210 Comments

• Madeleine | Aug 08, 2010, 04:17 PM EDT

  Jan Brewer, Gov. of Arizona is following the Federal laws that are already in place, just not enforced. I don't want open borders either, let them come in legally and they will be welcome, why is that so hard ot understand from a country who needs to see your bank account to make sure you have the money to go back home before they let you in? We dont' want the north American Union in either and it will come in if the borders are left open. thats all. My Father was from the Dominican Republic and my step father was a Mexican, I am not a racist but I am an American first and I say close the border and protect it or we will wind up run by socialists like the Euro union countries. Our constitution also gives states rights. your Nazi view of the jews is more anti-simetic than I've ever heard. I have seen different videos of Gaza than you are showing. You should not have any say on immigration in America, its not your country. 50,000 illegal Irishmen is not worth losing our country for.

• Monsoonman | Jul 18, 2010, 02:16 PM EDT

  I wouldn't sell the public infrastructure, but would put out the running of those services to the lowest private company bidding on it.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 14, 2010, 08:34 PM EDT

  In my experience in OZ, government sell off of utilities/roads etc. (for a pittance) resulted in higher charges and lower services. The only people to gain were the new boards and there shareholders.The government sold off the most profitable ventures for a short gain,I was silly enough to believe that taxes would decrease.I do agree that government agencies tend to be top heavy,I'm not sure but maybe it's a mid-management problem. It's not their money so they feel no pain when spending it.

• Monsoonman | Jul 14, 2010, 12:46 AM EDT

  Sean Lad, the way I see it the govt. needs to shrink by 60% and sub contract out most services to the lowest bidding private services, including security and fire protection. govt. is too big and nneds to be pared down to a manageable level....and dennis, please don't lay on us that education will suffer, it can't get much worse with the no competition education system we now have.

• DennisQ | Jul 13, 2010, 11:59 PM EDT

  Gov. Christie is going to lay off hundreds of state workers with the 2011 budget. He can't do it now because of contracts that he inherited from Gov. Corzine. So much for the argument that you can't get laid off if you work for the government - Gov. Christie is doing just that. His war on state workers is likely to deteriorate New Jersey's quality of life, in ways that may not show up for years. How about environmental monitoring? There are so many crooks already in New Jersey that they'd be only too happy to turn the place into a sewer. And young families who come to New Jersey for good schools are going to deal with the incompetence and cronyism that will certainly follow Christie's planned privatization. Sure, he's popular now, but New Jersey people have largely forgotten the downside of government corruption. Any place that has casinos has already got all the gangsters it needs.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 13, 2010, 07:33 PM EDT

  Monsoonman I am a private sector type I sold my business's 10 years ago and retired, you gotta compare apples with apples. Do you think the government should pay peanuts or set an example of a fair days work for a fair days pay. I cannot believe in the "richest" country in the world adults in some sectors are paid $5 to $8 dollars per hour,I was paying that to juniors 20 years ago.F.Y.I. the mandatory minimum wage for adults in Australia is $500 U.S. for a 37 hr week.

• Monsoonman | Jul 13, 2010, 10:10 AM EDT

  Sean me boy: Like I have said earlier and now Governor Christie has heard me as well, if you think you are overworked and underpaid in the public sector, quit and go out into the private sector and make the "big bucks". There are risks in the private sector. There are no risks in the government sector and now their wages and benefits outstrip the private sector. In the private sector there are plenty of unions to join and you can picket and strike to your hearts content demanding higher wages and benefits...and consumers have a choice, they are not forced to pay you with their taxes....But Sean, since you are an open borders fellow, do you think it would be fair to let illegal immigrants from all over the world, have a shot at the unionized government jobs? Why should US citizens have a corner on that market?

• seanomelbourne | Jul 13, 2010, 02:27 AM EDT

  Why deny civil servants their right to join a union. Is it not a constitutional right in the U.S.A.? Although I do get your point that civil servants are a cossetted lot

• Monsoonman | Jul 13, 2010, 01:17 AM EDT

  Correction: Private sector unions I have no problems with.

• Monsoonman | Jul 13, 2010, 12:08 AM EDT

  Hi Lad...Public sector unions I have no beef with, it is the public sector unions I have a major gripe with. There is NO choice for the taxpayer, we must pay the taxes which pay their wages and bennies and we must use them without alternatives and they have civil service protection almost impossible to fire or lay off. Sean, I support the Tea Party because it is really the only US party that represents the taxpaying US legal citizens.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 12, 2010, 08:04 PM EDT

  The poor old unions Monsoonman. Have you ever stopped to count the working conditions you enjoy which trade unionist fought and sometimes died for. I know Americans do not enjoy the same conditions as we do in Australia(and our economy is booming). I'm surprised you support the tea party.

• Pat Riley | Jul 12, 2010, 11:31 AM EDT

  If spin doctor O'Dowd leaned any more to the left he'd tip over. He called AZ's immigration law "racist" yet he offered no examples to support his claim.

• Monsoonman | Jul 12, 2010, 10:17 AM EDT

  I would hope that the Republicans will offer candidates with budget solutions to state/federal problems in the same form that governor Christie of New Jersey is doing. He should be a role model for the federal, state and local governments who are addicted to increasing taxes and bloated budget busting budgets. It seems the one real voice out there is from the Tea Party, they are helping to change the political message and bringing the heat to the politicians who disregard the taxpaying citizens of the US....Cut government size and spending. Defend our borders. Get back to the basics and stop being a nanny state. kick unions out of the federal & state employee workforce.

• DennisQ | Jul 12, 2010, 07:33 AM EDT

  The hope that sustains the Republicans is the belief that this year they're going to avoid the drubbing they got in '06 and '08. However, it depends on how willing the voters are to toss the dice. Do the Republicans have anything attractive to offer? They've been promoting militarism and tax cuts since Reagan, but it's doubtful that we can afford more of either. Sure, the Republicans may pick up a few seats in the off-year election, but their hope of regaining the House or the Senate is foolishly optimistic.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 12, 2010, 05:18 AM EDT

  And an aside...I'm a non-Christian pro-lifer, myself. Killing unborn kids ain't my bag.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 12, 2010, 05:17 AM EDT

  And now it seems, a collection of DEMOCRATIC state governors is warning Obama about that silly suit his DoJ is filing against Arizona...they're calling it, and I quote, 'toxic' to Democrats, this election year (as if they don't already have enough political woes, even without it). Now, why would elected DEMOCRATS be saying that, if the public is supposedly on their side? That, plus Obama's spokesman Gibbs has now openly said the GOP could indeed take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, this fall...it just looks gloomier for Obama by the day...

• seanomelbourne | Jul 11, 2010, 11:59 PM EDT

  I ponder sometimes on the gop's attitude towards "the peoples rights",guns/free speech etc. but when it comes to other issues like religion or abortion they fail to accept that right for others. I also understand not all republicans hold that point of view.

• Monsoonman | Jul 11, 2010, 01:26 PM EDT

  Sean Lad, The abortion issue is a major cudgel used to beat people over the heads with, to divide and conquer. The puppeteers bring that out and the race card as elections draw closer....In the meantime Rome is melting....the issue should never be elevated to the forefront like it is, it should have always been a personal medical issue or at least an individual states choice to decide, not the feral gummint...

• DennisQ | Jul 11, 2010, 12:12 PM EDT

  Taylor55, Go ahead and make my day. Cite a few studies that are really studies, not the raggedy PR pieces you've previously cited. If you're going to make headway in bringing people to your viewpoint, you'll need to cite the work of people with an established, independent reputation. I don't believe real scholars are on record supporting the far-fetched arguments you've been using. Go ahead and surprise me.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 11, 2010, 02:58 AM EDT

  We have the same dilemma in Australia but the abortion issue is very rarely a deal breaker in an election year. F.Y.I. the ruling Labour Party has just replaced our church going prime minister with a female atheist(our first female prime minister).

• seanomelbourne | Jul 11, 2010, 02:52 AM EDT

  Well Monsoonman you are closer than I to the protagonists you mention. Are you saying the church takes a hypocritical stance by not excommunicating pro choice politicians (which is probably correct)? Is it not also correct to say that powerful people seem to be above canonical law whilst mere mortals like you and I would have to pay the price.Therefore I would have to say the crux of your argument is solid.

• Monsoonman | Jul 11, 2010, 02:11 AM EDT

  Sean: The crux of my question was a religious one. You as an atheist have a clear view of the situation, unfettered by ingrained religious dogma. Yes right to choose is a better choice of words, but it still flys right in the face of the roman catholic churches rulings. So how pretzel like are the "rules" bent in order for pro choice politicians like pelosis,kennedys, dodd and co. allowed to be high profile members of the church?

• seanomelbourne | Jul 10, 2010, 09:49 PM EDT

  Thus the rules of Popes /Bishops/ministers and so on are irrelevant. If a person feels they are a good Catholic and he/she also believes in pro choice they only answer to their God.I must tell you I am an atheist and believe that as an atheist one can have more clarity in understanding moral dilemmas.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 10, 2010, 09:39 PM EDT

  Moonsonman if you change the question to " Right to choose" rather than that emotive "pro abortion" term the answer becomes clearer. I believe most people are against abortion (as I am) but I do not have the right to force my principals on other people Therefore the right to choose. From a religious aspect I find the question irrelevant as receiving communion is suppose to be a act between God and the Individual.

• Taylor55 | Jul 10, 2010, 05:51 PM EDT

  DennisQ, Illegal aliens FAMILIES have a well documented by numerous studies negative impact on American and legal immigrant taxpayers, and illegal alien workers have a negative impact on American and legal immigrant wages. You ignore and belittle all this -- why? Do you hire illegal aliens? Then never mind the money aspects, you are a bigot for supporting illegal immigration since it benefits 30 Latin Americans for ever Asian, African, or European who benefits. You sound to me like a neo-slaver, supporting racism in order to make more money.

• Monsoonman | Jul 10, 2010, 03:59 PM EDT

  BTW: Just to let you tagged and branded US citizens know you are all part of an angry lynch mob because you want your laws enforced...LOL!!!!

• Monsoonman | Jul 10, 2010, 12:06 PM EDT

  Sean and others, a religious question for ya. How can Catholic abortion supporters,legislators, politicians(many bloodsucking parasites) receive Holy Communion from the church? How can they even be members of the church, why haven't they been excommunicated..Is this another one of those moral "ignore the elephant in the living room" for expedience purposes by the politicians and by the hypocrites in the church or is there a solid reason for them to be called "good catholics".

• DennisQ | Jul 10, 2010, 04:45 AM EDT

  One way you can tell a complete amadan is if he or she makes extravagant claims that they can't support with facts. Such is the case with the Know Nothing arguments to the effect that undocumented workers are nothing but a burden to American society. Granted, there are methodological difficulties with determining the dollar value of goods and services produced by a population that stays in the shadows. But the difficulty of determining that number doesn't mean it doesn't exist . . . which is the glib assumption behind so-called "reports" that undocumented workers take but do not give. Glib assumptions are good enough for right wingers, whose intellectual heroes are people like George Bush, who famously governed from the gut and ran this country into a ditch. The rest of us, who believe policy should be based on discernible truth, agree with Niall O'Dowd in this important regard: We don't need any more jailhouse lawyers making things worse for everyone with half-cocked solutions.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 09, 2010, 09:43 PM EDT

  Nancy Pelosi doe's not believe abortion on the demand she believes in a woman right to choose. It's none of your business George Dillon or N.Pelosi what another woman's choice is.That's the problem with you right wing Christians butting your nose into other peoples right to choose. Your a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites.

• GeorgeDillon | Jul 09, 2010, 08:09 PM EDT

  Taylor: "Nancy Pelosi supports racist modern immigration, because most of them are Catholic like her." Nancy Pelosi supports abortion on demand. She cannot be called a Catholic, whatever her upbringing. Leave her out of this.

