is acting no differently. It is also no different from requiring the states to provide defense attorney's to those indicted for federal crimes when the trial is to be in their state. Not only that but while we are at it, why not require the states to provide suitable and free housing for those arrested for federal crimes in those states?
The issue here is very clear. The states are being required to pay people, support people, provide near eternal benefits to people who are in direct violation of federal law. It is not as though we are talking about drug smugglers who could simply be arrested and put away at government expense. These are violators who are permitted to continue to live in the country at mandated state expense.
Of course some of them do work for a living and pay sales tax and all the other direct and hidden taxes of the states but then if those are mitigating factors why does it not mitigate the sentence of those who take a few shots at the president? You and I certainly do our best to avoid violating federal law and we do not justify doing so by saying we pay state taxes. Yet that "defense" has been presented on more than one news report.
This issue goes beyond California. Florida was the first and then joined by California and Texas in suing the federal government for the cost of supporting these violators of federal law. It was only in late September this year that US District Judge Edward Davis held the case could go to trial. Florida argues forcing Florida to pay for the health and education expenses of those in violation of federal law is the same as "commandeering the state's resources." "The abdication by the United States of its policy has unleashed a flood of undocumented aliens upon this state, and the state has to deal with them because they're here."
The best response the federal government could come up with was, blaming the Immigration and Naturalization Service because some illegal immigrants escape detection is akin to blaming the police for not catching every criminal. This simply ignores the is not of catching them but paying for those who are known to be in violation of federal law and to whom the federal government will do nothing much less send them back where they came from.
But does not "sending them back where they came from" sound a bit racist? Perhaps, but a completely non-racist sounding statement is to put them in prison for ten years or so as a penalty for violating our immigration laws. Let those whose hearts bleed take their choice of penalties but remember, their children will still be sent back without parents.
There are serious reasons to accept the concept of nations without borders worldwide and I accept them completely. What I do not accept is the extension of the social safety net to non-citizens. That is primarily as I am against the social safety net in the first place but if it exists then there must be limits to it. Without such limits we have the classic example of migration between the states of the United States where people will move for the best welfare benefits.
The only social benefit the US was founded upon was opportunity not medical care -- medical care the current administration says middle class working Americans can not afford. The US was certainly not founded upon free education in the language of one's parents particularly when those parents are in criminal violation of federal law.
No matter how the heart bleeds for the children their parents are unindicted federal felons toward whom the federal government has taken a "catch as catch can" attitude toward prosecuting and the penalty for being caught it deportation not hard time which is extraordinarily lenient.
It is not as though the federal government did not declare an amnesty for these federal criminals some six years ago. As with all amnesties they can not be held annually. Personally, I encouraged the good workers to take advantage of it. Few did.
These people are adults and that they have dragged their children into a criminal activity is not my concern. It is not my concern that the children of the CIA spy Ames are suffering at this very moment. Ames violated federal law. The criminal parents of these illegal children are violating federal law. They deserve no better treatment.
Every attempt has been made to deal with these illegals in a civilized manner short of declaring open borders forever. It is time the states took a stand and to hell with the federal government.