The Law Is the Law: Welcome to Class, 'Dreamers'

Arizona Republic (Opinion-Arizona)

By Steve Benson

May 8, 2015

The law is the law: Welcome to class, 'dreamers'

The Arizona Board of Regents grabbed the opportunity and got it right.

The right wing grabbed its chest and got out the nitroglycerin pills.

It comes as no surprise, of course, that what we're talking about here has to do with immigration — where, currently, things are moving in the immigrants' favor.

The pain of it all is particularly excruciating for the extremer anti-"dreamers." A recent Maricopa County Superior Court ruling found that undocumented young people (specifically, those brought to this country as children without U.S. citizenship but who now have work visas) are actually a documented protected class under President Barack Obama's 2012 DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, program.

Because, under DACA, that makes them untargetable for deportation, they are therefore eligible to enroll in community colleges where they are paying the lower, in-state tuition rate.

Former and disgraced Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne takes it on the chin again.

Read my lips about those Latinos:

Because these kids are in Arizona legally under federal law (meaning under the protective terms of DACA),they can receive in-state benefits (such as — gasp! — being able to go to school in Arizona). Like the judge said, "Federal law, not state law, determines who is lawfully present in the U.S. … The circumstance under which a person enters the U.S. does not determine that person's lawful presence here."

So, with the court's ruling as their guide,the regents reversed course and approved qualified DACA dreamers for entry into state universities at the lower tuition rate, too. As Regent Greg Patterson put it, "The law is currently the law, and we will follow it."

Predictably, conservative Arizona officials are vowing to stand in disobedience to law that they think shouldn't be law.Reacting to the court's ruling,the office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich released a statement declaring,"No one is more sympathetic to the cause of immigration than General Brnovich, but the law is the law. General Brnovich believes he has an obligation to respect the will of Arizona voters.Our office is currently reviewing the decision and weighing all legal options, including appeal."

So, there's the law, and then there's the law.

But aren't conservatives big on following the law?

Not in this state, apparently. It sounds like some of our anti-immigration Republicans are more in line with Vladimir Lenin than they are with the U.S. Constitution.It was Big Bad Vlad who observed that laws (in this case he was referring to treaties, which, underArticle 6, Clause 2 of the Constitution become law), "are like pie crusts, made to be broken."

Those against Arizona's DACA kids going to collegein Arizona seem intent on breaking dreams like Vlad broke pie crusts. In an article in The Atlantic headlined "The Conservative Case Against Enforcing Immigration Law," author Russell Berman writes:

"While 'enforce the law' is an oft-repeated demand from the right, one prominent immigration foe, Roy Beck of Numbers USA, told me that … "we're opposed to enforcing the laws as they currently exist. The law is not adequate."

Wake up,Roy. According to writer Roger Cleggin a piece for the conservative think tank "Center Equal Opportunity,"conservatives need to read their own lips and, well, follow the law:

"Conservatives ought to believe that immigration law-enforcement policy should be determined by the federal government, not by a variety of state and local jurisdictions.I know, the rejoinders are (a) since the federal government is not stepping up to the plate, the states are entitled to, and (b) all states like Arizona are doing is ensuring that federal law is enforced.

"But neither answer will do.The federal government may be doing a lousy job, but its action or inaction or mix of the two is, de facto, the national policy.It will always be the case that some states will be unhappy with federal policy, and they will often be able to characterize it as an abdication of what the federal government 'should' do or what Americans 'demand' that it do.That cannot justify state interference in what has to be a nationally established policy, any more than federal failure to, say, naturalize citizens fast enough would justify state's stepping in to do the job instead …

". . . (T)he reflexive tendency among some conservatives lately to back state officials over federal ones should be reconsidered.In other contexts, I'm all for the instinct to favor private over local, and local over state, and state over federal— and certainly the instinct to favor Jan Brewer over Barack Obama— but not here.Some conservatives may be happier in the short term with the results they get by focusing their efforts on immigration law enforcement at the state level, but in the long run this is a bad approach."

Dreamers are here to stay.

Now they're going to Arizona's state universities.

And they'redoing it lawfully.

Get over it and let's get on with it.

What do you think?

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com