The federal government filed suit on August 30 against the State of Arizona because of alleged discrimination by Maricopa County Community Colleges requiring that non-citizen job applicants fill out documents to prove that they were eligible to work in the country. About 250 non-citizens were affected by the college hiring requirement.

Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said: “It is unlawful to treat authorized workers differently during the hiring process based on their citizenship status” and that this procedure by the community colleges is a “pattern or practice of discrimination.” The community colleges are, of course, discriminating — but is this discrimination unlawful or even immoral? Laws that require child molesters to stay away from schools are discriminatory.� Laws that require potential drivers to take vision examinations are discriminatory. Even laws which require that non-citizens have documents, somewhere, that establish their right to be in the country are discriminatory.

The new action by the Justice Department appears to be nothing less than harassment of any Arizonans who want to keep illegal immigrants out of the state. Actually, the law helps legal immigrants for jobs — it does not discriminate against them. Consider if half of the 250 job applicants were here illegally and half were here as legal immigrants and consider that there were only 200 jobs available. If the laws were enforced and if illegal immigrants were detected during the hiring process, then the legal immigrants would have a much better chance of getting a job. Which legal immigrant would say that the relatively minor issue of bringing proof of legal residence was more important than the chance to get a job with the colleges?

The college system also has a legitimate hiring interest in knowing which of its prospective employees comply with the law and which do not. Many employees routinely ask applicants if they have been convicted of any crime. The issue of moral fitness affects not only the commission of a crime but also the honesty of an applicant in providing information to his prospective employer. Is the Justice Department intending to prohibit employers from asking questions about an applicant’s moral fitness? If not, would the colleges be allowed to independently confirm the legal status of an applicant?

In many situations, the federal government requires state and local governments to ask questions. For example, anyone who applies for a job in America is required to provide his Social Security Number. That is highly discriminatory and also rigorously enforced. And the Brady Act requires criminal background checks of gun purchasers.

There is invidious discrimination involved in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit alright. It is the discrimination that the Department of Justice is showing in wasting government assets pursuing a college system that is simply trying to insure that federal immigration laws are enforced. Colleges that routinely purge all free enterprise education from curriculum or which allow patriotic students to be bullied and harassed by Stalinist professors or which treat the Judeo-Christian moral and religious foundation of America to bigoted and one-sided condemnation do not, it seems, trouble the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department at all.� Black Panthers who terrorize white voters does not trouble the Justice Department. The discrimination that should trouble us is in the U.S. Department of Justice itself.

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Bob l. said:

Now we know why! I was just taking a trivia quiz and one of the questions was: "Which school declined to give president Obama an honorary degree in 2009?" The answer: Arizona State University

September 04, 2010

TeaMan said:

Perhaps it's time... For Arizona to start practicing nullification of federal judicial process. When people file a suit against Arizona in federal court, perhaps the governor should just ignore the hearing and any paperwork that comes out of it. It would not go well for any president to have a federal vs. State law enforcement officers standoff to enforce a nullified court order. Maybe the Second Civil War will begin with the Battle of Phoenix...

September 05, 2010

Flu-Bird said:

Nulifi Washington D.C. Time for WASHINGTON D.C. to be nulified its time to completly shut down this nest of vipers its time to completly isolate the place and turn it into a massive penal colony like in the movie ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK its already full of some of the worst scum,sewer rats,vermin,cads,scoundrels,sidewinders and polecats around

September 06, 2010

Jim said:

... The states created the federal government to protect them, to promote the general well being of them, and to look out for their mutual interests. Now we have the federal government in direct conflict with the wishes of the State of Arizona. The federal government is the child of the states, not the other way around. The federal government has become destructive to the very ends of everything it was put in place to preserve, protect and defend. It's time to institute new government by sweeping all incumbents out of congress in November, then putting up candidates who revere the constitution to run for the presidency.

September 07, 2010

Not Telling said:

So what??? We at the government are allowed to discriminate Thats the way it is in the USA, the government gets a long list of privelages and immunities that you people do not rate, by law. http://youareproperty.blogspot.com/2010/06/we-are-exempt-from-your-morality.html

September 17, 2010 | url