• DennisQ | Jul 09, 2010, 07:01 PM EDT

  It happens that the economic impact of immigration policy has been studied by real scholars, not just the political hacks who write for the Federation for Immigration Reform. One scholarly report worthy of the name was commissioned by the Council for Foreign Relations and is called, "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration." The lead author, University of California Prof. Gordon Hanson, finds that so-called reform measures premissed on the belief that illegal immigrants harm America will be useless and counterproductive. By contrast, Jack Martin and Erick Ruark, authors of the FAIR report, have no independent reputation aside from their connection with an anti-immigration pressure group.

• MotherIrish | Jul 09, 2010, 01:42 PM EDT

  Oh and take your periscope (parts of which my legal immigrant uncle designed a whole lot of years ago) and shove it up a jackal's behind. And who do you think the jackal is - you or Obama??

• MotherIrish | Jul 09, 2010, 01:39 PM EDT

  We who approve of the AZ law, are not a lynch mob. That is the kind of rheortic you get from liberal who can not stand the truth. The real truth of the matter is that he has to make some sort of stand to get the illegal aliens (they are not immigrants)as they are potential voters for the Dems. You are such a piece of liberal crap! You do not know US law and you need to keep your nose out of that which you know little or nothing such as this issue.

• Taylor55 | Jul 09, 2010, 11:24 AM EDT

  I know that is why Nancy Pelosi supports racist modern immigration, because most of them are Catholic like her.

• Taylor55 | Jul 09, 2010, 11:23 AM EDT

  Liam, Since you feel "modern immigrants" enter or stay illegally in the USA, where are the the activists demanding the 1 billion modern immigrants from Asia and Africa be allowed into the USA? The US government does not let them in like they let in Latino modern immigrants, isn't that racism, only letting in one race of modern immigrants, not all races? Maybe you support this racist modern immigration system because the one race primarily allowed in are mostly Catholic, and most of the other races are not? Is that why you support this racist modern immigration?

• Taylor55 | Jul 09, 2010, 11:18 AM EDT

  Liam, You know most everyone in the world by your definition is "non-native", for example your Irish ancestors migrated from the Middle East and replaced (exterminated) Neanderthal Man. Also the American Indians were not the original inhabitants of America, the Solutreans from France were.

• Taylor55 | Jul 09, 2010, 11:14 AM EDT

  Dennis, Still waiting for your report showing illegal aliens and their children pour billions and trillions more in the US and States treasuries than they take out.

• McNamara31 | Jul 09, 2010, 10:25 AM EDT

  IrishandProud...When the young Nigerian boy was killed in Dublin, you posted: "it can be said that Nigerians and Africans in general simply CANNOT fit in with Eire, like other groups. Assimilation has its limits, and always has, in every single culture. It's a fact of humanity. Come on...how can anyone reasonably dispute that? And in the case of black African Nigerians wandering around in Ireland...well, right there, alone, need I say more?" ------------------------------------------------- Whether it's a Nigerian boy, a Mexican immigrant or a black President your rhetoric remains constant. These are the same narrow minded views, the Irish encountered when they first arrived in New York, and don't give me that argument that they were legal. They arrived at a time when America had a great need for workers; to mine, build railroads and serve. So it worked for America, and it worked for the immigrant. Our ancestors left horrible circumstances under British rule who considered them "white apes" of the day, and then arrived in America only to find much of the same prejudice here. There are immigrants and there are criminals, two separate issues, one should be treated with fairness and empathy, the other, by the same laws we answer to.

• catmann | Jul 09, 2010, 07:14 AM EDT

  IMPEACH OBOZO FOR TREASON.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 09, 2010, 07:14 AM EDT

  Irishandproud I realise you are closer to the "pulse"than I am. I have followed U.S. politics for some years and I think you are correct both parties are on the nose. This may ultimately save the dems as a fair slice of GOP moderates abhor the tea party's extreme rhetoric,time will tell. What do you base your secessionist views on? is it liberalism versus conservatism or something more sinister.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 05:57 AM EDT

  Correction: ANGLE vs. Reid in Nevada (Angle is ahead in every single poll, there). If she's an 'extremist,' (what liberals call a perfectly mainstream American), then what's she doing in the lead?

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 05:50 AM EDT

  Also realize, too, that anyone can come back and confront you with your own posts, if you make a rash prediction and are wrong.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 05:48 AM EDT

  Oh, I forgot to add: If you don't state that, then you don't have much faith in your own words...but if you DO state that, Dennis...then you're really going out on a limb, and taking a major risk of some major embarrassement, particularly with every national electoral indicator in the USA pointing the OPPOSITE way of what you've said. I remember one poster (on another site) who arrogantly bragged that Scott Brown's supporters would be 'apologizing' the next day, after he lost that election. Well...'nuff said. Are you willing to take that same egg-on-face risk right now, and predict unequivocally that Reid will win, and that the Repubs won't take control of either House? Whatever happens, you'll at the very least have uncertainty about the matter hanging over your head until November...and with the odds as they are currently, well...it wouldn't be a very pleasant four months.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 05:36 AM EDT

  If that's the case, DennisQ, then perhaps you could explain why Lowden is far, far ahead of Reid in every single poll, there. Your post about this November's elections is nonsensical, and has no basis in reality, whatsoever. Of course, I believe that is precisely your point. Denying reality is the ultimate in passive aggression. Would you be willing to state right here, right now, that the GOP will NOT regain control of either House of congress, this November -- and that Reid will be re-elected? If not, then you don't have much faith in your own words.

• DennisQ | Jul 09, 2010, 04:51 AM EDT

  LiamDavid, Immigration is only a stand-in for a variety of issues, all bearing on the anxiety and sense of loss that Americans have been experiencing over the past three decades. Reagan called his presidency "morning in America" but signs of decline were already evident. Despite Republican reassurances, their remedies of militarism and aggressive tax cuts only accelerated the decline. Today we are faced with lost wars, lost jobs, and lost prestige. Frightened Americans look for a scapegoat and find one in undocumented workers. Our ambivalence about immigration "reform" comes from awareness that deporting hard-working foreigners is probably not the answer, just as militarism and tax cuts were not the answer either. The decline continues.

• LiamDavid | Jul 09, 2010, 03:46 AM EDT

  Many of the comments here are quite amusing! The alien issue is a true and clear problem in America. Although the majority of Americans are in fact “non-native” or non aboriginal people, therefore, one would think that there would be a warmer appreciation for aliens and their plight? But first generation to 10 generation American citizens mostly believe that aliens are little more than criminals and should be treated as such. I believe that the core of this painful issue is not so much aliens trying to enter America, it’s that most Americans feel that these modern day immigrants have no interest in becoming tax paying American citizens, but seemed only interested in making as much money in America as possible, having their children in American hospitals, under various welfare insurances then taking off back to their original countries. Like any other situation, there will always be the good and the bad, but let us pray that cooler heads will prevail and new legislation that is fair and balanced will be passed into law.

• DennisQ | Jul 09, 2010, 03:21 AM EDT

  Right wingers are wandering around in the desert, and they know it. Political reality is closing in on them, as the Republican Party loses relevance from election to election. Having been clobbered in '06 and '08, right wingers look to rebound in '10. But even there they are shooting themselves in the foot. In Nevada, for example, the GOP blew a clear chance of defeating Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. Instead of nominating the moderately conservative Sue Lowden, Republicans chose instead the unelectable extremist Sharron Angle.

• DennisQ | Jul 09, 2010, 03:05 AM EDT

  The problem with anti-immigration zealots is that they appear to talk to each other, but not to the rest of us. For example, where did FAIR get it $113 billion figure from? You go to their website and they total their figures without tracking them back to the source. There's a word for such statistical legerdemain - it's called flim-flammery. They quote each other freely, as if repetition of bogus claims made them more believable. It begs the question - Where did they get this stuff from? It's not answered. Instead, FAIR's website encourages visitors to read Michelle Malkin, Patrick Buchanan, Tom Tancredo and the execrable Jim Gilchrist. If these beady-eyed zealots expect to bring people over to their viewpoint, they'll have to make believable arguments. So far, all they're doing is preaching to each other.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 01:43 AM EDT

  And as for Fox News, you can look at the sum total of who watches if versus who doesn't, but every other major American network out there (all of whom lean to the left, to put it mildly) have even smaller shares, of their own. It's the same thing with talk radio in the USA, where conservatives dominate: liberal talk radio gave it a shot too ('Air America'), but ended up utterly bankrupt, because there simply is not enough of a demand in the USA for that viewpoint (which people got for YEARS, anyway -- unchallenged -- on every TV network until Fox and talk radio came along). There's NPR (National Public Radio) which is also heavily left-leaning, but it's only kept alive through 'artifical means,' if you will...involuntary taxpayer funding, which it simply could not survive, without. In short, FOX and talk radio finally, FINALLY provided an outlet for the conservative viewpoint, which HAD no such national outlets, prior.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 09, 2010, 01:35 AM EDT

  Sean...oh I agree the GOP plays for cheap political gain -- which is why more Americans than ever are identifying as independents, nowadays. They don't like the Democrats, but they've also had it with the Repubs, who only give lip service to the USA's majority conservatism but then govern differently, once they're in, and/or run from conservatism because they're all scared about what they'll be called and how they'll be labeled if they stick with it. Washington DC is in its own little political bubble world, thoroughly inoculated from the reality in the rest of the country and too many Repubs get weak-knee'd if even a squirrel goes 'boo.' The Repubs stand to make enormous gains this fall (simply because they're not Democrats, more than any other reason...and for the usual lip service they'll pay to the majority-conservative ideology) -- and they will manage to slow if not stop and/or reverse the Obama-ism the USA has grown to hate -- but in the long run they'll fall flat on their faces, again. And at that point, with no where else to turn and with their frustrations mounting exponentially, the people will almost certainly start moving toward a break-up of the USA (through regional/state secession). A GOP victory this year will delay that for probably a few years more, but my belief at present is that it's coming, irreversably.

• Taylor55 | Jul 09, 2010, 01:01 AM EDT

  Somehow Dennis, I knew you were going to say that. So you have any better numbers? Be sure to include the children of illegal aliens, after all if the illegals were not here, their children would not be here either, unless you think they just appear out fo thin air.

• DennisQ | Jul 08, 2010, 11:52 PM EDT

  The group calling itself the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform is part of a larger agglomeration of rabid right wingers who believe undocumented workers threaten America's survival. So-called "research" reports emerging from these groups are no more grounded in science than the ravings of Glenn Beck. Go to FAIR's website and they recommend you get up to speed by reading Patrick Buchanan, Michelle Malkin, Tom Tancredo, and the notorious Jim Gilchrist, founder of the "Minutemen" group of private citizens who patrol the border with rifles. The anti-immigration nuts all quote each other as if collectively they have more credibility than they do separately. They are mostly beady-eyed fanatics, people who can't be taken seriously.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 11:26 PM EDT

  Umm Sean, the GOP finally IS taking a principled stand - against amnesty which 70% of Americans oppose. By the way Fox owner Rupert Murdoch (know him?) is lobbying for amnesty. Hey how about this bi-partisan plan, we send all our illegal aliens to OZ? Cheers.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 08, 2010, 10:32 PM EDT

  Irishandproud forget my last computer glitch.I hate repeating myself. To fix your immigration laws requires bi-partisan support but the good old GOP the party of NO would rather play for cheap political gain rather than take a principled stand on the issue.As far as Fox is concerned they have 40% of the news ratings by far the largest of any other news broadcaster. But that leaves 60% of the listeners who do not tune in to Fox. The extreme right has taken control of the GOP the moderates in the party have taken A "right" turn scared of the teaparty radicals. Try sticking to to "some" point and have an overview of the immigration problem.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 09:23 PM EDT

  And I repeat: Olovely (and McNamara31) are both MILITANTLY anti-immigrant (in addition to being elitist snobs).

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 09:22 PM EDT

  That's 'nickname' Guinnessgrrl...not 'nick.'

