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Obeying the law
We don’t like seeing our tax dollars used to subsidize illegal activities.
So we note with great interest the petition drive to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to place restrictions on state services provided to illegal immigrants.
And we also note the opposition of our governor to the proposal. Gov. Mike Beebe says the proposed law duplicates federal laws already on the books. His position is that more laws to do the same thing will do no good, and therefore we should not bother.
Well, we can certainly agree with the idea that redundant laws do nothing for anyone. Further, we agree with the underlying principle of limited government —”that government is best which governs least” — embodied in the governor’s stated opposition:
More laws for their own sake accomplish nothing except to detract from the credibility of the government enacting them. However, we believe the governor’s opposition to this restriction does not take into account the facts, as reported by an Associated Press story on page 4B of today’s paper.
For one thing, the initiative would require — as current law does not — determination of immigration status for in-state tuition at the University of Arkansas and the University of Central Arkansas.
So our tax dollars could effectively be subsidizing and even facilitating a person remaining illegally in our state and country.
In addition, federal law dictates no hospital in the country may deny emergency care to any patient for any reason: lives are at stake, by definition, in an emergent situation.
But there is currently nothing in any state law that says the Department of Health has to verify the immigration status of anyone receiving non-emergency services through that department.
That is, the state, through its health department, can take our tax dollars to facilitate a person remaining illegally in our state and country. That, as reported in the AP story, would change under the proposal: officials would have to verify the immigration status, most generally through the use of the Social Security number, before providing these non-emergency services.
We do not see what is so hard about obeying the laws of the land. Those of us who are here legally are not exempted from obeying all our laws; we do not get to pick and choose which laws we obey.
And to require everyone to obey all our laws, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or any other characteristic strikes us as a matter of equal protection under the law.
To do otherwise is to create, with whatever intentions, the Orwellian state of Animal Farm, in which “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
And at least at one time, our governor agreed with that idea. According to the AP story, Beebe issued an opinion as state attorney general in 2005 saying that giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition likely would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Which is just what we have said about more-equal-than-others.
We think Gov. Beebe had it right then. And we urge him to reconsider his opposition to this initiative, which calls for the same thing, now.
We get by in life through obeying the law. We just think everyone else should, too.
So we note with great interest the petition drive to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to place restrictions on state services provided to illegal immigrants.
And we also note the opposition of our governor to the proposal. Gov. Mike Beebe says the proposed law duplicates federal laws already on the books. His position is that more laws to do the same thing will do no good, and therefore we should not bother.
Well, we can certainly agree with the idea that redundant laws do nothing for anyone. Further, we agree with the underlying principle of limited government —”that government is best which governs least” — embodied in the governor’s stated opposition:
More laws for their own sake accomplish nothing except to detract from the credibility of the government enacting them. However, we believe the governor’s opposition to this restriction does not take into account the facts, as reported by an Associated Press story on page 4B of today’s paper.
For one thing, the initiative would require — as current law does not — determination of immigration status for in-state tuition at the University of Arkansas and the University of Central Arkansas.
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In addition, federal law dictates no hospital in the country may deny emergency care to any patient for any reason: lives are at stake, by definition, in an emergent situation.
But there is currently nothing in any state law that says the Department of Health has to verify the immigration status of anyone receiving non-emergency services through that department.
That is, the state, through its health department, can take our tax dollars to facilitate a person remaining illegally in our state and country. That, as reported in the AP story, would change under the proposal: officials would have to verify the immigration status, most generally through the use of the Social Security number, before providing these non-emergency services.
We do not see what is so hard about obeying the laws of the land. Those of us who are here legally are not exempted from obeying all our laws; we do not get to pick and choose which laws we obey.
And to require everyone to obey all our laws, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or any other characteristic strikes us as a matter of equal protection under the law.
To do otherwise is to create, with whatever intentions, the Orwellian state of Animal Farm, in which “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
And at least at one time, our governor agreed with that idea. According to the AP story, Beebe issued an opinion as state attorney general in 2005 saying that giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition likely would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Which is just what we have said about more-equal-than-others.
We think Gov. Beebe had it right then. And we urge him to reconsider his opposition to this initiative, which calls for the same thing, now.
We get by in life through obeying the law. We just think everyone else should, too.
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