Politics & Government

Harman Responds to High Court Immigration Decision

The GOP state senator chastises the federal government for failing to enforce existing law.

After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week to uphold a state law in Arizona that would allow the state to penalize businesses for hiring illegal immigrants, state Sen. Tom Harman criticized the federal government's enforcement of immigration law.

"The federal government has completely abdicated its responsibility to the states to protect the nation’s borders," Harman said in a written statement. "Their failure to implement sound immigration policy or enforce existing federal law encourages frustrated states to craft their own ad hoc policy solutions for undocumented immigration, an approach that potentially raises constitutional concerns, incites socially and racially divisive rhetoric, and creates a cacophonous patchwork of immigration law provisions."

Harman, who represents Seal Beach, Rossmoor and Los Alamitos, cited another recent Supreme Court decision under which 33,000 inmates may have to be released from California prisons. Harman said that about 18,000 of the state's prison inmates are illegal immigrants who "wouldn’t be there in the first place if the federal government had done its job."

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"Border states, such as California and Arizona, are left flailing in the wind while the federal government turns a blind eye to its moral obligation on this issue." he said. "It is well past time for Congress and the president to exhibit responsible leadership and develop a fair, purposeful immigration reform solution that controls both the borders and costs to state and local governments."

 

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