Tancredo: Amnesty Agenda Exposed

May Day is a traditional day of celebration for Marxists and leftists around the world. The Soviet Union used to have a big parade of military might on May Day. The American left is holding rallies across the country to denounce the racism and bigotry of an entire state, Arizona.

Arizona is again leading the way in efforts to control illegal immigration, and once again, the amnesty lobby is having a nervous breakdown.

This isn't the first time we have witnessed such obnoxious and arrogant behavior by the amnesty lobby. In 2004, Arizona passed a law by a referendum ballot to deny welfare benefits to illegal aliens. We saw the same slanders and name-calling directed against it. But the clamor slowly evaporated as the new law was upheld in state and federal courts. In that 2004 ballot election, neither the critics nor the media bothered to mention that 56 percent of Hispanic voters in Arizona supported the measure.

So, here we go again. While the protest scenario is familiar, this time the protests are even more hysterical because this time the stakes are higher. The Arizona law has been adopted at the same time the Obama administration is backpedaling on its promise of amnesty legislation in this session of Congress. The amnesty lobby sees its opportunity slipping away, and they are throwing a hissy fit.

The critics of the Arizona law have had fun misquoting me and spreading a false report that "Tom Tancredo says Arizona law goes too far." I never said anything like that and in fact have supported the Arizona law from day one. But once a sensational story like that is out there, it is picked up and repeated, and then is impossible to chase down and correct every permutation in the blogosphere.

Typical of the outrageous slanders against it was Juan Williams of "Fox News Sunday," who made the wild claim that the law will lead to "harassment of brown people." I guess the good news for Juan Williams is that illegal Russian and Jordanian immigrants have nothing to worry about.

Now, to the facts. The Arizona law, SB 1070, merely makes a state crime what is already a federal crime. For example, the requirement that legal aliens carry their documentation on their person is already in federal law. All of the provisions of the law were crafted carefully to avoid any conflict with federal law. It specifically prohibits stopping anyone based solely on race or ethnicity. The Arizona law does not attempt to create any new immigration law; it simply gives state law enforcement agencies the power to enforce existing laws and arrest persons who are in the country unlawfully.

Why the hysterical reaction from the left? The reasons are as simple as they are transparent. This act by Arizona lawmakers has exposed two lies the amnesty lobby has been promoting since Obama's election – one small lie and one whopper...

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