Obama Admin 'Suspends' Immigration Enforcement Agreements with Arizona

President Obama is using the Department of Homeland Security to punish his enemies.

The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.

Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.

“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.

The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won’t be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.

“We do not plan on putting additional staff on the ground in Arizona,” the official said.

This is a political maneuver designed to punish Arizona, which is already reeling from the lawlessness on its border with Mexico. It also tells us that the administration has given up on winning Arizona, which until recently was considered a swing state, this fall. Obama has written it off, and is now going Soviet on it to make it an example to others. He is essentially kicking Arizona out of whatever is left of the federal government’s border enforcement, declaring to smugglers and traffickers that Arizona is very much on its own. The sucker punch comes when police enforce Section 2B of 1070 and get the state sued again. That’s likely to put the law back on hold, giving the green light to anyone who wants to sneak into Arizona from Mexico for any reason whatsoever.

The Obama administration did something like this with Texas years ago, when DHS Secretary Napolitano reportedly laughed at the state’s direct request from Gov. Perry for more enforcement help on the border. After that, the president completed his obnoxious disregard for the state by visiting the border at El Paso and mocking requests for more security.

We have a remarkable president on our hands. He openly defies the defined obligations of his office, then crafts new abilities to strike out at the states that he dislikes, imposing energy famines and abetting lawlessness in the name of his warped worldview. It’s hard at the present time to regard the union of our United States as such. It doesn’t seem very united when Obama’s Washington keeps acting like a hostile occupier.