A few days ago during the daily White House press briefing a reporter asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs why the President did not ask the DOJ to go after the so called "Sanctuary Cities" as well as Arizona. As you can see in the linked video, Gibbs was left stammering in confusion clearly not having expected that question.
What that question did though was underscore the hypocrisy of the Obama administration and highlight what this AZ lawsuit really is...a shameless attempt to get votes in an election year that the Democrats are about to get pummeled. After all how can anyone with any integrity say this lawsuit in anything other than a vote grab?
To quote Attorney General Eric Holder who said "It is the responsibility of the federal government to decide immigration policy," how is it then that they are not also going after these Sanctuary Cities who openly declare themselves as such with no reaction whatsoever from the Federal Government? The government's case against Arizona trys to say that they can't have a patchwork approach to Immigration Law. These cities are doing far more to disrupt federal immigration law by not enforcing it at all. Arizona is one state trying to enhance immigration law by allowing their own law enforcement personnel to assist in the identifying and arresting illegal immigrants. There are numerous sanctuary cities spread out all over the United States, each with their own policies. Who do you think causes more of a disruption to the Federal Governments ability to set immigration policy?
The administration leading up to their filing of the lawsuit would have us believe that they were concerned about the potential racial profiling that the Arizona law "encouraged". In fact that aspect was not even mentioned in the original lawsuit and was not even addressed until the public and the press started calling them out. Furthermore this lawsuit against Arizona, coupled with Gibbs response to the sanctuary city question underscores once again how reactive and unprepared this administration is. Did they not think that anyone would question their lax stance on cities that support illegal immigration versus Arizona who has a hard stance? Did they not think that maybe they should have some spin ready?
Perhaps a more accurate explanation is they simply do not care. After all the President of the United States is attacking one of his own states in order to keep votes for himself. He is ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of Arizonans as well as the majority of Americans as a whole support this law. Americans are crying out for jobs and fixing the budget, and instead we get tax payer dollars being spent to wage political war on one of our own states.
Barack Obama does not care about America. Barack Obama cares about himself and his power.
UPDATE - 22 months ago
DOJ has announced that they will not pursue action against sanctuary cities stating, "There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called sanctuary cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law,".
How city officials who direct their police force not to report illegal immigrants they arrest the federal government, or inform them when an illegal immigrant is being released from custody is not "interfering, but mirroring the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and helping the federal government catch and deport illegal immigrants is not quite clear.