State Sen Mike Delph suggests AZ-like immigration law
In a rambling “Guest Commentary” for the Times of Northwest Indiana, State Senator Mike Delph (R-Carmel) argues for an Arizona-like racial profiling immigration enforcement law in Indiana:
Until we have an administration and a Congress willing to take control of this situation, it will be up to the states to exercise the rights granted to them in federal law as Arizona has done.
Of course, Delph glosses over the questions about the constitutionality of such a law, the problems with racial profiling, and the resistance of law enforcement to this kind of law.
He also trumps up the problems in Arizona, ignores the taxes that undocumented immigrants pay, and never suggests increased enforcement against businesses that employ undocumented workers.
At a time when Indiana’s economy is struggling, and our unemployment rate at or exceeding the national average, he ignores the damage that’s been done to Arizona’s economy by boycotts brought on by SB 1070. A bill like this could even threaten Indiana’s chance of hosting the Super Bowl. We all know the league moved the 1993 game over protests about Arizona’s refusal to acknowledge the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.
But I guess it will go farther than Delph’s previous attempt at immigration laws – which “have never won the Legislature’s approval“. Even if this bill doesn’t get out of committee, it will probably get him 30 seconds on Fox News. As Tony Barreda, chairman of the Community Coalition for Immigrants, told the Times, it’s “pure, unadulterated political posturing.”