As TTAG has reported previously, Arizona is not waiting for the President of the United States to live up to his Constitutional obligation to protect America’s national borders. The Copper State is creating the Arizona State Guard (a.k.a., militia) to patrol its borders and take on the Mexican drug cartels operating within their territory. Click here for SB1083 which lays the groundwork for the new fighting force. Given Obama’s indifference towards the Mexican drug thugs (or, if you’ve been following our coverage of the ATF Fast & Furious scandal, his active collusion with the Sinaloans) and the DOJ’s de facto amnesty for illegal aliens, the move could ding the CIC’s reelection campaign. I wonder which rifles the Arizona State Guard will purchase . . .

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62 COMMENTS

  1. Newt has -not- declared himself in favor of an amnesty provision for illegals.

    Or, if you insist on calling what he has been in favor of an amnesty provision, then you really ought to be fair and call it a VERY NARROW amnesty provision.

    Newt, specifically has said that undocumented aliens with

    a) Family in the US — children or grandchildren
    b) a long history of employment and paying taxes
    c) not receiving government services
    d) with sponsorship by an unrelated family of US citizens

    could apply for permanent residency to be approved or disapproved by a local, community appointed board similar to the classic draft board. This with the provision of not deporting US Citizen’s grandmothers who have been in the country for 25 years and always had work.

    Ok, it’s a loophole, but it’s pretty damned small.

  3. wonder how this will work out when the federal courts get ahold of this. my guess, the courts will say the whole thing is an unconstituitional exercise in civil rights violations.

    • Courts like to throw out state immigration laws because the states have no immigration power under the Constitution. At the same time, courts like to uphold the police power of the states. So states will be allowed to police their borders, as long as they do so in a way that doesn’t trample the Supremacy Clause or the 4th Amendment.

      Good luck with that.

  6. This is a bill, not (yet, if ever) a law. “The Copper State is creating the Arizona State Guard…” – you’re jumping the gun, so to speak.

    • Every State has the statutory consent of Congress to maintain “other troops” under 32 USC 109 These are neither militia nor federal forces. The State power over the remainder of its unorganized militia, and National Guard when not in federal service is also valid.

      Florida State Defenses Forces Ch 251, Fla Stat. are the current embodiment of the oldest, continuous territorial military tradition in the country , tracing back to St. Augustine, nearly 450 years ago.

  9. If anything this is more of a strong message to the federal government to actually enforce its own sovereign powers. The current administration has largely ignored the drug and human trafficking along our borders. Perhaps a stronger message is that AZ should “deport” these folks to Washington DC or Berkeley, CA since they can’t formally send them back across the border.

    • I’m not sure where this idea comes from that the Obama administration is ignoring the problems along the border. I’m looking through documents from CBP about performance and finances and so far as I can tell, their budget and staffing levels continue to increase, and deportations have reached record levels.

      • budget and staffing levels continue to increase

        Of course. It’s a government agency. When do agency budgets and staffing NOT increase?

        deportations have reached record levels

        Yes, and deportations affect such a small fraction of the deluge of illegals that the rise can’t be considered anything except deportation theater to justify the increased budget and staffing levels of CBP.

        • So given that by all objective indications the Obama administration has devoted more resources and gotten more results along the southern border than any president in living memory, exactly where did you get this notion that they’re “ignoring problems along the border?”

  10. I always find it amazing, that history would dispute your story and the comments that this is all about Obama. Reagan (amnesty), Bush (41) did nothing about illegal immigration, Clinton also did nothing, Bush (43) did nothing, but passed a law to build the fence, which was never really built, well sort of , but was a disaster from the start. So unless all of these illegals came over since January 2009, it’s been a decades long problem that all parties have dropped the ball on.

    So do I agree that states need to maybe take a stand against illegals, you bet. But I fear another state run militia (and not the good kind) that is one step below our military and probably has more immunity than our military has.

    If states want to stop illegal immigration, than stop the jobs, schooling and healthcare, and when the magnet is gone, the illegals will also be gone!

