PA loses...

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia shot down Hazleton, PA's local laws concerning businesses and landlords that knowingly do business with illegal aliens as unconstitutional yesterday.

This 2006 ordinance would have given the city the ability to revoke business licenses to owners that knowingly hire or rent property to illegal aliens within the city limits. I first read this decision in an article published in the USA Today (shockingly biased, by the way... check it out), and then went to some more regional, local sources (Hazleton is only 50 minutes from my front door) to see what was said.

I'm convinced that if anything is going to force a showdown between the Fed and the States, it is going to be illegal immigration into this country and how existing laws are enforced (or ignored). If findings such as the one handed down by the 3rd Circuit yesterday are the "justifiable" standard of American jurisprudence, then the Federal government will have no choice but to either enforce existing regulations and laws or do away with them entirely, in which case the States will, again, have a free hand in determining how best to deal with problems that effect them the most (such as Arizona or Texas).

I'm not sure I'm as much of a fan of "deregulation" in this area as I am of nearly complete reform of the enforcement system. I do feel that "quotas" (when it comes to immigration numbers) is a self-defeating prospect, though, and if someone wanting to immigrate to the US can show they have both a clean bill of health and no criminal background within their country of origin, then the process by which they become citizens should be far faster than it is now. Illegal immigrations only remains a problem as long as legal entry is more difficult than coming here illegally, and (by extension) when the consequences for entering illegally are less of a burden than the cost and effort of entering legally.

However, as I have said, illegal immigration is "illegal", and it is unfair and unjust (there is a difference) to ignore illegal activity on one hand but condemn it with the other. Thus, reform of the immigration system and the requirements of entry into the US may reduce the numbers of future illegal immigrants, it does nothing to address the question of the 11 to 22 million illegals already within the borders of the US right now.

With upwards of 70% of Americans siding with AZ on the issue of their immigration laws, it is the Democratic Party's choice to either heed or ignore that voice, and the results will be seen in the polls... either in 2010 or 2012. I have a strong feeling that greater numbers of legal immigrants to this country are far less of an danger to our culture and society (a claim raised loudly by those most opposed to "illegal" immigration from specific ethnic areas... i.e. Muslim nations or Spanish-speaking regions) than increasing numbers of illegal immigrants from any region or nation on earth. Certainly, the fiscal cost of such immigration will be far, far less.