Be careful, the Commerce Clause and the Dormant Commerce Clause are not the same thing!

I think it is unconstitutional. The right of property ownership is a right for all people not just citizens so you can’t remove it just for noncitizens. There could also be equal protection arguments.

But I also think the drug seizure is unconstitutional because you don’t have to convict the person of anything. In an odd bit of law the lawsuit would read something like “The United States Government vs. 2005 Cadillac Vin #xxx”. In my opinion that is not due process of law.

Actually the argument may eventually become moot.

Not because of the merits of the seizure law, but because I have seen a great increase in Federal involvement in what normally would be a local or minor traffic case.

Normally a defendant will be arrested (say for Driving Without Valid License or Solicitation, or other minor offense) , will post a bond and be released pending his court date.

But now we are seeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showing up at the county lock-up and taking the illegal into federal custody. If the guy (or gal) has no legal defense to be here, he is processed out and can be frog-marched out to a waiting Con Air flight to Mexico in a very short time.

So, leaving their car behind is the least of their problems. They usually are leaving homes and families behind too.

Guess they got too comfy being here this long, hey?

We are a country of laws. Only Arlen Specter thinks it’s a good idea to pick and chose the ones we should enforce. Mark Steyn said it best–a country that fancies itself able to control the global temperature ought to be able to figure out a way to control its borders–and I would add, then do it.

They’re both abused depending on the circumstances, though the former more… actively so.

Ken.

Thanks. I know the doctrinal difference. But I see the one as merely an extension of the other… a bookmark of sorts that says in effect, “We haven’t chosen to exercise our federal authority over this yet, but don’t take that to mean that you (the States) have license to do so. You don’t! Its still within our purview.”

As I said, systematically misapplied and abused. Its one of the reasons I find Ron Paul’s suggestion about doing away with the nation’s central bank so pitifully laughable. The federal government insists on exercising control over a single bag of pot, grown, harvested, dried, bagged, sold, and smoked within the jurisdiction of the State of California under the guise of the Commerce Clause, and Paul thinks the same federal government would turn over control of the nation’s money supply, the world’s de facto medium of exchange to the free market? The man is a blithering idiot!

I agree with the spirit of it, but the law wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. It would fail on the same search & seizure grounds as NY’s seizure for drunk driving law.

MEXICAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM ECONOMICS

It is very economically advantageous to use cheap Mexican seasonal agricultural guest workers; it is very socially and economically disadvantageous to let them stay after the crop is harvested.

When seasonal guest workers do return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they return with money and experience, to contribute to the development of Mexico; and each year, when a new group of seasonal guest workers comes, they are eager to work for the same low non-citizen wages.

And, when they return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they do not drive down the wages of American workers, by competing for jobs in landscaping, construction, sanitation, and housekeeping; and they do not use American governmental social services.

Mexico is land rich in natural resources; what makes it so socially and economically poor are its Mexican People; and wherever they immigrate they bring their deplorable civilization with them. It is so inferior than none of them want to return to it.

The Mexican dream of regaining political control over Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California is America’s worst nightmare. Starting at all of the border towns, and spreading northward throughout America, like cancers, are thousands of deplorable Mexican neighborhoods.

With each deportation America looks, smells, and sounds less like socially and economically deplorable Mexico. America is presently occupied by 15-20 million Mexicans.

With the deportation of all the illegal immigrants, students will again be able to get good paying summer jobs, to learn responsibility and earn their way through college; blue-collar wages will rise; border towns will not be slums; Spanish will not be a second language; crime will go down; hospitals and prisons will not be overcrowded.

When seasonal guest workers come from all of the countries of Latin America, on a strict quota system, then every country benefits, not Mexico exclusively; and when they are well treated, the experience is mutually positive.

When all of the illegal aliens are deported, the Neo-Lib Democrats and Neo-Con Republicans will lose millions of political supporters, and the vast donations that they receive from the Mexican Lobby; and, those American businesses that exploit cheap Mexican labor will lose their illegal competitive advantages.

No rich superior civilization in the World can coexist side by side with a poor inferior civilization, without a great wall or fence, strict guest labor laws, armed border guards, and fines for hiring illegal aliens.

I have said it before and will say it again, when will we begin treating these individuals like the criminals that they are. Millions of people migate here legally what makes the Hispanics exempt?