Just as oral arguments wrapped up at the U.S. Supreme Court over SB 1070, Arizona's controversial immigration-enforcement law that essentially criminalizes an undocumented immigrant's presence in Arizona, Congressman Paul Gosar made an appearance on MSNBC.
Gosar is running for a seat in Arizona's conservative Fourth Congressional District against embattled Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and state Senator Ron Gould.
During the interview, he said that SB 1070 was necessary because we have a set of laws the U.S. government is not enforcing.
The network reported the "Supreme Court appears ready to uphold part of Arizona's controversial immigration law, which would allow some of the measures currently blocked by lower courts to be enforced."
Based on comments during Wednesday's oral arguments on the case, even some of the court's liberal justices seemed to find no strong objection to the most controversial part of the law, which requires local police to check on the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest.The state appeared to have a tougher time defending two other provisions of the law that are now blocked: making it a state crime to have no federal immigration papers and making it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to look for work. Neither is currently a federal crime.
When Gosar was asked about whether the law would lead to racial profiling, Gosar dismissed those concerns as people "unknowledgeable about the bill," and that it "absolutely doesn't allow racial profiling."
He obviously is unaware about the way that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made use of such laws -- in fact, he brags about going to specifically going after Mexicans out of spite.
On Monday, New Times' writer Ray Stern wrote:
After critics including local politicians and officials with the U.S. Justice Department "went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite," said Arpaio. A couple of days ago, he clarified for the Associated Press that he only regretted not mentioning that he had busted "thousands," and not just 500.Arpaio has been accused of leading the worst case of racial profiling in a law enforcement agency in U.S. history. The Justice Department, which announced the damning findings against the Sheriff's Office in December, appears ready to sue Arpaio for failing to cooperate in settling the matter.
Out of spite.
MSNBC also interviewed Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez who said that SB
"We can't have different immigration laws implemented across the country. We need comprehensive immigration reform," he said.
He noted that 1 million immigrants have been deported in the last three years, and that there were more resources at the border than ever before.
"What they want is to exploit a politics issue," he said.
Governor Jan Brewer spoke briefly outside of the courthouse, and she has obviously been practicing her sound bites.
Sort of.
After praising the lawyers who argued the case on behalf of Arizona, she said: "We have done the very best job we can do for the people of Arizona to supper the rule of law."
We all remember her tragically embarrassing mangling of the English language during a debate with her gubernatorial opponents ... when she said ... well, it's worth watching again.