    Let the slamming begin!

    • a) the drug war has already created a para-military police force with far more immunities than the US armed forces have. Including from what would likely qualify as war crimes, such as indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.

      b) any attempt to block services to illegals immigrants would bring Holder and a swarm of federal judges swooping in with injunctions and restraining orders.

      • Thanks for stating in a) what I was trying to say. As for b) I’d rather see them take away entitlements and fight it in court, then form another para-military group!

      • a) the drug war has already created a para-military police force with far more immunities than the US armed forces have. Including from what would likely qualify as war crimes, such as indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.

        Pull the plug on the Drug Lords by legalizing drugs.

        • I saw a quote attributed to Hillary Clinton last year that drugs can’t be legalized because there’s too much money involved.
          http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/07/hillary-clinton-we-cant-legali

          I suspect that not only are drug lords buying politicians, but there is an enormous bureaucracy that lives off of the drug war, as well as the suppliers of military equipment to the police and drug lords.

          Interestingly, among the biggest opponents of medical marjuana are the liquor and pharmaceutical industries. Same logic.

          I agree: end the drug war like we ended prohibition. But I’m not hopeful.

          • Really? You want to legalize cocaine and other narcotics? We don’t do well as a society with alcohol, what do you think legalizing cocaine would do?

        • The worst feature of the so-called war on drugs is the effect on relatively poor people. I have experience with folks across the spectrum. Rich folks and their kids don’t need to “deal” to afford their own weed, so they rarely get criminal records. It is otherwise for poorer people. I would point out, since this is a gun-oriented site, that many states provide for a maximum possible sentence of more than a year-and-a-day for misdemeanor marijuana offences. §922 of Title 18 removes gun rights from those people for the rest of their lives. The combination of the state drug laws and federal gun laws works an unholy disenfranchisement on the poor. I can assure those interested that economically substantial people violate the drug laws with great regularity, but they do not fear the law because they can afford to buy in very small quantities from “high end” discrete dealers. Are we all on-board with oppressing the poor? Is that an agreement dad never told me about? Yes, I’m aware that historically “the law in its majesty commands the rich and poor alike not to sleep under bridges.” But that is a French quote.

    • If states want to stop illegal immigration, than stop the jobs, schooling and healthcare, and when the magnet is gone, the illegals will also be gone!

      Sort of what Ron Paul was alluding to. Welfare state attracts the illegals.

      • Don’t worry. If Obama gets elected for a second term, he will make the US suck so much the illegals will be begging to hop that fence south.

    • If states want to stop illegal immigration, than stop the jobs, schooling and healthcare, and when the magnet is gone, the illegals will also be gone!

      Let the slamming begin!

      What’s to slam? Illegals don’t belong on the public teat.

      • Ralph, usually when I respond to an article and don’t walk the party line, the slamming begins!

        • If you’re alluding to the statement you made about the long line of presidents who have kissed illegal booty in order to get votes and money from the legals, I say again, what’s to slam? It’s undeniably true. But that doesn’t make Obama a good guy on the issue.

      • Taurus609 – I wholeheartedly agree that illegal immigration is a bipartisan problem.

        That said, the GOP is very timid about dealing with the issue – on one hand there is the business interests who are on board with the downward wage pressure being applied to our labor market, but also the fear of being called racist.

        The media, the academy, the whole Democrat party and a third of the GOP will come down like a ton of race-baiting bricks on a candidate or official for taking a hard line.

  11. Legalize the damn drugs already. Saves a lot of money and lives. And generates a lot of tax money. People who want to get high are going to get high.

    • The violence contributed to the border is not only about drugs, and legalizing drugs will degrade our country more than our issues with Mexico

      • What do you think it’s about? Alcohol prohibition fueled a huge amount of violence which evaporated when it was lifted. A similar effect will happen when we lift drug prohibition. When cocaine costs a few dollars a kilo rather than a few million, there won’t be nearly the same incentive to kill over it.