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 09:20 PM EDT

  Not hardly, sean. Political passions aroused, sure...that's what all of us do, here. But 'feelings hurt?' That sounds so...liberal.

• rpmschevy | Jul 08, 2010, 08:50 PM EDT

  IrishandProud, here is the thing, Naill writes these articles because he is a happy and dedicated criminal himself. He came to the US illegally, has no concept of Rule of Law, and so he can write articles like this. All of us born here, or who came here legally, like my wife and daughter, he cares nothing about. I would love to see the equivalent of population of the County of Kerry come to Ireland and see how he or real Irish residents feel.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 08, 2010, 08:15 PM EDT

  Poor Irishandproud has had his feeling hurt. 30% of o

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 08:06 PM EDT

  ritmomente, I cannot believe how ignorant you are. Lot's of illegal women work in the fields, in processing plants, as nannies and house cleaners, restaurants, the list goes on. Get out of your bubble and spend some time in Mexifornia looking around outside the tourist areas. Working in a field they graduated from? OMG that is soooo funny, is that a lettuce field or tomato field? Latino illegals have an average sixth grade education, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. But you know, your arguments ARE true for Americans if they are able to take back the jobs illegals stole from them.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 07:59 PM EDT

  DennisQ, the number came from FAIR, Federal of Americans for Immigration Reform. The Heritage Foundation has other studies showing how those costs would go up with amnesty. It's not undocumented, but IC won't let me post links.

• DennisQ | Jul 08, 2010, 07:47 PM EDT

  People who support America's absurdly restrictive immigration policies aren't helping themselves with dishonest arguments. Monsoonman denies being a racist but implies that Mexicans are vermin. MaryM232 directs us to voiac.org, which is headed up by Carol Taber, who appears on television as a security "expert" but has no more qualifications than Lady Gaga. The larger group, Family Security Matters, is a front for the Center for Security Policy, an extremist group to the right of Fox News. Someone else here claims that undocumented immigrants cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. It's an undocumented claim - if you trace it back, it probably came from crackpot Carol Taber, who made it up.

• MaryM232 | Jul 08, 2010, 06:22 PM EDT

  Rimomente, illegal aliens, more than 30 million of them are exploiting corruption, and taking jobs they know they have no legal right to, while being subsidized by welfare programs, they again have no legal right to. The numbers are accurate, and can be gleaned by government facts and figures and they've been done so by world respected economists. The illegal alien lobby also brags about these facts, when they aren't playing their usual parts. What's more, between 12 to 25 US citizens are being killed each day by illegals. Here's a site address that tries to keep up with the victims of illegals voiac.org Go to the site and look into the eyes of men, women an children slaughtered by them, if you're man enough.

• ritmomente | Jul 08, 2010, 04:41 PM EDT

  Taylor55, that is very interesting mathematics. Currently, undocumented immigrants are being exploited for their labor for which there are very few jobs available (next to none if you are female), so I don't believe your $121 bn accounts for that. If CIR (great acronym) passes, more people will be paying taxes, people will be making honest wage, and in many cases will be working in a field that they graduated from. All taxes will be paid (we can't get Philadelphia politicians to even do that), the economy will be better stimulated because they will have more money to spend. The travel industry will have a watershed of income because these folks could travel freely to their country of origination and return here to work. The insurance industry (medical and car and home owner) will also have watershed income which will cut drastically medical costs (too many Americans have cable TV and no health insurance). So explain your research and figures. And I will not call them illegal because federal government is too stupid too lazy and anemic their own laws.

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 04:29 PM EDT

  Oh beware..Guinnessgrrl...Himself, will be calling you a militant, and a elitist snob, like Olovely and myself.

• GuinnessGrrl | Jul 08, 2010, 04:20 PM EDT

  I might add, GuinessGrrl...all YOU are doing is parrotting CNN and CBS and OBAMA talking points...you know, the kind of thing nobody watches or listens to, anymore (just check any ratings for the last half-decade, or so). Me thinks you put the 'Guiness' in 'GuinessGrrl'...you've had a few too many. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One would think that someone who's nick is "IrishAndProud" would actually be able to spell Guinness correctly...especially when it's in front of them!

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 03:49 PM EDT

  Olovely, Mi casa es su Casa & Céad míle fáilte... Come live on my block. We have a "no haters or bloviating I&P's need apply" clause in this area.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 03:40 PM EDT

  And I repeat: Olovely (and McNamara31) are both MILITANTLY anti-immigrant (in addition to being elitist snobs).

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 03:36 PM EDT

  And this, just today in the New York Daily News: "The Obama administration is getting quite the reputation for bucking the wishes of the people. From pushing through an unpopular health care bill to imposing a moratorium on offshore drilling that's costing the already-suffering gulf region precious jobs, it has refused to back down when it comes to the will of the masses. Now, President Obama's Justice Department has decided to sue the State of Arizona over its new law targeting illegal aliens, when a majority of the public favors the legislation, leaving many to wonder if the increasingly detached White House has gone too far..."

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 03:33 PM EDT

  Right. If you don't agree with McNamara31, you're a hater (which, of course, is a hateful way of thinking, in itself). Another arrogant, elitist liberal snob. No wonder they're so unpopular, nowadays. And the passive-aggressive, third-person approach (which is one of McNamara's most consistent tactics) doesn't enhance things.

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 03:22 PM EDT

  Olovely, Mi casa es su Casa & Céad míle fáilte... Come live on my block. We have a "no haters need apply" clause in this area.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 02:47 PM EDT

  Olovely, YOU are anti-immigrant, because YOU are pro-illegal. You HATE immigrants, olovely, because you SPIT on their legitimate immigration status by siding with those who openly violate the process. And the numbers? A full FIFTY-SIX PERCENT of those surveyed (Rasmussen) OPPOSE this federal lawsuit against Arizona, and fully SIXTY-ONE percent SUPPORT a similar law (like Arizona's) in their OWN state. And EVERY OTHER national poll on this matter shows similar results. Sheesh, olovely. Either a majority of the USA is 'anti-immigrant' (yeah, that must be it because you can't possibly be wrong, right?), or maybe -- just maybe -- they're sick of illegals breaking the law, invading our land and demanding that WE conform to THEIR language and culture...and the feds doing NOTHING about it (beyond trying to reward them with citizenship for it)! You're on the outs, olovely. You're a freak-job, radical political minority on this one.

• AmAncINED | Jul 08, 2010, 02:05 PM EDT

  Why should anyone enter the U.S. legally when we're giving a free pass to the Mexicans who sneak over the border and cash in on all the "freebies" from this country, courtesy of the legal tax-paying American citizens of all races? Did ya know we're providing a free education for many illegals? They don't even have to live here. They walk across the border, go to school, and walk back to Mexico at the end of the day. I saw all that on 60 Minutes - check it out. Their parents don't pay a dime for that education. When we go broke as a country, the gravy train will come to an end and then we'll see how many of them stay in the U.S. Before that, though, Obama & friends will jack up all our taxes on everything to help pay for the benefits we're shelling out to illegals. They'll reward them for entering illegally by making them U.S. citizens. Oh, and the former illegals won't even have to learn English to vote for the Democrats. (Everything is in Spanish now.) The country will be known as the United States of Mexico. Hel-lo, we can't afford to support everyone in the world!!!!

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 01:49 PM EDT

  "Obama finally takes on immigration lynch mob" I wish it were true, "immigrants" (illegal aliens) kill thousands of Americans every year, that is why Arizona responded with SB 1070, yet Obama instead of taking on the "immigrant lynch mob" (murderous illegal alien gangsters), takes on the Americans who are getting killed by them!!!! And idiots like Niall supports this killing of Americans by the "immigrant lynch mob"!!!!

• MaryM232 | Jul 08, 2010, 01:19 PM EDT

  olovely, I'm a combination of indigenous American (Abenaki) on my mother's side, and Irish on my father's side, I grew up with US citizens of all races and ethnicities, and i see US citizens, of all races and ethnicities being displaced, fired from their jobs, denied new ones, because they are US citizens, they and their children are pushed into homelessness and destitution as a result. I volunteer, helping homeless families, and I see the wretched hell imposed upon them. In my state, there are three tent cities, and they are filled with good and decent citizens and their children, and I don't see the church saying bo diddley about any of them. Don't you DARE attempt to bring up the bible, because let's face it, you certainly are the one treating Christ's teachings with contempt. When the wealthy man went to Christ and asked him what he needed to do to achieve salvation, did Christ tell him to take his poor neighbor's sole means of support away from him, and give it to cheaper foreign labor, so the wealthy man could make more profit? No, he didn't, yet that is what you justify. Nor is your concern for the poor from Ireland or south of the US border, because both Ireland and the countries south of the border can well afford to do more to help their own. What's more, I don't want to hear about how tough Ireland or Mexico, for example might have it, because you simply don't care to hear about how tough the majority of US citizens have it, the poverty and suffering that is pandemic here.

• simplesandy | Jul 08, 2010, 01:13 PM EDT

  oK LISTEN UP EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!! if Obama wants to stop the law in Arizona then why the he!! don't he make the laws for getting into America better and easier....these ppl would not have to sneek in if he had better and easier ways for them to get in leagally... I am sick and tired of people wanting the law to be enforced and getting no where because Obama and his whitehouse freeks keep trying to undermine anyone wanting to enforce the law... here this Obama ..you really need to say what side of the fence you are on .. in one hand you say don't enforce the imagration law and then in the other hand you say we have to keep our borders tight... make up you friggin mind...A$$

• allentown | Jul 08, 2010, 12:31 PM EDT

  Fourteen pages of comments on this topic and they say that immigration is not a hot issue. In 2007, Mitt Romney ran on a platform of no amnesty and all illegals go home. It will be interesting to see if he keeps no amnesty and all illegals go home in his upcoming 2011 platform.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 11:50 AM EDT

  ritmomente, Illegals current cost US taxpayers $133 billion A YEAR, that would increase if CIR passes, your proposed 36 billion fine would not make much of a dent.

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 11:50 AM EDT

  No racist here...I like Mexicans, I grew up with them and work with them everyday. I used to travel to mexico frequently until the past few years, it is becoming too dangerous. My fellow Mexican american US CITIZENS, are good honest decent people, like most people, they want the same things we all do...So lets don't throw the race card out there to cloud the argument and try to make citizens look like radicals because they want their borders defended.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 11:44 AM EDT

  olovely, There are dozens of ranchs for sale near the Arizona border cheap, the Americans there no longer want to "live next door to Latinos", put your money where your mouth is go buy one and live there.

• maryday | Jul 08, 2010, 11:39 AM EDT

  Hog wash! States are only trying to protect themselves. What part of "illegal" don't immigrants understand. The last time I checked the word illegal referred to something contrary to or forbidden by official rules. The problem lies when governments don't inforce inacted laws. Arizona is only trying to enforce and protect what the federal government refuses to do. This all has to do with votes. The more illegals voting, the more liberals are in power. Smart move, but Americans are catching on. Good luck in the next election, President Obama! You will need it.

• RosemaryKelly | Jul 08, 2010, 11:19 AM EDT

  Not much!!!! Obama has no idea about the problems AZ faces with illegal immigrants. Ranchers in AZ who live on the border are afraid to leave their ranches alone for fear when they return there won't be anything left!!! AZ is only trying to enforce laws that already on the books but rarely enforced. Other states would also like to make this same law AND enforce it.

• olovely | Jul 08, 2010, 11:18 AM EDT

  Many of you anti-immigrant posters would make a better case for yourselves if 80% of you weren't such obvious racists and reactionaries. As it stands I'd rather live next door to a latino family than any number of the bible bashing gun toting my way or the highway crowd.

