During an off election year, a well-financed coalition of illegal alien advocacy groups and business interests pursued a recall campaign against Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce. Their goal was to take down a politician they saw as too conservative on a number of different issues, while attempting to frame it as a referendum on state immigration enforcement.
Pearce’s defeat, while disappointing, does not indicate any public rejection of state-based immigration enforcement. A special recall election of one legislator that attracted a narrow selection of the electorate to the polls cannot be used as any kind of barometer of public sentiment on immigration reform. And, the immigration legislation Pearce championed, SB 1070, remains popular with voters across the state and across the country.
Immigration reform is a statewide and nationwide phenomenon. It is a grassroots, non-partisan movement of Americans who will continue to push their elected officials to protect American jobs, communities and wallets from the influx of illegal immigration.
While illegal labor exploiters and special interests worked to unseat one man, activists for immigration enforcement passed groundbreaking legislation in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina. The Supreme Court upheld the Arizona’s statewide E-Verify law. Maryland voters collected enough signatures to get a referendum to defeat illegal alien in-state tuition on the 2012 budget. And, Californians are now confronting their legislature over the wasteful expansion of public benefits for illegal aliens.
Politicized attacks from the Obama administration and special interests didn’t stop the momentum of state-based immigration enforcement after SB 1070, and the recall of one politician will not stop it now. Though intimidation tactics employed by the Department of Justice and their amnesty partners do not go unnoticed by legislators, support for immigration enforcement and reining-in costs is consistently stronger at the polls.