        Also, competitors in legal markets settle disputes with contracts, courts, and lawyers. Competitors in illegal markets do it with guns, knives, and bombs. When was the last time you heard of a whiskey distributor gunning another down over market share? It used to happen all the time. It happens all the time with illegal drugs.

        • How would our country be worse off? I don’t do drugs now, not because they’re illegal, but because I don’t want to. If they became legal, I wouldn’t rush out to do them and neither would the majority of people who don’t do drugs already.

          Did the country turn to shit after alcohol prohibition was repealed? No, it got less violent.

          • It’s hard to argue that one. The problem with this is that many people falsely assume that just because an action is illegal, no one will do it; whereas the converse that just because something is legal, everyone will do it. This is the whole broken premise gun control is based upon.

          • I don’t know, those Faces of Meth pictures are really quite enticing. I think I may have to give it a shot when legal so I can scratch off my skin and lose my teeth.

            • LOL. Cigarettes are legal yet I don’t smoke. I guess by some peoples’ assumptions everyone is a chain smoker or alcoholic.

      • A key difference between alcohol and the drugs that are now illegal is their ability to be used in moderation.

        One can consume beer, wine and spirits in modest amounts and not become intoxicated. Not true with pot, coke or heroin. There is no “moderate” level of consumption.

        I do not know what this means as it pertains to the effect on society should we legalize them.

        I will say this, while prohibition certainly spawned organized crime, I have never heard anyone say how organized crime was worse than the social ills of alcoholism, the plague that prohibition attempted to address.

        • Amen, brother. The legalize drugs argument is short – sighted at best. Meth and cocaine don’t get used in moderation. Ever. Tour the off-ramps in LA if you disagree.

          • I hate to break it to folks, but pill poppers are far more violent than ANY OTHER DRUG abusers out there. One only has to live in Florida to see the countless numbers of “pain clinics.” Junkies will flat out tell you they come down here in droves because of the easily accessible LEGAL pills. Most of these pill mills have long lines and armed security with most of the clientele dressed and looking like they can barely afford to eat let alone pop roxys and oxys.

            Having dealt with pill poppers, crackheads, cokeheads, meth-heads, and pot smokers firsthand; I can honestly say that someone coming off a biochemically engineered high is far more dangerous and capable of far more violence than your typical street junkie. The problem is that pill poppers are replacing the taditional street junkie.

            Just remember that these pills are engineered to be bioavailable to your body whereas cocaine (and its derivatives) are typically of unknown purity and from a natural substance that just happens to cause side effect in the human body.

          • Then look at it as natural selection in action. If you are dumb enough to knowingly put something into your body that is made from drain cleaner and end up on the off-ramps of LA waiting to die, then good bye.

        • Right, because drugs must always be taken in the same sized dose, just like you’re forced to drink the same amount of alcohol every time you drink. *rolls eyes*

          Seriously, your arguments for pushing your personal morality on other get more and more ridiculous.

  13. The citizens of Arizona and Texas should just follow the lead of the no good COMMIE states and allow themselves to be invaded and destroyed. I’ll never understand why they would ever consider protecting their borders from the poor misunderstood illegals.

    • The illegals have already won the battle of the border. The rest is just a show, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

      • There is a rarely acknowledge problem with immigration. We focus on the Mexicans, but there are a number of ethnic and religious groups who deeply wish to keep immigration as an option in case disaster strikes their homelands again. Add these people to those who make a buck on the backs of competitive good-work-ethic illegals, and you’ve got a large voting block to deal with. I once wrote to my (once upon a time) Republican senator, Arlen Specter, on the issue of illegal immigration. He wrote a nice letter pointing out that Pennsylvania business needs a reliable workforce. I was stunned. I live just a few miles from a Philadelphia neighborhood with 45% unemployment. Where on earth (I ask rhetorically) are the black politicians on the issue of illegal labor? I’ve just been shunted into Congressman Chakka Fattah’s district, seriously, because my own republicans decided my neighbors have become unreliably liberal. Ouch.
        (This has become Shakespeare week. That can only be good.)

