Arizona 'Protection Act' a Common-Sense Cure for Immigration Ills, Reformer Says
by Chad Groening
July 8, 2004
(AgapePress) - An immigration reform organization is pleased that Arizona residents have apparently gathered enough signatures to get an initiative on the November ballot that would prevent illegal aliens from getting benefits from American taxpayers.The Arizona secretary of state has until early August to verify whether there are enough valid signatures to get the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act -- otherwise known as the "Protect Arizona Now" measure -- on the ballot. Rick Oltman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) says the requirements imposed by PAN are just common-sense type of things.
"[It] basically requires three things: proof of citizenship when registering to vote, proof of identity when voting, and proof of eligibility for non-federally-mandated public benefits," Oltman says. "It's the kind of thing that we shouldn't even have to try to legislate."
Oltman puts it even more succinctly, if not sarcastically: "It just requires that you prove who you are before you vote, which would seem kind of important; and prove who you are before you get welfare, which would just seem to be common sense."
But evidently common sense is not paramount when it comes to illegal immigration in the Grand Canyon State. "[T]he cheap labor interests have such a stranglehold on our elected [state] officials that the only thing we can fight back with is public opinion," the FAIR spokesman says.
Oltman says despite the fact that the "open borders crowd" did everything it could to intimidate those who gathered signatures, the petition effort resulted in nearly 191,000 signatures being turned over to Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer before the July 1 deadline. Just over 122,600 need to be validated to get the measure on the ballot.
If validated for the November ballot, the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act will appear as Ballot Measure 200.