• ritmomente | Jul 08, 2010, 11:13 AM EDT

  $3000 x 12,000,000 immigrants = cash profit instead of death, debt and destruction. It also gives the undocumented the opportunity to get in line for citizenship or guest worker visa programs, plus allow many to practice what they went to school for in their home countries. This way, our attempted border crossers will be the drug dealers, bank robbers, rapists and murders and not the starving immigrant looking for work and a new life. But can we expect this from people like Nancy Pelosi who said that unemployment compensation stimulates the economy?

• macstwo | Jul 08, 2010, 11:07 AM EDT

  I find it hard to believe that you are behind obama's efforts to undermine the sovereign rights of the State of Az. It's easy for you to sit in your office and yak about the history of our ancestors, because the effects of illegal immigration really don't reach you. The operative term is ILLEGAL immigration... our ancestors for the most part were legal immigrants, here with the consent of the government. Yes, acceptance by the population took time and wasn't easy, but they did it, legally, for the most part. Get off your high horse, quit backing an administration that is led by a person who most likely is an illegal himself.

• georgeG | Jul 08, 2010, 10:54 AM EDT

  Let's not be naive here. Obama is merely carrying out the plan of massive amnesty ("immigration reform") because the Democrats need millions of new liberal voters. Our country has the technology and money to secure the borders and enforce the law if we really wanted to. I am pro-immigrant, but disgusted with our leaders' unwillingness to truly reform immigration. It's too easy for them to allow the dangerous free-for-all we have now (not to mention politically advantageous to the Democrats).

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:50 AM EDT

  Terry Anderson, who called himself the Prisoner of South Central (Los Angeles) died earlier today, and the silence is already deafening. For more than a decade, Terry has broadcast his loud and angry Sunday night radio show from Los Angeles under the motto of: "Articulating The Popular Rage" His constant tag-line was: "If You Ain't Mad, You Ain't Payin' Attention" When blue-collar Black Americans across the nation began to lose control of their neighborhoods, their occupations, their schools and their livelihoods because of immigration during the 1990s, Terry -- above all others -- refused to be silent. For more than 15 years, nobody has been a more outspoken champion of the cause of Black Americans against the unfair competition of immigration. A BIG MAN IN OVERALLS WITH A VOICE & MESSAGE TO MATCH Terry's anger at what immigration had done to the historic Black neighborhoods of South Central L.A. pushed him onto stages across California and eventually across America. Usually proudly wearing overalls and doing nothing to disguise his small business and auto mechanic livelihood, Terry became one of the most popular orators in the movement to protect U.S. workers from illegal immigration. Sadly, few of the traditional civil rights leaders -- Black or White -- have said a word in defense of Black Americans when it comes to immigration. Most of them have decided that the pain inflicted disproportionately on Black Americans is acceptable because immigration provides the leaders with other benefits. That is what made Terry's work so important and so courageous -- and so unique.

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:48 AM EDT

  Monsoonman.. The magnet or cheese as you say, are the hugh corporations in the south/west that have mostly illegal immigrants working in their factory pig farms and beef slaughter and manufacturing facilities providing those millions of frozen hamburgers and bacon to America and the world.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:43 AM EDT

  Yes the Mexica Movement is extreemist and outspoken, but most Latinos have a similar attitude toward English speaking whites, an attitude of superiority and feelings that "Anglos" stole much of what they have from Latinos. Go read the book La Raza Cosmica, it explains the ideas upon which the National Council of La Raza and similar groups are based upon. So while most Latinos don't reject European culture, they do reject "Anglo" (English speaking white) culture. So in the end, the future for white Americans would not be much different under La Raza rule than under Mexica Movement rule.

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 10:36 AM EDT

  No wonder the US is such a magnet, you put the cheese out there the mice are going to come. Lets secure the borders (no one gets in that we don't know who they are), turn off the benefits spigot which will mean self deportation of many, find the rest and deport them and start over again with a sane immigration system....Meaning sponsorship, etc. No getting on the dole as soon as you cross our border and especially NO anchor babies, that is insane. So if I happen to be visiting Norway and my ole lady pops out a kid, it is automatically a Norwegian citizen and we are automatically granted permanent status?...

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:35 AM EDT

  Monsoonman... Many countries allow "guest workers" and other options to treat new, or existing long term immigrants with children, born in country. The system we have now only benefits the corporations that want an abundance of cheap labor. Many of these people would like to work in the States and return home to Mexico or El Salvador (like a guest worker) however crossing the border and returning, for them put's everything in jeopardy.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:33 AM EDT

  DennisQ, I don't know where you live, but here in Mexifornia the opposite is true. Do you know Mexicans target and kill black Americans in LA so they can move into their neighborhoods? Have you heard about "anchor babies", those little bundles of prosperity for their parents who collect $15,000 a year in American taxpayer benefits for each one they have, and that is why they have twice as many here as they have in Mexico? Have you seen any of the millions of unemployed and homeless Americans who would like to have the jobs these Mexicans are currently doing?

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 10:23 AM EDT

  Whatever happened to sponsorship when someone immigrated to my country? The sponsor (US citizen with assets pledged for this purpose) was responsible for the immigrant for 7 years, ensuring that the new immigrant would not be a burden to the country....Did the immigration lawyer lobby get that one turned on its head too? Now you can come here illegally and receive all sorts of gummint services: free healthcare, govt. housing, food stamps, income. No wonder this country is so upside down.

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 10:12 AM EDT

  Why the need to have a country? Why bother with borders? Why bother with laws? Can any of you give me a country that tolerates this and still exists and thrives?...didn't think so.

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 10:02 AM EDT

  The only people with their "heads up their asses" as some repeatedly post, are those bigotted basta*ds who want to blame the current economic woes, and everything else, on the, "those people" of the day. We were the "those people" not too long ago. And don't tell me how "we" came in legally,it was simply a case of supply and demand. This country needed the immigrants, then, to be the servants, the miners and build the rail roads. Our ancesters were not a cut above, they were just very lucky that America had a great need for labour when the Irish had a great need for a better life. It worked for both.

• McNamara31 | Jul 08, 2010, 09:39 AM EDT

  MaryM232, four times in American history, most recently in 2000, the Electoral College has done was it was empowered to do - deny the presidency to the candidate that won a plurality of the popular vote!! I will not continue to engage you as that is kinda like feeding cocaine to a crack addict whose brain is already fried. I suspect that the source of your rage and the reason for your over-the-top disproportionate babble have little to do with illegal aliens or the Arizona law and much to do with the man in the White House - and that man, Mary mo croi, will be in your face for another six and a half years. Damn, here I go again laughing out loud.

• DennisQ | Jul 08, 2010, 07:54 AM EDT

  I don't dislike Mexicans. As a group they are hard-working and family-oriented. These are exactly the kind of people we need in America. They don't come here looking for a handout; they come here to work. Incidentally, the real test of their welcome is their ability to find work - which they do. Whoever says they just sit around and collect government benefits just doesn't know them. And yes, there is something racist about making up malicious stories about them. The arrival of the Mexicans generally means that the poor neighborhoods they move into out of necessity become good neighborhoods with markets and restaurants and barber shops. I welcome these people. We need more of them; not fewer.

• McNabb1966 | Jul 08, 2010, 04:56 AM EDT

  The use of the term "lynch law" to describe Arizona's new law regarding illegal immigration reduces this article to the level of restroom graffiti. It's a marvelously immature, asinine use of the phrase. Especially when you consider that the government's suit is based on preemption, not civil rights. Sorry, Niall. You've disgraced yourself with this one...

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 04:21 AM EDT

  Interesting stuff. I knew the name 'Mexico' was based on indiginous language, but not a whole lot else about this particular group (though I had indeed heard of them). They sound similar to some of the whackier elements in the Nation of Islam, which preaches black nationalist separatism, angst towards Jews, and which apparently believes that whites were the creation of a mad black man eons ago, or something along that line. As for your curiosity what Niall might do (I'm thinking more about anyone in general who talks about the whites that stole native lands and shouldn't be there), I find it a rather consistent thing that those who talk that way are usually the last to follow their own advice (I sure don't see many of THEM moving back to Europe)...just like those who call for the euthanasia of those with a 'lesser quality of life' (the elderly, brain damaged, handicapped, unborn, etc). They NEVER volunteer to take that long walk off a short pier, themselves. It's always someone ELSE who must die (with them deciding who), but never, NEVER themselves, of course. They know better than all the rest of us, you see. They have to be around, to oversee and manage things. The Mexica Movement just sounds more like a racist revenge brigade, than anything else. I have no problem with anyone embracing their own heritage (which I myself have done), but...mass expulsion and superiority? We all know what kind of reaction we get, when WHITES talk that way.

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 02:59 AM EDT

  The Mexica Movement also says all European descendants are racist, and the only way they can be non-racist is to give everything they own (stolen from the indigenous) back and to move off the American Continents. Since Niall abhors being called a "racist", I wonder how soon will he meet their non-racist requirements and give back everything he owns (stole), and moves to Ireland?

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 02:53 AM EDT

  Irish and Proud, check out their website (IC won't let me post it), you will see they reject the term Hispanic, the Spanish language and names, and instead only use indigenous names. They say the Mexica indigenous technology and culture was superior before the Spanish arrived, they only lost because of European diseases. They think they could have created all the "white" inventions and technology on their own if Europeans had not oppressed them. As for being mixed race as long as they repudiate European culture and only embrace indigenous culture they feel that's enough to consider themselves full indigenous. By the way the terms Mexican and Mexico are based on the indigenous name Mexica, which was what the indigenous people called themselves before the Spanish conquered them in I think 1518.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 02:21 AM EDT

  Interesting, as I would guess that many within the Mexica Movement are themselves Hispanic (safe assumption?) -- and Hispanics are, by definition, of mixed European and indiginous blood, speaking a European language (Spanish) and possessing European spanish surnames, wearing European-inspired clothes, living in European-designed (or at least influenced) cities, driving white-invented cars, etc, etc. Same with bozo's like Hugo Chavez. So, how do they square all that away with their beliefs, when they owe their own existence at least partly to whites?

• Taylor55 | Jul 08, 2010, 02:08 AM EDT

  The Mexica Movement considers all white / European ancestory people living on the American Continents to be invaders, whites/Europeans plus those of Asian and African ancestory are considered to be illegal aliens who need to be removed from the American Continents and sent back to their "homelands".

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 01:21 AM EDT

  Australia has some of the toughest immigration policies in the world, I believe. Stuff that Seanny-boy would probably curse the USA for enacting.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 01:19 AM EDT

  Oh, and also...if Fox News is so 'anti-american,' then why is it far and away the most-watched and POPULAR network in the USA? An Aussie, chirping across the water at the USA that its most wildly popular network is 'anti-american.' Gee, sean (birds chirping, here)...I didn't know you cared about Americans, so much...(sniff)...maybe you should go up there and save them from themselves, since they're obviously such idiots for being suckered, like that...

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 01:13 AM EDT

  Oh...and are all the polls that consistently show 60-70% support for Arizona's law in the USA just O'Reilly 'talking points?' Did Bill O'Reilly make up all those polls, sean?

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 01:11 AM EDT

  Lad, what are Australias immigration policies? Open door, anyone and everyone welcome? No limits, all social services free to all? Jes askin'

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 01:09 AM EDT

  I might add, Sean (and don't use this post to avoid the question I asked you, below): You just parrot Obama's, Hamas', and Ahmadinejad's talking points...so (no pun intended), look who's 'talking.'

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 01:04 AM EDT

  I wouldn't know, sean. I don't even WATCH O'Reilly (fellow Irishman though he is). Apparently you do, otherwise how would YOU know what he's saying? Oh and btw if he agrees with me, then GOOD. I said in my post, below: "Wouldn't you love to just freely think and speak, as I do, without fear of the usual, predictable nonsense that some will probably post in response to me, now?" And you've just responded PRECISELY as I predicted, Sean. Question: Can you dispute even a single thing I said, in my post?

• seanomelbourne | Jul 08, 2010, 12:35 AM EDT

  Irish and proud just switched off O Reilly's talking points and posted them here. He(Irish and proud) and Mary are living in a self induced racist nightmare, basing there ill-conceived commentary on the dribblings of the fox anti American news channel which is owned by an ignominious Australian.

