Arizona have the right approach to illegal immigration
July 6th, 2010 at 02:45pm
OK, so maybe I will mention immigration policies today…just not domestic policies at this time, not until later tonight anyway.
I was very pleased to see Arizona enforcing federal laws earlier this year about illegal immigration, and was hardly surprised when various federal authorities tried to stop them. It really says a lot about the supporters of illegal immigration in the Obama regime that they would rather not be seen to support illegal immigration by doing something obvious such as repealing the laws about it, but would rather just have it happen quietly and illegally by trying to stop others from enforcing the law.
I was even more pleased overnight to spot a good idea from a Republican candidate about how to handle the illegal immigrants who have already set up camp.
Ratcheting up the debate over immigration in his state, a candidate for the Arizona utilities commission is threatening to cut off power and gas to illegal immigrants if he’s elected.
“It is not a right. It is a service,” Barry Wong, candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission, told The Arizona Republic.
The Republican candidate argues that the policy would be a cost-saving measure for consumers.
Though it would cost money for power companies to check immigration status, he said it would ultimately save money because power companies would not have to build new plants to serve the illegal immigrant community, presumably passing on that savings to consumers. His plan, if elected to the five-person commission, would be to require utilities to check immigration status.
“There is a cost ratepayers shouldn’t have to bear because of the illegal immigrant population,” he said, while acknowledging the idea would probably attract “criticism about human-rights violations.”
[..]
Wong, who was born in the United States, is the son of Chinese immigrants. He previously served in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Note that last bit. He’s descended from people who immigrated legally. The whole point about the illegal immigration debate both here in Australia, and abroad in places such as the US, is that there are legal ways to immigrate, and there are extremely good reasons why we have these rules and procedures in place. Genuine refugees are a different kettle of fish, but people who are simply illegal immigrants do not, and should not, have the right to access public facilities, be it power or other things.
If you shouldn’t be in a country, then you have no right to expect access to the various bits of the country simply because you managed to sneak in.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials
2 Comments
1. mick | July 7th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
So, those 1.15% of immigrants that have no choice but to come via boat because they can’t wait the 10 years processing time to come in legally should have to endure further humanitarian atrocities by being stuck in an off-shore immigration processing plant until their refugee status is granted anyway?
People really have no idea.
2. Samuel | July 8th, 2010 at 2:30 am
The vast majority of people who arrive by boat are not refugees, but instead are “economic migrants” who could come via legal means, but choose to circumvent the system. These people clog up our system to the detriment of legitimate refugees…not to mention the fact that they in many cases pay people smugglers for their assistance in getting them here.
If we didn’t have so many “economic migrants” arriving on our shores illegally, it would be much easier to process the claims of legitimate refugees. It would also allow us to spend more time granting asylum to legitimate refugees who are currently in refugee camps abroad.
The Rudd/Gillard policies are large responsible for the massive increase in arrivals of “economic migrants”. To discourage these arrivals, we need to find our way back to something along the lines of the Howard era policies. At the moment Tony Abbott’s proposed policies are more likely to dissuade economic migrants than Julia Gillard’s policies, but I think we’ll see both policies evolve to some extent between now and the election.