  14. People are saying to legalize drugs?

    With that will come tighter gun laws, and I will have to defend my house from meth zombies. There is a reason drugs are illegal.

  15. Set aside your demographic anxiety for a moment, and consider the problem rationally. Illegal immigrants (like illegal drugs, actually) are the expression of the Free Market at work. And we all worship the Free Market, right? Seriously, we can’t build a big enough fence, but it would be easy to enforce existing laws against hiring undocumented workers. Sure, some will still pay cash under the table, but that’s not doable for bigger businesses, like meat packing plants, etc.

    Republicans love to stir up a bunch of racist fear around this issue, but neither party intends to do anything about it, because the status quo is perfect for business – keep the Mexicans “illegal” in order to suppress wages, but don’t actually enforce laws that would prevent them from working. As an added bonus, Repubs can gin up a bunch of racist hysteria to get more lower and middle class white votes.

    Personally, I say open the border, let things equalize a bit. Make sure that people are working legally. Severely punish employers who are knowingly hiring illegal workers. Of course, no one will get a huge government contract to build a fence.

    • Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans are not a “race.” There is no such thing as a “Hispanic.” (Ask a Mexican in Mexico “are you Hispanic?”) Those who object to our porous borders see it as a problem of national identity, not race. Those who support illegal immigration play the race card for their own advantage.

      • Fair point. Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as race. Even Africans, or Jews, by golly. We’re all just human, in spite of what the many openly bigoted contributors to this site might posit.

        Seriously, the Irish (about half of me) were considered criminal and inferior for decades, until there were Italians, and then others to pick on. Solid Japanese-American citizens were rounded up and put into camps (and their excellent farm land expropriated).

        You are a card carrying member of the Tribes. Shall we evict the Jews?

        You see the porous borders as a problem of national identity. That’s exactly what I meant by “demographic anxiety.”

        I am not a proponent of illegal immigration. But I sympathize with illegal immigrants. If my family was starving, and I could fix that problem by breaking laws that Mexico wasn’t bothering to enforce, I’d do it.

        If we’re serious about illegal immigration, we’ll make it hard for employers to employ these desperate people. You and I both know that ain’t going to happen.

        National identity? We better figure out what that is and sell it hard.

  16. “Arizona State Guard”

    I believe that these state organizations which won’t get funding cannot be later controlled and ordered about like the Feds can the National Guard.

  17. SB1083, a bill to establish, fund, arm, and organize the Arizona State Guard to deploy on our southern border, will definitely pass.

    This bill is legal, it is Constitutional, and it is backed by significant historical precedent. SB1083 follows the federal law contained in US Code Title 32, that authorizes states to establish what are referred to generally as “State Defense Forces”:

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode32/usc_sec_32_00000109—-000-.html

    There are 22 other states, plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, who have already established their State Defense Forces. Among these are California, Texas, and New Mexico. Arizona is the only southern border state that has not yet established their State Defense Force.

    The Arizona Senate Staff has prepared an excellent Summary and Fact Sheet about SB1083:

    http://www.azleg.gov//FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/50leg/2r/summary/s.1083approp_bsfss.doc.htm&Session_ID=107

    Our group has done extensive research into the State Defense Force concept and we have collected dozens of white papers, monographs, and articles. Not one of these opposes the establishment of SDFs. On the contrary, every one of these fully supports and endorses the concept. Anyone can review these articles by visiting the “References” page on our website at http://www.azsdf.org .

    The bill received a “do pass” recommendation from the Senate Border Security Committee on Thursday 26 January 2012. Everyone should take a few minutes and listen to Senator Frank Antenori’s 6-minute monologue about why the State Guard will actually work for Arizona:

    http://azleg.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=13

    Senator Antenori’s comments begin at about the 2:20:30 mark. Everyone who loves this nation should take a few minutes to hear this.

    SB1083 will be passed. A State Guard for Arizona is now an inevitability.

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