• Monsoonman | Jul 08, 2010, 12:32 AM EDT

  White guilt getting exploited to the maximum by professional race hustlers and gangsters, aided and abetted by the useful idiots in the liberal news media....So tell me, holder/obama sue Az. because "Setting immigration policy and enforcing immigration laws is a national responsibility,"....Then WHY are they not going after the numerous "sanctuary cities who are actively scoffing and disregarding US immigration laws?

• IrishAndProud | Jul 08, 2010, 12:07 AM EDT

  Niall O'Dowd, forgive my saying so, but with trash like your headline and first paragraph, you really are starting to come across as a weak, pandering, self-loathing, self-flagellating white-guilter, who feels he has to prove himself (as 'not racist') to ethnic minorities and possibly even to yourself, as well -- by parrotting and using all the words, phrases and code-talk of the equally self-loathing, self-flagellating politically-correct. Dont' you hate living in a self-imposed cage, like that? Wouldn't you love to just freely think and speak, as I do, without fear of the usual, predictable nonsense that some will probably post in response to me, now? It's like you're going out of your way to bow down to the likes of Obama, Holder and the illegals just because they're not white and you have to prove to them that you're 'not racist,' yourself. You've drunk the kool-aid, and now you feel like you have to continually go around, proving things like that to others (who don't care, anyway). That really makes you look weak and foolish, Niall. You're a bigger man than that. But hey -- your article, your choice, right?

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 11:43 PM EDT

  Ha! Obama is so stridently and continuously riding in the face of American public opinion that he's just shot himself in the foot, yet again. This laughable lawsuit will only HELP Arizona and his political opposition, both -- MASSIVELY -- in this election year. When you have Obama suing a state over a law which 60-70% of the American people CONSISTENTLY support, that is out-and-out political suicide. The AZ law merely mirrors the FEDERAL law which is already on the books, which the feds simply won't enforce -- and now they're crying that they're being 'infringed' on? Ha! They won't enforce their OWN laws, and then try to block a state from doing it for them, out of desperation...with huge majorities of the people supporting the state. HAAAA! It's almost like a contest the Obama bunch is having with themselves, to see who can self-destruct the most, the fastest. And they're all intent on winning.

• irishwxman | Jul 07, 2010, 11:38 PM EDT

  Hey Niall, if this law is so bad, then why are 20 other states looking to enact similar laws? How do you not realize the immigration problem we are facing here? Are you that naive???

• irishwxman | Jul 07, 2010, 11:31 PM EDT

  Hey Niall!!! How does the inside of Obama's ass smell? Your head is so far up it that I can't even see where you begin and he ends.

• irishwxman | Jul 07, 2010, 11:29 PM EDT

  All of you idiotic morons who continue to bash the new AZ never case to amaze me. there is not 1 thing racist about this law. not even 1. In fact, the federal law which it MIRRORS is even more harsh, and allows law enforcement to stop people based on race. The AZ law strictly prohibits that. The only difference? AZ is actually doing what the federal government won't do. Get your heads out of your asses and read the damn law.

• oldbear | Jul 07, 2010, 10:44 PM EDT

  My Irish bretheren, kindly refer to the US Consitution and our u;ninalieanable right, including JOhn Locke commentaries of Law in England..The US Federal Govt in USofA fails to act upon the immigaration problem; there is states rights - they have a serious problem with immigration (not ethnicity nor creed) and have a right to act upon it to protect the state citizens. Other states are looking at such inaction of statute. u unalienable rights, including John Locke's writings....

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:42 PM EDT

  Tom Swinford, again, you rely on attacks relying on straw man arguments rather than addressing my points. You find the concept of the citizenry's rights to petition their government to seek redress laughable? You don't respect our constitution, you show contempt for it. Nor is my understanding of Hamilton's writings on the electoral college lacking in any way. As a US citizen, I'm very well aware of it's laws, as well as the reason for the election of the president via the electoral college, and as I mentioned, it was constructed in that manner, to prevent fraud and abuse. I cited the reasons why ideas initially put forward were dismissed, and why they settled on the ultimate conclusion. You however, display the contempt for the citizenry, by your hateful rhetoric, citing a fear of the citizenry being a mindless mob, when that is in no way what Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68. Alexander Hamilton referred to outside, foreign and other corrupting influences being brought to bear in our elections, and he did mention tumult in connection with that, not too off the mark when you consider the illegals and their Marxist fellow travelers, and this point is especially telling, given the corrupt democrats in congress and in the executive branch seeking to import, and illegals they are countenancing, in the hopes of utilizing them to garner them perpetual power by an amnesty.

• dave1mbu | Jul 07, 2010, 10:42 PM EDT

  I'm still thinking that this article is a joke because the Arizona law is in reference to illegal aliens and not immigrants. SB 1070 states racial profiling is not allowed and if a member of law enforcement does use it to detain someone then that officer is subject disciplinary action. Any law can be applied using racial profiling, does that make all laws racists.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:42 PM EDT

  Neither the founders, or Hamilton sought to create a barrier between the citizenry and electing a president. In much the same way, that the founders didn't just settle for a single tier legislature at the federal level, they created a bicameral system in congress, with the house of representatives, and a senate, that body being a deliberative one, the idea of the electoral college was that the very citizenry you show such contempt for, elect a number of their fellows, to vote for the president.. these electors are answerable to their fellow citizens, they take an oath, and are held to account. The only barrier they provide, is against intrigue, and that was the intent of that concept.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:41 PM EDT

  It is far cheaper to depart all the illegals here, than it is to continue to subsidize them, and pay all the related burdens they impose on our country, and it would be rather easy to do. FDR and Eisenhower conducted mass deportations and did so relatively quickly and expediently. Such a scheme would also provide an interim make work program for unemployed citizens. In all seriousness, if we cut off all welfare and other subsidies, announce that any city or town with a sanctuary law or reputation will have it's elected officials investigated for treason with an eye to prosecution, start mass raids and deportations, and at the same time, make public announcements that no illegal alien leaving the US within the next 30 days, will be stopped or fined, but all illegals who are found within the US at the end of 30 days, will be rounded up, fined a substantial figure which gets higher for each child they have and deported, and all employers of said illegals, irregardless of whether they can claim ignorance of their employee's status, will be fined a substantial amount you will see illegals fired en masse, crawling out of their hidey holes and self deporting with what savings and material items they have before the deadline.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:40 PM EDT

  Attrition works, they only need to understand that the laws will be enforced. Start construction of a high, double walled physical barrier, with cameras and or censors, at the southern border, finishing the job we already had voted through and paid for years ago. Send our military, fully armed to the southern border until such time as we have adequate border patrol, also send them to that national park land in Arizona, to eliminate the Mexican drug cartel and their paramilitary thugs who have taken it over. Then it's simply a matter of this. Cancel NAFTA, as it was never constitutionally passed in the senate. Bill Clinton had no legal right to sign it, it was never a law, it's a treaty and it didn't garner the 2/3 majority vote required. Inform Mexico, that the US does not conduct trade or treaties with enemy foreign states, and given that Mexico has been found to have violated it's own language that it wrote into NAFTA, flout our laws and sovereignty, has violated international law, has engaged in unfair practices by encouraging it's people to violate our laws, has allowed it's military to illegally cross our border, has allowed it's military to collude with drug cartels as well as to refuse to enforce it's own laws when it's witnessed it's own nationals shooting at, and using other implements to harm and/or kill US border patrol agents, police and National Guards men. That Mexico's corruption has rendered it unfit to the friendly relationship the US had previously offered it. That the only way trade can ever resume, is for Mexico to act in a responsible, respectful and ethical manner. That would involve Mexico raising it's tax rates to help it's own people, enforce it's laws, remove all corrupt members of it's police and military and get it's proverbial house in order, otherwise it can find trading partners and foreign aid elsewhere.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 10:31 PM EDT

  Meanwhile, (speaking of 'lynch mobs,' and the like), remember those racist New Black Panthers who tried to intimidate voters in Philadelphia in '08 (and who Obama's equally racist AG, Eric Holder, dropped the case against...even though they were CAUGHT ON CAMERA doing it)? Well, here's what one of those Panthers (a guy named 'King Shamir Shabazz') said -- and it's a direct quote: "I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate them. You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies...[END QUOTE]" He also cursed black men for seeing white women. And Barack Hussein Obama (so many Muslim-ish names, here) REFUSES to prosecute this guy and his racist thug buddies. Things like this, the whole country is noticing more and more, and it's just one reason of many that Obama's support is dropping like a dead fish in lead. The guy's a non-mainstream radical. He could override the AG, but he's not. Uh, Niall...I think you missed a lynch mob, or two...

• Lizdp22 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:25 PM EDT

  I mistakenly clicked on "Liked this" when I definitely do NOT like it. How can I cancel this?

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 09:45 PM EDT

  I've said time and time again, we independents don't like Obama, anymore. And this just in...Obama's approval rating amongst independents is now down to 38%...the LOWEST...EVER...MEASURED (and that's from GALLUP). And it's STILL dropping like a rock.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 09:43 PM EDT

  I might add, GuinessGrrl...all YOU are doing is parrotting CNN and CBS and OBAMA talking points...you know, the kind of thing nobody watches or listens to, anymore (just check any ratings for the last half-decade, or so). Me thinks you put the 'Guiness' in 'GuinessGrrl'...you've had a few too many.

• bonjouryall | Jul 07, 2010, 09:38 PM EDT

  The best defense is often a good offense. Those that are biased in favor of Mexicans charge the opponents with the R-word. Its use usually reflects a lack of logic and evidence. More importantly, this word is a racial slur designed to show contempt for and to silence particular racial or ethnic groups. As such, it is no different from using the N-word except for the color of the group it is used against.

• TedJLawler | Jul 07, 2010, 09:19 PM EDT

  This jerk does not know what he is talking about. Arizona has every right to protect it's border.

• TedJLawler | Jul 07, 2010, 09:06 PM EDT

  MaryM232, I find your long-winded and twisted interpretation of the Constitution amusing to the point that I actually laughed out loud. I will not address your rather faulty lesson and pointless diatribe except to state again: The primary purpose of the Electoral College was to create a barrier between the voting population and the election of the president. The fear of our founding fathers was that a mindless mob might elect (if presidents were elected directly)a tyrant or populist demagogue to the detriment of the country. Please read Hamilton's Federalist Paper #68. The sentiments in response to Niall O'Dowd's article proves again the genius and foresight of our founders. As I've said, I support secure borders and a rational immigration policy that is enforced. No reasonably intelligent, thinking person would have a problem with this. To believe that we can simply deport 15 million people who are here illegally is utterly insane. As a nation and a people we have allowed this to happen. Now we must deal with it in a way that will not tear our country apart and destroy our values.

• seanomelbourne | Jul 07, 2010, 08:31 PM EDT

  You lot live in a racist ground hog day world. I do not live in the U.S.A(but I have visited).There seems to be a pattern in using immigration as a political tool come election time. The GOP seems to be the no party when bi-partisan support is needed to address the problem. It seems sad to me that they scrape the bottom of the barrel to gain a few votes. I would also like to add that in most democracies the majority party has the right to pass legislation and if people don't like it an election can change the policies if that's what people want to do. Are you really living in a democracy or rule by the corporates and the super rich.

• McNamara31 | Jul 07, 2010, 08:20 PM EDT

  GuinnessGrrl...So true, on the "Faux News" bloviation. The GOP doesn't want immigration reform because their constituents, "business owners" profit from the existing cheap labor provided by the current policy.

