States have the authority to enforce immigration laws and protect their borders, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox said Wednesday in a legal brief on behalf of nine states supporting Arizona's immigration law.
Cox, one of five Republicans running for Michigan governor, said Michigan is the lead state backing Arizona in federal court and is joined by Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia, as well as the Northern Mariana Islands.
Because the NMI has a really porous border, you see, and hordes of Messicans swimming ashore, walking straight out of the water and right into jobs that Marianians won't do.
The Arizona law, set to take effect July 29, directs officers to question people about their immigration status during the enforcement of other laws such as traffic stops and if there's a reasonable suspicion they're in the U.S. illegally.
President Barack Obama's administration recently filed suit in federal court to block it, arguing immigration is a federal issue. The law's backers say Congress isn't doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it's the state's duty to step up.
"Arizona, Michigan and every other state have the authority to enforce immigration laws, and it is appalling to see President Obama use taxpayer dollars to stop a state's efforts to protect its own borders," Cox said in a statement.
Something is appalling, all right.
The brief doesn't represent the first time Cox has clashed with the Obama administration. Earlier this year, he joined with more than a dozen other attorneys general to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of federal health care changes signed into law by the Democratic president.
Like with his stance on health care, the immigration brief again puts Cox at odds with Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Granholm, who can't seek re-election because of term limits, disagrees with the Arizona law, her press secretary Liz Boyd said. The Michigan primary is less than three weeks away on Aug. 3.
"It's a patently political ploy in his quest for the Republican nomination for governor," Boyd said.
Michigan will probably elect this miserable TeaBagger, and so BS like this will continue into Obama's second term even after the SCOTUS rules Arizona's law unconstitutional.
It's people like Cox -- and the rest of his ilk -- that could make me ashamed to be an American. If I actually thought that their POV had a chance to become a majority one, that is.
Honestly though, if this sort of thing doesn't motivate Latinos to turn out in November all across the land, I shudder to think what would it would take.
