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SINCE WHEN ARE CHINA AND ARIZONA MORALLY EQUIVALENT?

by William Perry Pendley

September 1, 2010

On May 14, 2010, the U.S. Department of State announced “no major breakthroughs” in bilateral discussions with China “after only their second round of talks about human rights since 2002.” Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Michael H. Posner, who along with Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman briefed the media, said that the United States sought a “mature relationship” with China, which would yield “an open discussion” not only of “[China’s] problems,” but also “[the U.S.A.’s] own [problems].”

At that point, a reporter asked, “Did the recently passed Arizona immigration law come up? And, if so, did they bring it up or did you bring it up?” Posner responded, “We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society.”

The day the Associated Press reported Posner’s remarks, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and others filed a federal lawsuit against Arizona challenging the constitutionality of the “Arizona immigration law” (S.B. 1070) in Arizona federal district court. According to their complaint, the law violates the Supremacy Clause and the First and Fourth Amendments.

Less than two months later, on July 5, while Secretary Posner was enjoying a day off (federal offices were closed) to celebrate Independence Day, the Associated Press announced that an American geologist, held and tortured by China’s state security agents for two and one half years, was sentenced to eight years in prison allegedly for spying and collecting state secrets regarding the Chinese oil industry, which “endangered [China’s] national security.”

Ambassador Huntsman was in the courtroom; after the verdict, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing announced it was “dismayed” and urged China to grant the 45-year old Xue Feng—who was born in China, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, became a U.S. citizen, and works for a Colorado energy company—“humanitarian release and immediately deport him.”

The next day, Ambassador Huntsman’s colleague in the Obama Administration, Attorney General Eric Holder, join with the ACLU, NAACP, MALDEF, and others in challenging S.B. 1070, asserting, "The Constitution and the federal immigration laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country."

Meanwhile, public support for the right of Arizona to respond to the crime, chaos, and cost of unrestrained illegal immigration and the refusal of the federal government to protect the Nation’s southern border, grew like Topsy. According to a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted after the Obama Administration filed its lawsuit, 61 percent favor the Arizona law for their states and 56 percent oppose the federal lawsuit.

Before the Arizona federal district court, federal lawyers argued that, in determining whether the Arizona law violates the Supremacy Clause, which requires preemption of state law that conflicts with federal law, the question is not whether S.B. 1070 conflicts with the provisions of acts of Congress, but whether it is consistent with current White House policy, including “foreign relations [] and humanitarian concerns. . . .” Incredibly, on July 28, the court agreed with the Obama Administration’s audacious and unprecedented argument and struck down much of the Arizona law. The next stop is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, en route to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Thus, while American citizens, pursuant to the Constitution and the rule of law, seek to address issues of great personal and national concern, an American citizen sits in a hellhole jail in China. Remarkably, Team Obama regards these circumstances as morally equivalent. So the question remains, who is the more embarrassing: Team Obama or Arizona?