Arizona Laws - The confusion and BS in pronouncements by elected representatives

by Graham Email

AZ State Senator Sylvia Allen has a lengthy Op-Ed in the Tuscon Citizen where she talks at length about SB1070 and why she supported it.
I am going to examine some of her statements in detail below. Here we go:

...Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way.

This is not illegal immigration. This is drug smuggling. This would be a serious felony even if the smugglers were U.S. Citizens. Already, Senator Allen is deliberately conflating two different concepts. None of the activities that she complains about in this paragraph of her op-ed has anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise.

One man told of two illegal’s who came upon his property one shot in the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the ranch and they can’t leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left when they come back.

I don't know about you, but I would be more impressed if Senator Allen could actually write the English language properly...there is at least one egregious grammatical and spelling error in each of those sentences.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal’s and 20% of Arizona prisons are filled with illegal’s.

Not according to the Center for Immigration Studies:

Analysis of data from State Criminal Alien Assistance Program showed that illegal immigrants were 11 percent of the state’s prison population

I am also struggling to see how the word "filled" is a viable word choice even if as many as 20% of the prison population is illegal immigrants. This reads like exaggerated BS.

The border can be secured. We have the technology and we have the ability to stop this invasion.

When big assertions are made in an article, I start looking for supporting evidence. There is none whatsoever. How can the USA secure a southern land border that is 1,933 miles long? 372.5 miles of that border are in Arizona. That's a lot of border to secure in a deeply inhospitable climatic region. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there is nothing being offered here to back up a claim that seems to me to be living somewhere between fantasyland and cloud-cuckooland.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding? The ACLU and the leftist courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it was an effort to try and stop illegal’s from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause, like a traffic stop, to determine if they are here legally.

This, to be blunt, is illiterate BS. Any time I see a paragraph that begins with a peurile ad hominem fallacy ("the leftist media") I know that in all probability I am about to enter a fact free zone. And...so it proves. Let's take this apart and see what we have:
"The leftist media"
Fallacy 1 - a juvenile ad hominem
"It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany"
Fallacy 2 - a strawman. Who said it was going to "set up a Nazi Germany"? Provide the accurate in-context cites to support this.
"Are you kidding?"
Fallacy 3 - argument from incredulity
"The ACLU and the leftist courts will do anything..."
Fallacy 4 - Ad hominem and a strawman combined. The ACLU has a track record of defending people right across the political spectrum. They defended Rush Limbaugh when the police tried a "fishing expedition" on him over possible prescription drug abuse.
"...and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause, like a traffic stop, to determine if they are here legally."
Multiple Fallacies, including the fallacy of False Dichotomy.
This is where I start to worry about Senator Allen's fundamental understanding of the law. A traffic stop is not probable cause for a check to determine if somebody is in the country legally. If I get stopped for speeding in Texas, the police will check that I have a valid drivers license, but the absence of a drivers license does not mean that I am in the country illegally. I might have a drivers license in another country and be here on business. That does not make me an illegal immigrant.
There is a slang term for these kinds of peripheral investigations of people stopped by law enforcement. It's called a fishing expedition, and it is illegal. It is (for example) illegal for a police officer to search your vehicle during a traffic stop, if the only reason for the stop is an alleged driving infraction. If he smells the odor of dope coming from the car, then he has probable cause to search the vehicle for possible illegal drugs, but if an officer decides he wants to search my car after stopping me for speeding, that is not a legal search because it is not backed up by any viable probable cause.

The Socialists who are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do something.The Socialists wants us to just let them come. They want the “Transformation” to continue.

What socialists are in power? And what is this "Transformation"?. Is this perhaps, some form of coded language that I am not familar with?
It is at this point that I become convinced that Senator Allen simply has no clue about the meanings of words. There are no socialists in the current Obama administration. In Europe, the Democratic party would be regarded as a highly capitalist and conservative party. There is a dictionary definition of socialism, and none of the major US political parties meet it in any way shape or form.
This is an example of argument by empty slogan. This part of the communication is a fact-free zone.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I can to protect our Constitutional Republic.

Oh purleeese...this is the worst kind of cheap rhetorical pearl-clutching. The only thing missing is a sniffing sound and the visuals of a flag being waved while Toby Keith plays in the background...

Living in America is not a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the Constitution, the law of our land, which says what you must do to be a citizen of this country. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

Good Lord...does Senator Allen have no damn clue about what is in the Constitution, and its purpose? The Constitution is the highest law of the land, it is not the only law. The Constitution does not lay down any rules about what you must do to be a citizen of the United States of America. Those rules are codified elsewhere in Federal Law (including the quite clear law about what constitutes a "natural born citizen", the law that a large number of people cannot read or understand).
Now, if Senator Allen had added the word "and" prior to the phrase "law of our land", that might have made this almost correct. In its current form, it is nonsensical.

Short Summary: this is a badly-written, poorly argued, incoherent, xenophobic rant. It jumps all over the place, it consists of a series of only tenuously-connected, poorly-structured thoughts, supplemented by bald assertions, and peurile ad hominems mixed with falsehoods and fear-mongering of the worst kind.
I would expect more from a State Senator, especially since one of my requirements of elected representatives is that they provide leadership. All leaders have an obligation to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Unfortunately, this op-ed reads like a spineless elected representative pandering to angry and frightened people. This is not the sort of leadership needed at any level of elected representation right now.
UPDATE - Some people commenting on Facebook on the 1807 Insurrection Act and the 1879 Posse Comitatus Act are suggesting that amendments to the 1807 act made in 2006 can be used to allow the National Guard or the US Army to patrol the borders with Mexico.
Alas, what those people failed to notice is that the 2006 amendments were repealed in 2008. Time for people to do some research before commenting...
UPDATE - It has been brought to my attention that Senator Allen also appears to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, according to a statement she made in the AZ state legislature chamber. With that ability to promote Young Earth Creationist dogma over settled science, it is little wonder that Senator Allen's article was, at times, close to a fact-free zone. She clearly regards facts as something for The Other Guys to worry about.