Immigration Fallacy The Existential Fallacy Behind Arizona's Immigration Policy

Few issues currently featured in American public debate are clouded by as much emotional bias, invective and distortion as that of immigration reform. Particularly as this concerns America's shared border with Mexico, immigration is a discussion which carries significant political ramification, clear racial overtones and distinctions in ideology where American openness is concerned. As a result, many political figures have been moved to comment or drive policy on the issue-based less on the support of fact than on the employment of inflammatory rhetoric. And quite frequently, this rhetoric is presented with little concern for the logical fallacies which may underlie is basic formative claims. Rarely has this been evidenced with more vitriol or determination than in the state of Arizona over the last several years. In the context of our discussion, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is particularly noted for her steady employment of logical fallacy as a way of engendering support from those voters who share her hostility toward Hispanic immigration.

The central fallacies in the governor's position extend from the claims used to support and, subsequently, to defend the controversial state-based bill called SB1070. This was a bill which the governor aggressively pushed into passage through State Senate that would give law enforcement officers...

A bald-faced legal standard asking officers to engage in racial profiling, the policy would be underscored by a key syllogistic fallacy that the federal government and specifically the administration of President Obama, had created an immigration crisis in need of this type of response. Rather than addressing the core issues relating to the drug wars at our borders, the racial implications of her stance or the real economic figures that describe our immigration picture, Brewer employed a strategy of misdirection. Seizing on the hostility of conservatives in her home state against the president -- also extending at least partially from racial tensions -- Brewer would frame the discourse on immigration according to the failure of the president to act on their behalf.
Accordingly, Biggers (2011) reports that "Brewer argues that the Obama administration has intentionally allowed an immigration crisis to spiral out of control on the U.S.-Mexico border. When President Felipe Calderon from Mexico addressed a joint session of Congress and criticized Arizona for SB 1070, Brewer could not believe that a foreign leader was actually allowed to criticize the United States of America. 'I had to wonder where our country was going under Obama,' she writes. 'It started to dawn on me that this president…