• clonmel21 | Jul 07, 2010, 07:19 PM EDT

  silly man, you Dowd: no-one is trying to drive out the residents of the US; THEY ARE TRYING TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM COMING IN!!! DUH, Oh yea, did you read the law??mmmmmmm

• Ajreaper | Jul 07, 2010, 07:03 PM EDT

  Does anyone who comments on this issue read the law first? It seems that would be step one for a journalist before commenting on this topic. I live in Az and have for over 40 years- in fact I grew up less then an hour from the U.S. Mexico border. The Az law parrots the federal law- it basically is the federal law made into a state law so Az can enforce what our federal government has chosen not to. Those who cross into Az to work are not the main problem the drug smuggling and now the people smuggling that has sprung up has caused huge problems in Az. We need to secure our border, we need to stop those who smuggle people and drugs and try to prevent the additional crimes these cause in Az. We also need to establish a reasonable way for people to legally enter the U.S. to work- we get that in Az we are not rascist or anti immigrant but we are anti crime and we are concerned about whom or what else may cross our border undetected.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 06:56 PM EDT

  I've said time and time again, we independents don't like Obama, anymore. And this just in...Obama's approval rating amongst independents is now down to 38%...the LOWEST...EVER...MEASURED (and that's from GALLUP). And it's STILL dropping like a rock.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 06:45 PM EDT

  I might add, GuinessGrrl...all YOU are doing is parrotting CNN and CBS and OBAMA talking points...you know, the kind of thing nobody watches or listens to, anymore (just check any ratings for the last half-decade, or so). Me thinks you put the 'Guiness' in 'GuinessGrrl'...you've had a few too many.

• IrishAndProud | Jul 07, 2010, 06:42 PM EDT

  There is no comparison between the Irish immigrants of old (including my own ancestors) and the illegal aliens of today. Anyone who makes a favorable comparison between them is PISSING on the Irish immigrants of old -- and on Irish identity, itself -- and for what? Just to annoy the other side, and be p.c. There IS no comparison. The Irish immigrants of old, first of all, were actually IMMIGRANTS. Illegal aliens are not 'immigrants.' They're criminal trespassors, who come here and then demand that WE conform to THEM, when they've openly violated our borders. What a slap-in-the-face to the Irish immigrants, who NEVER did such a thing. Come on, folks...a CHILD knows the difference between an illegal ALIEN and a legitimate IMMIGRANT. This little girls' game of pretending otherwise is just that. Thankfully, such people are on the outs now, in the USA...and that's a cosmic understatement. The people of the USA don't want the illegals around, anymore. Now watch someone try to play the 'racist' card, or the 'you're not Native American' angle. It's so predictable...and so irrelevant.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 05:47 PM EDT

  So McNamara, have you given everything you own to the Mexica and are moving to Ireland like they want? That will be the end result of the Obama amnesty which you support. Go to Mexica Movement (dot) org to see what I mean.

• historynw | Jul 07, 2010, 05:35 PM EDT

  Too bad your google ad link on the page is one sided. Makes it sound like its a poll.

• McNamara31 | Jul 07, 2010, 05:29 PM EDT

  TomSwinford...Great posts. Totally agree with your facts, empathy and perspective. Few remember how badly the Irish immigrants were treated by the Nativists. Many of the posts here echo "their views" of that time.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 04:49 PM EDT

  PS. I don't watch Fox News, just come live in Mexifornia like me you will learn everything there is to know about illegal immigration.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 04:47 PM EDT

  Sorry G Grrrrl, business owners don't realize they are hiring an illegal because the illegals hand them FORGED, FAKE, STOLEN ID!!! You think maybe that broken English should be a clue? Well the US Justice Department will descend them like locusts if they don't hire someone for that reason, it's called the Civil Right laws, so to prevent that the business (unknowingly) hires an illegal. Yes, an amnesty that Ronald O'Reagan later said was his "biggest mistake", because instead of ending illegal immigration we ended up with 5 times more illegals!!!

• GuinnessGrrl | Jul 07, 2010, 04:28 PM EDT

  Wow there's a lot of Faux News talking points being repeated in the comments...some of you really should try changing the wording around a little bit so it sounds like it's an orignal thought. All of you bleating about illegals "taking" jobs haven't said one word about prosecuting the owners of the businesses that HIRE illegals...those laws are already on the books. Also, those of you bleating about some supposed amnesty Obama is going to grant, you mean an amnesty like Ronald Reagan granted? Finally for the sheeple that are calling the President a "muslim"...the United States of America doesn't have a religious test for our elected officials. It doesn't matter if he's Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi, Buddhist, Mormon or an Atheist!

• allentown | Jul 07, 2010, 04:16 PM EDT

  Swinford, You remind me of the soldier who was marching out-of-step with his whole company. His mother was watching and remarked: "Look, everyone is out of step but my son". Does Lame-headedness run in your family?

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 04:11 PM EDT

  Tom Swineford, “intemperate“, “populist“, “mob” oh my, your panties are in a bunch, aren’t they? Isn’t it always thus when those who wish to cast our liberties, our very freedom on the scrap heap, so they themselves can plunder them for personal profit? You find our constitution affording the US citizen individual liberties, including the RIGHT to petition our government to seek redress, inconvenient, so you feel the need to reduce us to a defamatory stereotype, in your hopes to render us as less thans. If it sounds familiar, it is. You must obviously believe that it was acceptable for the English to abuse and displace our forebears, pushing them in desperation out of their home country more than one hundred years ago? Don’t deny it, because you utilize the same excuses they did, and claim the same right to do so, they did. Our constitution denies you that ability, it states the rights of citizens, it defines what a citizen is, and that civil rights belong exclusively to citizens. Those rights aren’t transitory, you do not have the right to displace us, reduce us to slaves. So adamant were our founders, they ensured an informed us of our rights to bear arms, and to remove the government were it to be corrupted by your kind.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 04:07 PM EDT

  Nor do you understand what the electoral college was created to ensure. It was to ensure that the rights of all citizens, whether they lived in large, more populated states, or smaller, less populated ones were equally applied. The founders considered many ways of utilizing the electoral college, and they selected the ultimate version, so as not to afford more power to one branch or another of the federal government, and not to allow any one state to have more power than any other. You displace an arrogance and disdain for the US, it’s constitution and people, that is indicative of that old world mindset that reduces the citizenry to chattel. That is the reason our founders did not want the US to have excessive ties to foreign countries and forbid dual citizenship. The Irish, when they began to arrive in larger numbers, were immediately set upon, by their fellow Irish, who sought to exploit their lack of familiarity with the US, who would force them to sign contracts obliging them to live in foul tenements at higher than normal rents for extended periods of time, threatening to charge them with crimes if they sought to escape such frauds. They used newer Irish immigrants as stepping stones to power. BTW, the Irish never fled the US, as well you know. You need to stop hiding behind lies.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 04:06 PM EDT

  The US has had what.. 7 or more amnesties since the first one in the ‘60s. Each time we’ve been lied to, that it would be the last and our laws would be enforced. Each time corrupt democrats got what they wanted, and not only were our immigration laws not enforced, but each amnesty bred another. No more. We can not afford illegal aliens, we can not absorb them. Nor can we afford more immigrants. The US is in serious debt, our jobs have been bled away to other countries, Ireland being one of those countries. The countries these illegals come from are not poor, they are not suffering, there is no deadly hunger, there is no lack of jobs there. If these people are such “hard workers” they should be working hard in their home countries to effect the change they claim is needed there. Mexico, for example is the 12th wealthiest country in the world, the 4th largest oil producing nation, it has a large an thriving middle class and many wealthy people. It encourages it’s people to come here illegally, so as to artificially suppress it’s tax rates, while making ours higher and less competitive. This isn’t sustainable, it’s an insane policy to not enforce our laws to protect our citizens from such abuses, an it will only destroy our economy completely.

• howareya | Jul 07, 2010, 03:59 PM EDT

  Niall, did you notice that 99.9% of the comments here are polar opposite to your view? The majority of citizens of our country agree with the Arizona law!!!! Get a grip, man. You reference the killing of the Ecuadorean immigrant (which is terrible!) How bout the massacre of the Bologna Family in San Francisco (a sanctuary city) by the illegal that had been arrested numerous times and never turned over to ICE or deported ... how bout the many people that have been killed here in San Diego county by illegal drunk drivers...how bout the rancher that has been referenced in comments here that was shot down by illegal drug runners. Regarding jobs...how bout my friends son that was laid off from his landscaping job because his boss said he could get an illegal for cheaper and couldn't compete by paying him a legal wage...how bout the man that owned a cabinet company in New Jersey that had to go out of business because his competitors were using illegals and could do the jobs cheaper...how bout my brother in law in Hawaii that is in construction and couldn't get a job because they were being filled by illegals getting paid so much less. So it's easy to label people as racist and lynch mobs just because they want the laws enforced. I'm sure you would make an about face if you lost your job because an illegal could do it cheaper or a loved one was killed because we won't deport even the criminal illegals!!! So Shut Your Gob until you know what you're talking about! and hollabackgurl - try moving to East L.A. and living next to an illegal family for 3 months and then come back and tell me how happy you are.

• jimnsandy | Jul 07, 2010, 03:50 PM EDT

  I have read the law and there is nothing in it that is racist. Our Federal government is Not doing the job. I believe in LEGAL immigation,afterall that is how all of my great grandparents came to this great country. Obama is only trying to swell the ranks of the Democrats voter rolls. Just think, if Illegal immigration is curtailed, then maybe there would be work here for our brothers and sisters from Ireland. We know that they will not try to sneak across the border!

• HJMorales | Jul 07, 2010, 03:32 PM EDT

  This issue is about 'ILLEGAL IMMiGRATION' get your STORY straight... The States should have 'POWER' over the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT not the other way around. First there was the UNITED STATES then the Federal Government! Wake up people, we all have a HIStory of IMMIGRATION in our BACKGROUND somewhere down the line, less you are INDIAN or HISPANIC. RON PAUL in 2012 Harold J Morales - Proud to be an IMMIGRANT SON!

• Ggieb4m | Jul 07, 2010, 03:30 PM EDT

  Niall, Another thing, how did that work out for you back when England was trying to take over? And you can't believe most of what you hear or read from the liberal Americans. Niall, You got yourself some bad informatiom.

• alscott | Jul 07, 2010, 03:14 PM EDT

  Have you read Arizona's law? My reading of it did not find racism. I found a rational approach to a state problem that our national leaders have largely ignored for far too long.I am surprised this piece came to me via Irish Central, but admit I am nieve enough to think the Irish Press should actually reflect the views of the Irish people who have a long and honorable history of legal immigration, and the horse sence to know the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal.I was visiting Ireland when the "erroneous readings of mammograms" was in the news, and sadened to hear the various personal stories and the pitiful official response.So even if you were asked to venture an opinion on Arizona's actions, why should I pay any attention to it? To my mind, Obama cramming federal health care down our throats was stike one, and fighting AZ's attempt to help the local illegal alien problems caused by the federal government's inaction, is strike two.PS I seem to recall various spokesmen from the UK and Ireland, sreaming to us during the Health Care debate, that "state run" health care didn't work. They claimed that all one had to do to prove the point was to look at their oun countries! Call me convinced.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 02:55 PM EDT

  Hey Nial, It's not immigration, it's a foreign invasion, illegal aliens kill 3000 Americans every year, take our jobs and tax benefits, and are imposing their language on us. Go look up the term "Reconquista", Mexican government officials have publicly admitted they are practicing it. Also go look up "Mexica Movement". So you want us to do what they demand, which is give them everything we own, then either move back to Europe or become their slaves?

• Ggieb4m | Jul 07, 2010, 02:54 PM EDT

  flanagan, If these illegal immigrants did all the protesting for their own government like they are doing for ours then maybe they could take their government back out of the crooks hands. And please don't sauy it couldn't be done. They are holding their own when it comes to the drug war.In the meantime they have come over here and trashed up our country like they have done theirs. i.e. L.A, South Houston,TX, Southwest Houston, TX, Pasadena, TX and I could go on and on.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 02:45 PM EDT

  Nicomax, So what are you saying, since it was President Polk who extended US territory from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean, that Obama is working overtime to undo what Polk did and give the Southwest and other parts of the USA back to foreign countries? That will be the exact result of his amnesty (CIR) plan. Is that what you are supporting, the breakup of the USA just like what happened to the old Soviet Union?

