Radical Hospitality, SB 1070, & Kris Kobach

The Kansas City Star published the following letter to the editor in their Wednesday, July 28th paper.  http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/27/2112447/letters-july-28.html

Kobach cover-up

Kris Kobach isn’t the first politician to employ racially neutral laws that violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. He reminds me of former Mississippi governor J.P. Coleman.

Coleman, like Kobach, was a bright legal technician who drafted his policies in racially-neutral terms in hopes of thwarting the civil rights of African-Americans. Jim Crow laws were often written in racially-neutral terms. Despite Kobach’s protestations, I doubt S.B. 1070 will survive legal challenges based on either the supremacy clause or the equal protection clause.

My chief complaint against Kobach’s legislation is not based on constitutional theory. It violates a spiritual value known as “radical hospitality,” which calls for extending welcome beyond the boundaries, beyond places of worship, into every corner of society.

I am reminded that but for the grace of God, any of us could be in the place of economic refugees. American citizens of Hispanic descent should not be burdened by Kobach’s law. Kansas can do better than electing Kris Kobach.

Michael Box
Osawatomie

For reference purposes, I wrote that letter, J.P. Coleman was a Federal Judge and Mississippi Governor, and Kris Kobach is running for Kansas' Secretary of State.  Michigan's Democratic Representative to Congress once referred to Coleman as the "thinking man's segregationist."  Here's what these folks look like.

J.P. Coleman

John Conyers

Kris Kobach

Those who support Arizona's SB 1070 claim that it mirrors America's immigration law.  While the Arizona statute parrots federal immigration law, it is significantly different in that the stated purpose of the Arizona statute is attrition through enforcement.

Kris Kobach's statute makes an attempt to usurp authority granted to the Congress by the Constitution.  What Kobach didn't think of, or fails to mention, is that the Congress has the authority to enact laws to enforce federal power.  Immigration is a federal power.

U.S. Constitution Article I §8 cl. 18

The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Kobach would have the States exercise the elastic nature of the Necessary and Proper Clause in contravention of the Constitution of the United States.

Much has been written and much is being practiced when it comes to Radical Hospitality.  A fine distillation of this core spiritual value is found in a short poem by Edwin Markham.

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

KRIS KOBACH SPEAKS GOBBLEDYGOOK

Kris Kobach, purveyour of gobbledygook 

Democrats need to start debunking the intellectual fraud espoused by F.A.I.R., Kris Kobach, and Arizona's infamous SB 1070 papers please law. Kobach is apparently the brain trust behind F.A.I.R. and their puppet Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce. Pearce, apparently with Kobach's counsel now plans to introduce another Draconian bill, this time denying the so-called Anchor Babies born in Arizona a birth certificate.

Apparently Kobach's big argument is that those Arizona illegal immigrants and their children are not "under the jurisdiction" of the United States. The first case they talk of was In re Thenault, see this blog's posting for May 27th. Here Kobach is mixing his applesauce with chicken manure. Thenault speaks to the citizenship of children born to parents of a foreign power who are in the diplomatic service of their country.

Both John McCain and Barrack Obama are American Citizens

This rule also applies to children whose parents are in the armed forces of their country, kids like that pesky John McCain, who was born in Panama, yet is not Panamanian but American!

Thenault has diddly squat to do with persons not in the employ and or service of their country who come to America and produce a child. It does not follow that either these so-called Anchor Babies or their foreign national parents are beyond the jurisdiction of the United States or any of the Several States of the Union.

How is that Kris Kobach and his puppet Russell Pearce believe that illegal aliens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States or the State of Arizona? If they are not subject to American and Arizonan jurisdiction then SB 1070 and their forthcoming nightmare Anchor Babies Bill would be null and void ab initio. That's because if they are not under American jurisdiction they are not subject to our laws and all the laws Kobach wants passed wouldn't apply. Kobach speaks gobbledgook.

Kris Kobach should know that jurisdiction is not just some word about which politicians gather for demagogue parties. Jurisdiction is a term of art in the law. Jurisdiction means the place where the law speaks. In the United States our law speaks to everyone located within our boundaries, with the notable exception of diplomats, who are present in the U.S.A, and possess diplomatic immunity, that's called Territorial Jurisdiction.

The part where the law applies to every person found here, or with significant contacts here, is called Personal Jurisdiction. The Court's have Subject Matter Jurisdiction over cases properly brought before them.  A case can even go to court where no person is involved. The government can sue a car, or a plane, or a tract of land using In Rem Jurisdiction.  Kobach shouldn't have to be tutored on jurisdiction, he is supposed to be a law professor!

So far as SB 1070 and the forthcoming Anchor Babies Bill, Kobach & company's contention that illegal aliens and or their Anchor Babies are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States or of the Several States of the Union is absurd. Here Kobach & company state no valid legal theory, it's all gobbledygook.

It gets worse. Russell Pearce, and maybe I heard Tom Tancredo say this too, trying to explain their Wing Nut Legal Theory said it took an act of Congress to establish citizenship of the native American peoples.

CAUTION: DO NOT EAT THEIR APPLESAUCE!

What the Wing Nut Law Department forgot was the basic difference between American Indians and Illegal Aliens. That's so like when they tried to blur the distinction between the children born to diplomats and children born to illegal aliens. But it gets worse.

American Indians, according to Chief Justice John Marshall, do not belong to a foreign sovereign state. They are sui generis, a class unto themselves. Marshall, in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, called them "domestic dependent" nations. That case was decided in 1831. American Indians are not coming from another foreign country. They were not considered citizens of the United States, or of any other nation.

So the Snyder Act, also known as the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 came about to define the legal relationship of Native Americans with the United States of America. Prior to the Snyder Act American Indians were stateless persons. The illegal aliens subject to Kobach's suspect laws are citizens of Mexico, or Costa Rica, or Panama, or any of the nations south of the American border. They are not stateless persons.

It is so easy in difficult economic times to scapegoat persons who are essentially economic refugees.  Doing so runs counter to our core values of radical hospitality and an expansive future.  Each time America has accepted waves of immigrants America has gotten the best of the bargain.  This wave of immigration is no different.

We need Comprehensive Immigration Reform we do not need blowhards like Kris Kobach.   We can do better than advance Kobach's agenda of intellectual fraud.