Lawsuits For All

What would you do if after a week-long business trip you came home to find a family of complete strangers living in your house, eating your food, wearing your clothes, and spending the extra cash that you kept on hand for emergencies?  Worse than that, there was nothing you could do about it?

Most would insist that these people leave at once, as we know that no one has the right to pry open the back door of a home they don’t own, and then proceed to use and consume the private property of the homeowners. If they refused to leave, then the local police would undoubtedly be called to remove these lawbreakers.

However, what if the police informed you that their hands are tied, as it is the role of the Federal Government to remove the illegal entrants to your home, and if the police tried to help you, that same Federal Government would initiate a costly lawsuit? What if the police then told you that the Federal agencies in charge of this problem more than likely wouldn’t do anything to remove the intruders from your house when you do contact them?

While our local police, in reality, do have the authority to remove people who break into our homes, the above scenario is very similar to what is happening to our country on a national level. States are being threatened with costly lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department if they try to enforce existing laws regarding people who are in our country illegally, even when these people are committing serious crimes!

In November 2011, a lawsuit was brought against Utah challenging the state’s immigration enforcement law.[1] Many states are struggling with how to control their exploding illegal alien populations and the costs associated with it as the state and city budgets are severely strained. The Federation for American Immigration Reform calculated that illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers $113 billion a year after subtracting the economic “benefit” illegals allegedly make to the economy.[2]

Utah is not alone in this as South Carolina, Arizona, and Alabama are being sued by the Justice Department for the enforcement of immigration laws as well. At a time when our national debt is over $15 trillion, expensive lawsuits are being brought by the Federal Government against many of our state governments who are simply trying to enforce the existing laws that, according to Jan Brewer, the Governor of Arizona, the Federal Government refuses to enforce.[3]

How can these states meet the financial obligations and duties that they have to their citizens if so much of their state’s taxpayer money is spent not only on supporting the people who are here illegally, but also in defending themselves against the Federal Government?

The sad part in all of this? The taxpayers in these states are essentially being forced to sue themselves. Not only do their tax dollars pay for the lawsuit that the Federal Government initiated, but also their state tax dollars are spent defending themselves. How is that logical or efficient?

At such a critical time in our nation’s economy, we must vote for 2012 candidates who will stop such frivolous lawsuits and equally as important, we must vote for candidates who understand that illegal immigration laws must be enforced.

Jill Fredrickson
American Citizens for Economic Freedom. ACEF (www.truecapitalism.org) is a newly formed PAC, led by prominent business entrepreneur, Peter Vessenes.