• Ggieb4m | Jul 07, 2010, 02:43 PM EDT

  Get a grip Naill. The only reason he is doing nothing while pretending to do something about Border security is because he has failed at everything ese. They've had years to secure the border, and did nothing while the ILLEGAL aliens came here, taking all of our benifits, running up our deficit,while having child after child and expecting us to support them, not to mention all the crime. They took an oath to uphold the law and have not(protecting the citizens of the United States) I gather you don't live in a border state. Take a good hard look at Mexico, the take a good hard look at L.A. See any similarities? Until you are ready to take 20 of them in your home and support them and their children in every way, or write out a 1000.00 check to the government each month so my benefits will be there when I need them, then be quite. It's people like you that talk so loud, giving opinions when none of it affects you, and not willing to take on the burden of them.

• Dompedro | Jul 07, 2010, 02:26 PM EDT

  Niall --- by lynch mob I presume you mean the people who murdered the rancher in his truck down near Bisbee, after he put water and food out for them for years (wasn't Lynch an Irishman?) questions ... has anyone at your paper ever lived in Arizona? ever worked in Mexico? ever walked into a convenience store on 22nd St, Tucson, as the sales girls chatted away in English, and when you asked them a question, they said "NO habla Englise" and walked into the back of the store? ever listened to the current Democratic Congresswomen from Arizona? ever sat near a one pole "gate" that is locked at 5 PM across a dirt rood that crosses the border and watched the trucks that drive up from the south at sundown? ever spoken to residents of the small, towns near the border who don't walk out of town for fear of meeting armed groups of men heading north in the river and washes? If not, maybe they don/t understand the situation Dom Pedro

• AltRockAddict | Jul 07, 2010, 02:16 PM EDT

  Naill, you would have to call all immigration laws "A Racists Law" since it usually means that someone of another race is immegrating to a country not of their birth. How dare you take sides on an American issue? Americans aren't against LEGAL immigration in the least! Pull your head out and focus on human rights in Mexico if you care that much. Scream at President Felipe Calderón to make his country more habitable. In America our states are allowed to enforce any law that is on the books and that's all that Arizona is doing. Enforcing an existing law that also exists in California, by the way. Maybe President Obama should push for California to enforce it's existing law.

• jflanagan | Jul 07, 2010, 01:43 PM EDT

  How about the people who were killed by the drug and human being smugglers! It's okay for them to kill? This isn't only a President Obama failure. President Bush did nothing to enforce immigration laws. Yes, I love legal immigrants and would be very agreeable to opening the entrance to more and more but to just let anyone in, when American citizens are being killed, wounded, harassed and kept from finding employment is a sick sick view of what is right for our fellow citizens. Have compassion for the immigrant but not at the expense of your fellow citizens.

• jflanagan | Jul 07, 2010, 01:35 PM EDT

  Yet, no where in the lawsuit does the Justice Department cite civil rights or racism as the basis. Could it be because there is no civil rights abuses or racism in the law? Niall, why don't you move to the border in Arizona a report from there. At least NY will be rid of your garbage. I give 20 times more to charity than Joe Biden each year yet I won't allow the people I feed through Goodwill, Salvation Army and the Food Bank just walk into my house uninvited. I love them and want to help but there are boundaries. Why do Politicians let the corrupt Vincente Fox and Calderon come into our country and criticize us? They are the ones who keep their citizens enslaved to protect the millions and millions of dollars Fox, Calderon and their friends get through the slave labor. That is why Mexico is such a backward and poor country that the citizens have to leave to make any kind of decent living.

• adhuil07 | Jul 07, 2010, 01:25 PM EDT

  your an idiot. Move to an Arizona border town. Evidently you do not know the meaning of illegal.

• Nicomax | Jul 07, 2010, 01:11 PM EDT

  I suggest Obama go for the whole enchilada [no pun intended] since those who hate him so much can't get any worse, and even if he is a one-term president, so be it, at least he accomplished something. Read the history of President James Polk elected in 1844, said he would not run for re-election, laid out an ambitious agenda, accomplished most of it, and retired.

• Judedude | Jul 07, 2010, 01:01 PM EDT

  I live in AZ, I'm living this nightmare, I live 35 miles north of the border. I see the destruction and garbage in our desert. I read and see daily the human smuggling and accidents in vehicles crashing on highways and killing the illegals and injuring themselves and innocent people. They break into our homes for food and water, break our lawn irrigation systems for water. You can't take a drive out to enjoy the country without being yelled out because you won't stop and assist them and you should carry protection (most of us just don't take drives because of the fear of being accosted by drug smugglers.) It sounds like the movies of Vietnam here because of the constant helicopters going over our homes serching night and day. This is just a bit of what goes on here in AZ. Yeah for Gov Brewer!

• Judedude | Jul 07, 2010, 12:46 PM EDT

  MaryM232, in the face of an intemperate, populist mob, being in the "extreme minority" is an honorable place to be. Our founding fathers had very good reason to create the Electoral College - so that an ignorant, rage-filled, populist mob could not directly elect one of their own to high office and bring the country down. It is true that in hard economic times otherwise reasonable people go cuckoo, looking for scapegoats. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, have always been easy targets. As Niall O'Dowd pointed out the Irish were such targets for long periods in U.S. history. Not to believe in an amnesty program, selective though it may have to be, is to redefine stupidity - and God Almighty! the morons have come to feast on O'Dowd for his not unreasonable position on the subject.

• ritmomente | Jul 07, 2010, 12:44 PM EDT

  The Arizona Law and Philadelphia refusing to cooperate with ICE although have opposite aims both prove how anemic and pathetic federal law and its enforcement is. If Comprehensive Immigration Reform had been enacted 4 years ago, it'd be easy to root out the drug dealers, gang members and rapists sneaking across the border. Pancho Villa shot up a New Mexico neighborhood in 1916 and nothing has changed.

• maloney | Jul 07, 2010, 12:31 PM EDT

  little man niall, your buddy barry hussien has a czar position waiting for you. You dumb ass, the illegals from mexico & So. America (also muslims) that are pooring across our southern boarder is the reason why the rest of the world, including the Irish, can't come here now. We are trying to stop the madness so Irish can come to the U.S. & you don't have a damn clue!!!

• HelenPalisin | Jul 07, 2010, 12:30 PM EDT

  Niall, You obviously don't know what you are talking about. I was a radical in the 60's and 70's protesting, marching for civil rights, anti-war, feminist causes, but I support Arizona's law and right to protect it's citizens, since the Federal government won't - and even refuses to prosecute blatant violations at the polls. I think anyone who uses inflammatory language like you did, or wants to set up sanctuaries should accept any illegals - drug lords, human smugglers etc. - in their neighborhoods. My parents were immigrants so I am happy to hire and pay Mexican workers who are here legally. This is about lawlessness in the Obama administration as much as it is about people streaming over the border. Get the facts.

• gregwb57 | Jul 07, 2010, 12:30 PM EDT

  I cant beleave how many people (including the writer of this article) still have there heads up Hussain Obamas butt! I have spent time in Tucson and I have seen the prolbum there is, A friend of mine lived west of Tucson about 10 miles or so and he had to keep a loaded gun handy, The illigals were going through his yard just about every night. Greg

• jdi2269 | Jul 07, 2010, 12:25 PM EDT

  NEALL.....THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICA SUPPORTS ARIZONA! HAVE YOU READ THE ARIZONA LAW OR ARE YOU BLINDLY FOLLOWING THE MUSLIM?

• jdi2269 | Jul 07, 2010, 12:21 PM EDT

  YO NEALL.....PLEASE GET OFF THE DRUGS! THE ARIZONA LAW WAS COPIED FROM THE FEDERAL STATUTE! ARIZONA ONLY ENACTED THE LAW BECAUSE YOUR HERO (HUSSEIN OBAMA) REFUSES TO SECURE THE BORDER SO HE CAN TRY TO GET HISPANIC VOTES....HE IS HOPING HISPANIC AND BLACK VOTES CAN GET HIM A SECOND TERM, BECAUSE THE EDUCATED VOTERS IN AMERICA RECOGNIZE HIM AS A FRAUD!

• texasrebel | Jul 07, 2010, 12:15 PM EDT

  Boy, you sure know how to twist truth. There is nothing in Arizona's law that is anti-immigrant. It is anti-ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT, the hundreds of thousands of leeches sucking up tax dollars and ruining our educational and healthcare systems. You don't want illegals leeching from your country but you endorse it for ours. Shame on you.

• Taylor55 | Jul 07, 2010, 11:52 AM EDT

  You got it backwards dude, illegal immigration is racist since it benefits 100 Mexicans for every non-Mexican (Irish included) who benefits, the AZ law seeks to end this racism. That's why Holder is not suing or racial or civil rights grounds but on grounds that the States cannot stop an illegal alien invasion from Mexico, the right to stop it (or not stop it in Obama's case) is reserved for the federal government. You sound like a member of the modern San Patricio Brigade. Not very smart since most Mexicans hate "white Anglos" (any white person who speaks English is Anglo to them). Read their ethnic guide book "La Raza Cosmica", and check out the Voz de Aztlan web site.

• allentown | Jul 07, 2010, 11:24 AM EDT

  Niall, there are "hard headed' comments on this topic and then there are "lame headed" comments. Lame headed comments are made by those that think more of their race than they do of their American countrymen.

• Niall O'Dowd | Jul 07, 2010, 11:07 AM EDT

  wow, sure are some hard headed comments here. But can we recognize the same thing was done to our ancestors in this ocuntry with 'Know Nothings' and No Irish need apply' Can we at least recognize how much some of us sound like them?

• Monsoonman | Jul 07, 2010, 11:02 AM EDT

  immigration reform is liberalspeak for=blanket amnesty, automatic voter registration.

• allentown | Jul 07, 2010, 10:55 AM EDT

  Irish Central reported there are approximately 55,000 illegal Irish in the USA. Does that mean that if the Irish Central writers are pulled over for a traffic violation and asked if they are in the country illegally, they will scream "racial profiling"?

• pflynn70 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:50 AM EDT

  O'Dowd,where in the world did you get your education?But being true to your liberal upbringing you can't see the forrest from the trees.First, it's the Federal Govt. job to enforce the present regulations, as we all know they are NOT DOING IT, so like any intelligent person woulld do they have to do it themselves. How about the security of our nation? You know the one that protects idiots like you so you can preach your liberal garbage. How about the drugs coming here, what if your child was "hooked" on drugs and you knew it came from Mexica would ity then matter, you bet your ass it would. What about the kidnappings, #1 in the country in that from the Mexican Cartels,murders, shootings, should I go on? Reading your tripe is like reading the N.Y. Times, pure rubbish.

• jimmymac1948 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:38 AM EDT

  Nice try, Niall. For your information the Arizona law is less onerous than the federal law itmimics. Federal officers don't need ANY reason whatsoever for stopping you and asking you to prove citizenship. In Arizona, it can only be done as a secondary act. There is nothing racist about this law. What don't people understand about the word "illegal"?

• Monsoonman | Jul 07, 2010, 10:24 AM EDT

  Even the local super liberal talk show host is railing against obama and holder for suing Az. You have to understand this guy could easily be an editorial writer for IC, except he is Italian...His words: "Seal the borders/arrest and deport illegals. American citizens come first"....Of course his cousin was the rancher gunned down by Mexican gangsters on the Az. border last month probably caused his liberal attitude to do a 180 degree compass swing. "It takes a long time for sunshine to penetrate concrete", so they say.

• catmann | Jul 07, 2010, 10:23 AM EDT

  SOUNDS LIKE O'DOWD IS A LIBERAL SCUMBAG WHICH DOESN't SURPRISE ME, FROM WHAT I,VE SEEN FROM IRISH CENTRAL.

