The border Arizona is a battleground

If President Obama wants to add juice to that banner of "hope" he campaigned on while running for office, he needs to quit the Democratic party's pep rally circuit and find the pulse of the nation in areas that need immediate attention – places like the southern Arizona border area. In every crisis so far, Obama has been late to pull the trigger when it comes to a personal response to crisis situations. It took him months to get among the people after the Gulf oil spill ruined so many lives earlier this summer. He lost an excellent opportunity to boost his sagging poll numbers. In every poll we've seen, Americans overwhelmingly support Arizona's tougher law on illegal immigration, but this administration's only response so far has been to take the state to court. An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll found that 71 percent of Americans said they supported the notion of requiring their own police to determine people's status if there was "reasonable suspicion" the people were illegal immigrants, and arresting those people if they could not prove they were legally in the U.S. Disregarding public opinion, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have supported an ACLU lawsuit against Arizona's law. Many see it as another indication of how out of touch this administration is with mainstream Americans. Those who definitely feel the president needs to take a firsthand look are the Arizona law enforcement officials – the men on the front lines trying to protect the borders. Instead, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu feels the federal government is targeting Arizona and its law enforcement personnel. Instead of helping the state with its law enforcement, he says the feds have put up billboard-size signs, warning citizens to stay out of the desert because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits. Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County calls the flow of illegals "a very serious homeland security threat" and says that what happens with the Arizona challenge will affect the entire country in the ability of other states to protect citizens. He says the immigrants – including some "bad, bad people" – are coming across the border but not staying in his county in Arizona. They are spreading out into other areas of the country. Twenty-two states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio and Maryland, now have lawmakers pushing versions of Arizona's illegal immigration bill which focuses on fighting against amnesty and illegal immigration. They realize how the millions of illegal aliens are draining taxpayer-funded government programs. Sheriffs Dever and Babeau issued this joint statement about the federal legal challenges against their state: "The Obama administration has a light touch when it comes to securing the border but a heavy hand when it comes to sicking their lawyers on the people of Arizona. From Washington it might be hard to see the problems that we see every day as a result of our Swiss cheese border. Maybe if they spent some time in our counties they would think about a crackdown on illegal immigration rather than a crackdown on those of us fighting illegal immigration." The invitation has always been there for the president to visit Arizona's front lines. Instead, the federal response has been for the U.S. Justice Department to attempt to declaw the state's enforcement law, thus allowing a green light on the flow of illegal traffic into this country. By Jim Zbick jzbick@tnonline.com