Letters to the editor: Repeal bad immigration bill

By Lou Sansevero Ferron

Editor:
While I still hold Governor Herbert in the highest regard and have the deepest respect for him personally, on March 15, the Governor, running counter to the common sense attitude that had heretofore been his trademark and which originally earned my respect. He was convinced by a consortium of well meaning, though short-sighted, religious leader, self-serving politicians seeking to pander to prospective future Hispanic voters, and greedy employers seeking a continued source of cheap “economic slave” labor to sign a bad bill, HB 116 (The Guest Worker Program Act. I call it “The Illegal Alien Amnesty and Sanctuary Act”). It is a bad law and in doing so opened himself to criticism and rebuke by me personally and, I believe, by a great majority of the people of Utah.
Make no mistake, this new law offers amnesty and guest worker visas to “qualifying” illegal aliens who establish residency in the state by May 10 making Utah a magnet for illegal aliens and America’s first “sanctuary state”.
The rationale expressed to me was that (1) since Arizona took its stand and passed its illegal immigration bill it has not booked even one convention at a loss of revenue of about $21 million, what wasn’t mentioned to me was that entitlements for illegal aliens cost the Utah taxpayer $453 million annually. I don’t know about you but I would gladly trade a loss of $21 million in convention revenues for $453 million in savings from the elimination of entitlements to illegals.
This bad law not only violates both the United States Constitution and United States immigration laws but also sets a dangerous precedent which undermines the rule of law in Utah and which repudiates the state Republican Party platform.
This law violates Article 1 Sections 8 and 10 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution clearly intended for immigration to be the purview of the Federal government. If we are to lay claim to being a nation of laws then we have to honor our foundational laws (the Constitution) not just the ones we like otherwise we are no better than the left-wing, liberal and cynical regime currently occupying the White House.
Various sections of Title 8 Chapter 12 of the U.S. Code (http://openjurist.org/title-8/us-code/chapter-12/immigration-and-nationality) codifies United State Immigration Laws which HB 116 violates and various sections of Title 18 of the U.S. Code (http://law.onecle.com/uscode/18/index.html) codifies various criminal acts against the United States which HB 116 causes to be committed.
The state Republican Party platform states in its Preamble ” . . . We support the ‘Rule of Law’ and believe in upholding the law of the land,” and under the heading of Immigration “We oppose illegal immigration and all forms of amnesty, or legal status, for illegal immigrants. We oppose any temporary or ‘guest’ worker program that would offer an automatic path to citizenship. We believe that current laws against employing illegal immigrants should be vigorously enforced, particularly to stem the now too common crime of identity theft in obtaining employment,” both of which planks the Governor and those Republican State Legislators who voted in favor of this bill abandoned.
Bills such as HB 116, which the governor signed, do nothing to respond to the real immigration issues that are facing our nation (1) the 12 to 20 million criminal aliens who have invaded the United States and (2) a regime in the White House which eagerly embraces a “one world”, “open borders” philosophy and which refuses to honor its Constitutional responsibility to defend the sovereignty and borders of the United States, and the member states, against invasion.
In this instance, against invasion by aliens from a nation whose President has declared “Mexico does not stop at its borders” and “. . . Mexico is anywhere that Mexicans are.”
Until these two issue have been fully responded to and our national and state borders made secure we should not be discussing (at the local, state, nor national level) anything else where immigration is concerned except enforcement, preferably by the federal government but, if necessary, by local and state law enforcement.
By signing HB 116 Governor Herbert has made the state of Utah, its legislature, its people, and himself accomplices in, or at least aiders and abettors to, the commission of crimes against federal law specifically Section 277 [8 U.S.C. 1327] “It is unlawful for anyone to aid or assist aliens to enter the United States. Penalty: fined under title 18, United States Code, . . . ” and Sec. 274A. [8 U.S.C. 1324a] “It is unlawful for a person or other entity to employ or recruit or refer for a fee an illegal alien in the United States.”
An interesting note to consider about the HB 116 is that various groups normally opposed to each other and with dispirit agendas where illegal alien issues are involved; the ACLU, the United Front For Social Justice and UFIRE, and the Utah Minuteman Project commented during committee hearings that this was a bad bill for various reasons. This was a rare time of agreement that the news media refused to acknowledge and the Governor chose to ignore. The public comments of these groups and others are a matter of public record.
For all the above reasons I implore everyone of us to contact Governor Herbert and ask him to call the state legislature back into emergency session for the purpose of repealing this onerous, unconstitutional, and illegal law.