• thomkatt1 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:21 AM EDT

  Niall-you may as well go back and drink the Obama Kool Aid. Why don't you report on the illegal muslim problem in NYC. A 13 story mosque across from Ground Zero. Stay out of Arizona's yard if you don't really understand the laws, which you don't. The illegals are raping this country and you with your hopey changey bleeding heart. Get back on the turnip truck and go home. Illegals need to assimilate.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:20 AM EDT

  hollabackgurl, why am I not surprised.. As an American who is of indigenous as well as Irish ancestry, I'm going to tell you once, stop using the racist term, "redneck". The term originated by racists like you, who sought to demean white farmers an laborers who performed "stoop labor", the inference being that those who bent to the ground, exposing their necks to the sun in their work, had those necks reddened like native peoples, and that made them less than in their racist eyes.

• IowaMike | Jul 07, 2010, 10:16 AM EDT

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.....Either O'Dowd is a comedian or somebody put a rosed colored liberal filter on his periscope. He needs to come up for air.

• MaryM232 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:15 AM EDT

  Tom Swinford, you're in the extreme minority here. A recent Zogby International poll of minority US citizens revealed that majorities of black Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans all stated that there was too much immigration, it harmed them and their children, and they wanted CURRENT LAWS ENFORCED. We are not folding, we're not going to accept it. There will be no more amnesties in the US, there will be no scam of "comprehensive immigration reform", we want our borders secured, we want our ports of entry secured, we want those who enter with visas tracked and if they don't leave as required, to be tracked down and removed. We want to stop foreign aid, because we can't afford it. Here's a clue, India has more billionaires than any other country, tell your illegals to go to India, because they are not welcome here.

• hollabackgurl | Jul 07, 2010, 10:11 AM EDT

  I'd rather live next door to one hard working undocumented immigrant over 10,000 of the kind of hateful, patronizing, paranoid rednecks who are posting here.

• AmAncINED | Jul 07, 2010, 10:08 AM EDT

  Right on , katieherk. Naill, why don't you move to Arizona???

• jims3331 | Jul 07, 2010, 10:04 AM EDT

  I wish every state in the union would enact the Arizona law and protect the welfare and jobs of its own citizens. Mr. O'Dowd how could you write such a misguided trash filled article. "lynch mob" how ridiculous!

• Albertson | Jul 07, 2010, 10:04 AM EDT

  I don't blame any State for taking action on behalf of it's constituents when the Fed has done Zip to enforce current laws and is offering no solutions and no help. The blatant murder of a prominent Arizona rancher by the illegal drug runners has pushed this to where it is now.

• katieherk | Jul 07, 2010, 10:03 AM EDT

  Naill.... do you possibly know the meaning of ILLEGAL? It means unlawful!!! You are such a radical and after reading all the comments below, I think you just struck out. Face it, people in AZ are dying because illegals are crossing private land and killing anyone in their way. How do you stand up for them? The law of the land is being processed and McVomit is trying to stop it? What a full blown idiot he is and the rest of you liberals.

• AmAncINED | Jul 07, 2010, 09:57 AM EDT

  Not only do we have to support illegals entering the U.S. and taking advantage of everything and everyone, we also have Mexican criminals entering into the U.S., terrorizing legitimate American citizens. They commit crimes, including rape and murder, and live off the backs of hard-working American taxpayers. We have enough of our own criminals. We don't need Mexico's. Would Ireland, or any other country, like to support all these illegals and thugs and deal with all of their criminal activities? I'm sure Arizona would love to round them up and ship them out. Don't criticize Arizona unless you're willing to live there. Obama, why don't you move to Arizona??? Oh, that's right. You just want the illegals' votes. If anyone wants to live in America, then let them do it legally like our ancestors did. We welcome all law-abiding immigrants that have respect for our country.

• rgspopsrgspops | Jul 07, 2010, 09:57 AM EDT

  The government has NEVER DONE ANYTHING BUR MAKE LAWS and never gave any help to the states that need it.The druglords will keep running across the boader and killing anyone in there way.

• vincem13 | Jul 07, 2010, 09:51 AM EDT

  Gee, Mr. O'Dowd, I wish I could be like you and write a whole article without doing any substantive research. When I write, I actually have to look things up and verify my facts because- and this will surprise you- words mean things. You call the voters in Arizona a Lynch Mob because they passed a law making it a state crime to violate United States Code concerning illegal immigration. Alright, two can play at that game. I believe that you are a reckless ill-informed liberal. The only difference is that all of my label about you is apparent in your articles.

• MikeRock | Jul 07, 2010, 09:48 AM EDT

  Niall, You're analogy is pathetic.

• bob40wil | Jul 07, 2010, 09:44 AM EDT

  This article is just so much BS, it's not about denying LEGAL immigrants entry into our country and you liberal head in the sand idiots know it, it's about controlling the ILLEGAL influx of immigrants.

• chesapeake | Jul 07, 2010, 09:43 AM EDT

  The same old song, sungmore than lightly off-key. Deportation is virtually impossible; but, in some cases it can help weed out the bad guys. The hiring of illegal aliens (not immigrants) is obviously a problem. The government specifies E-verify but this requirement is circumvented - perhaps more so in the southwestern states. Obama wants the 13,000,000 votes, and will not offer any other plan than total amnesty, so nothing worthwhile will happen until after 2012. To bring these illegals into the fold would entail countability (green card and/or citizenship), payment of taxes (a large step toward equal pay) and enrollment in Social Security and other systems. Do NOT allow an immigrant to bring in an uncontrolled number of "guests". We already have more than enough government employees to implement a comprehensive program. We simply need a starting point and greater control of the border, followed by meaningful job training and a reasonable command of the english language. The Arizona law is fine; as it mirrors federal law. Get the damned attorneys and the ACLU out of the equation and see if it works.

• Fran Connor | Jul 07, 2010, 09:42 AM EDT

  Pull your head out, Niall. The only reason the "compassionate" D's want to make these ILLEGAL aliens citizens is to get voted back into office. The landslide is coming in November, and they know it.

• cvmichael | Jul 07, 2010, 09:35 AM EDT

  AZ Governor should hire the Black Panthers to enforce the state law - then DoJ would have to dismiss the lawsuit!

• cvmichael | Jul 07, 2010, 09:15 AM EDT

  1.Yes, there is a big difference between legal immigrants and illegal ones. Those in favor of comprehensive iimigration reform - as I am - do themselves no favor by ignoring this fact. 2. The vast majority of illegals are not criminals in the general sense - they are deperate to find work, however menial, to support their families (I find it truly ironic that we Irish should be so hateful in this regard - then again, we are amongst the finest racists in the world.) 3. We urgently need comprehensive immigration reform that is fair, humane and rational. We cannot simply deport 12 to 15 million illegals. Anyone who believes we can is far more crazy than Niall O'Dowd.

• DLW12183 | Jul 07, 2010, 09:14 AM EDT

  Get a life Niall! Next thing you will want is for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) to sue on behalf of the illegals. I can't get into Ireland without the proper papers nor can I get into (or out of which would be the smart thing to do) Mexico with the correct documents. You flaming left liberals are destroying this country for us immigrants.

• BigGuns | Jul 07, 2010, 09:07 AM EDT

  obama always finds a way to screw things up, such as his non-management of the oil disaster. He is suing a State for passing a law that is identical to the federal that is not enforced. He has turned his back on law abiding, tax paying Americans once again.

• WoundedKnee | Jul 07, 2010, 09:04 AM EDT

  The Irish who are breaking US immigration law should be sent home immediately. If caught subsequently in the US, they should face jail. Ireland imports tens of thousands of foreign workers, how come the Irish illegals don't go home and take up those jobs?

• BigJohnO | Jul 07, 2010, 09:00 AM EDT

  O'Dowd laddie when I reviewed your WikiBio I learned a little more about where you are comming from. The only place further left than San Francisco is Hawaii and look what some claim they have given us. As the first two posters note we are talking about illegal aliens. There is a well defined Federal set of laws that are for all immigrants that are not being enforced by the Feds. All that the AZ law is intended to do is to help the Feds enforce the laws that are on the books. Somewhat obviously Obummer and friends do not intend to do that.

• EvelynDavey | Jul 07, 2010, 08:57 AM EDT

  You have no idea of what you are talking about. Illegals use stolen ID, commit crimes and in general disregard the laws of this country. Everyone wants legal immigration and guest worker programs; what we don't want are people who have only contempt for our laws and our country.

• GeorgeDavis | Jul 07, 2010, 08:57 AM EDT

  What hsterical hyperbole from O'Dowd. "Lynch mob" -- so people who want sane and prudent immigration policies--and enforcement--are a lynch mob? You're crazy, O'Dowd. Though I have heard the same hyteria from the Open Doors crowd in Ireland who have turned Dublin into what is now a non-Irish city.

• MotherIrish | Jul 07, 2010, 08:53 AM EDT

  First of all, it is NOT a racist immigration law that AZ passed. It has to do with ILLEGAL immigrants who have no legal standing to be in the USA let alone AZ. My dad came from Ireland as a LEGAL immigrant, made the proper application, had documentation, did the right thing. This is only a lynch law if you are a bleeding heart liberal who has no brains and no understanding of the laws of this land. There is a federal law that the AZ law mimics. Illegal means you are a law breaker. Is it ok for someone to shoot you? No, because it is against the law. Same same. If you go to Mexico as a illegal, they put you in jail and you wait for ever for a trial and under go horrible living conditions to boot. Illegal is Illegal. Get it right for heavens sake.

• loveapint | Jul 07, 2010, 08:49 AM EDT

  What part of illegal don't you understand. I can not sneak into Ireland and live off of tax money for free.

• wjb1tex | Jul 07, 2010, 08:48 AM EDT

  I asked my lawyer for his opinion. He is a former Justice Department Attorney. His words. The Supremecy Clause says the Constitution and the laws of the US are the supreme law of the land and the Judges in every state shall be bound by them. Funny it mentions judges but not legislatures. States are bound by federal law in the face of CONFLICTING state law. Where's the conflict? Arizona law is patterned on Fed law and is, in fact, less severe. Under Fed law an officer does not need an independent reason to stop a suspect. The court will have to find that what Arizona is doing is contrary to Fed law. But what if Arizona is simply enforcing Fed law? Where's the conflict? And isn't a lawsuit premature? It assumes the law cannot be enforced in a way consistent with federal law. It seems to ask for a declaratory judgment in advance of enforcement. Court's call like to have a real issue, not an immaginary issue. They call it a "justiciable issue" ie, you don't know how enforcement by Arizona will take place until it actually enforces the law. The law is not in effect yet.

• miltonedunn | Jul 07, 2010, 08:47 AM EDT

  You people who write and print this phony S__T are more radical than the ones you write about. You should have to take some type of pill to get that stuff out of your head.

• irelandlvr | Jul 07, 2010, 08:40 AM EDT

  I apologize, I should have said the illegal immigrants. I'm all for people being able to come to this country and become Americans! I just want the lawbreakers to be sent home.

• irelandlvr | Jul 07, 2010, 08:35 AM EDT

  I just have one question. May I come live in your country, receive free health care, food and housing? May I disrespect your laws and your people? That's what is happening here in America. It's not the Irish immigrants that are causing the problems here, but you cannot single out one group of immigrants when trying to take our country back. No other country would allow these things to happen. Why are we expected to?

• Christisall | Jul 07, 2010, 08:35 AM EDT

  Sheer idiocy! Obama is a piece of crap. And, when you talk about immigrants, you do not get it at all. We are dealing with illegals here; they are criminals because they have broken the law. Immigrants are one thing but illegals are another thing. God bless J. Brewer. Obummer's scheme is to win support from illegals by giving amnesty to all and then they put him into office again, God forbid. This man is a disgusting disaster who is ruining the USA. We do not wish him or his filthy cronies well. To top it off, he is a muslim.