Arizona & Actual Law, Part III

Compare and contrast this Administration's attitude toward border controls:

• May 19th Chicago Tribune:

  Echoing comments by President Barack Obama and others in the administration, [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John] Morton said that Arizona's new law targeting illegal immigration is not "good government." The law makes it a crime to be in the state illegally and requires police to check suspects for immigration paperwork.
  
  Morton said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona officials. The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, not a patchwork of state laws, he said.
  
  "I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton said.

• May 3rd Washington Times:

  This is one sleepy border crossing.
  
  At the Morses Line Port of Entry, on the U.S.-Canada border, the border station is located smack-dab in the middle of a Vermont dairy farm.
  
  On average, 2½ cars pass through an hour. The pace is so slow that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who man the station have been known to fill their days by driving golf balls in an adjoining meadow, shooting skeet or washing their cars. Some here think the World War II-era brick structure that houses the border station should be abandoned.
  
  Not the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: The government, which received $420 million from the federal bailout to modernize land ports like this, wants to spend about $7 million to build an expanded station. To do it, the government says, it needs an adjoining 4.9-acre parcel now used to grow hay and corn.
  
  Owners of the Rainville dairy farm were told last week that if they won't sell the hayfield for $39,500, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use eminent domain to seize it.
  
  "The arrogance of it is breathtaking," said Brian Rainville, 37, whose parents and two brothers run the 220-acre farm and milk 80 cows on it. "Why are we being asked to make that kind of sacrifice when they can't demonstrate a public need?"
  
  The public need is national security, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Is it too much to ask the Administration to distinguish real and negligible threats to border security and spend taxpayer dollars accordingly?

(via Small Dead Animals)