Pardoned, On and Off Ex-Con Archie Schaffer Leads Motley "Arkansas Friendship Coalition" to Save Illegal Aliens with ACLU and Big Business at His Side

Speaking of illegal aliens.

Andrew DeMillo accurately describes the motley gang that makes up the "Arkansas Friendship Coalition" (AFC) as an "unlikely alliance". That's putting it very mildly. The group includes Stephens, Inc., Alltel, Tyson, the ACLU, Judge Wendell Griffen, and various churches.
Their purpose?

To oppose any effort to deal with the illegal alien problem in Arkansas.

They are falsely claiming that only Congress can deal with illegal aliens, as if giving welfare to illegal aliens has anything to do with literal immigration policy. This is a tired gambit used by the Rita Sklar, regularly.

The problem with this ploy is, at least, two-fold. First, it's a deliberate attempt to confuse people into thinking they can't do anything, even though there has never been a successful case against a state for making such policy. Second, it is completely fallacious. As I stated earlier, denying taxpayer funded benefits to illegal aliens does not amount to literal immigration policy, which is the purview of Congress, such as establishing limits on and qualifications for legal entry into the country.

The group has already admitted that their opposition extends to the use of the state police, trained by ICE, to help enforce federal interdiction of illegal aliens, which by the AFC's own definition is an activity authorized by the United States Congress.

This just further illustrates the disengenuous nature of this gang. They drape themselves in a psuedo-legal argument, when their true intention is simply to keep the people of Arkansas from doing anything about this epidemic of illegal aliens.

It's obvious what the motivations of most of parties are. Tyson, obviously, employs a large number of Mexicans, many of whom, it is alleged, are illegal aliens. Stephens, no doubt, has significant investments to consider, in companies that depend on a cheap labor force. Alltel is somewhat of a mystery. As I asked yesterday, if these big businesses are so interested in a cheap labor force, why don't they foot the bill for all the benefits they want us to pay for?

As for the ACLU, Griffen, and the gaggle of churches, which includes the usual suspects of do-gooder, liberal churches, are motivated by typical liberal gobbledegook. The Catholic churches serve the Mexican community and are probably the only party in the fold motivated by purely altruistic, if misguided, motives.

The AFC gang is led by Tyson Exec. and nephew of Dale Bumpers Archie Schaffer. Pardoned by Bill Clinton after being convicted for attempting to bribe Clinton Sec. of Agriculture Mike Espy, Schaffer's conviction was subsequently overturned, a literally unprecedented occurrence. Schaffer's uncle, Dale Bumpers, raised money for Clinton's library, which might be called a conflict of interest, but Clinton's associates have always been thick as theives.

This is a bad, bad development for Arkansas. Like any group which has to name itself something so ridiculous, this gang is very dangerous to the interests of the Arkansas taxpayer.

Here's the link to DeMillo's story for the AP.
Here's the link to Doug Thompson's story from the Arkansas News Bureau.
Here's the link to Max's sycophantic review.

P.S. I highly recommend the AP and Arkansas News stories because it appears that we have legislator with some guts who's sticking up for us.