Violation of Arizona law to be illegally in the US!

[Coito ergo sum]

And, no European has any business criticizing the US for "messing with" other nations in the world. The Europeans made an art form of it. So, if you're from England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, or Holland, please, don't lecture the United States. It's unbecoming.

That's a ridiculous comment, no person alive today can be held accountable for the crimes previous generations.

Never said they should be, but colonialism is not as far into the distant past as many seem to think. Plenty of people in England and France, etc., lived when Empires still existed, with colonies in Africa and Asia held by both. And, the US never engaged in such conduct to the degree of the European powers.

But, nevertheless, that's an aside.

Look - all countries have immigration laws. People who don't follow the proper procedures are not legally present in those countries. Some countries, like North Korea, are quite draconian and when a journalist steps over the border, they are sentenced to years in prison requiring diplomatic action to retrieve them. Other countries, like the US are quite liberal in their immigration policies, allowing MILLiONS to legally immigrate and become citizens every single year (with the US allowing more immigrants across its borders as permanent residents, and as non-immigrant legal workers, and as visitors, than any other country on the planet), and we are quite lenient on illegal immigrants - sending people who overstay visas a letter telling them that they need to voluntarily exit the country, for example, and if illegal immigrants are caught entering the country (e.g. at the border) then they are processed and shipped back, no prosecutions, no jail time, just sent home where they legally should be.

So, what does the new law in Arizona do?

All it does is take existing federal immigration law and make it a state crime to be unlawfully present in the State of Arizona. Note - it's already illegal to be in the country illegally. It's just not a state crime. Now, in Arizona, it is a state crime.

Under the American system, that allows state police officers (in addition to federal agents) to arrest people who are unlawfully present in the US. Note - federal agents already make the same kinds of decisions that state police officers are now allowed to make in Arizona - they determine whether there is reason to believe a person is not legally in the country and then they take action based on whether they find out if that person is illegally in the country. Nobody is suggesting that federal "police" (like ICE officers, etc) don't have the rightful power to make this kind of determination. The objection is that state police officers are now going to be able to make the determination.

And, the law specifically provides that race is not to be a factor in determining whether there is reasonable suspicion to check someone's immigration status.

And, the law requires that the suspicion arise in connection with a lawful stop for some other reason. Thus, if a police officer pulls over a white van for speeding, sees the guy driving acting furtively and nervously, looks in the back and sees 15 people stuffed in the back, who can't speak English, he can then check their immigration records to see if they are lawfully in the country. Other fact scenarios can give rise to reasonable suspicion as well.

As for the silly objection to "let me see your papers." If a cop pulls you or me over for speeding, we have to show identification here in the US. We need to pull out our drivers license, and we are obligated to carry that with us, or we will be issued a ticket. We are obligated to show the registration info for our vehicles, or we can get another ticket, we are obligated to prove that we have auto insurance, or we will get another ticket. If we do not have our license, for example, we often have to appear in court to show that we have a drivers license.

In Florida, when we get or renew our drivers licenses, we have to prove that we are either citizens, permanent residents or otherwise lawfully present in the US. I had to present my papers to the Division of Motor Vehicles (part of State law enforcement) and show them my passport, social security card, prior drivers license, and two forms of proof that I reside at the address I'm claiming to reside at. No "suspicion" at all is required for me, a US citizen, to have to disclose this information to law enforcement. None.

And, there is some objection to a cop having "reasonable suspicion" to ask for someone to show a valid drivers license? Anytime a cop has "reasonable suspicion" that a person has drugs on him, that a person just snatched a purse, or that there is an illegal gun in the trunk of a car, that cop can pull you over and "stop and frisk" you, and he can check your identification - drivers license, etc.

So, what, exactly, is the real objection here to what the Arizona folks are doing?

[Coito ergo sum]

Looks like it's an "astroturf" movement spurred on by a bunch of "organizers."

No, that would be the teabaggers. So far as I can tell the immigration protests aren't claiming they are grassroots.

Right - they are being organized by folks with an agenda, and that's why myths and lies are being spread about what the Arizona law does. It doesn't racially profile - it's not a Nazi law. That's the bullshit that the pro-illegal immigration lobby is selling.

[Coito ergo sum]

Make your case: compare the Arizona law with Nazi law. Let's see how they compare.

"I want to see your papers"

Last time you got pulled over by the cops for a speeding ticket, did he ask you for your "license, registration and insurance?"

The law does not allow cops to just walk up to people and ask for "papers." That's the lie that's being propagated.

The law simply makes what is already illegal under federal law, illegal under Arizona law, and gives police officers the power to verify a person's immigration status if the person is already stopped because of another offense (speeding, drugs, another crime, etc.), AND if there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person may not be lawfully present in the US. That "reasonable suspicion" is the same standard that has been used by police officers in the US for 50 years to determine when they can lawfully "stop and frisk" a US citizen (and ask for identification in that instance as well).

Now that you know it's not "I want to see your papers, " what is wrong with the Arizona law?

[Coito ergo sum]

Make your case: compare the Arizona law with Nazi law. Let's see how they compare.

"I want to see your papers"

How about this one:
"If you aren't one of us, you're inferior"

That's not part of the law either.

All countries have immigration laws. All countries regulate who can lawfully be in the country and who can't. And all countries remove those who are not lawfully present.

That doesn't say anything about inferiority or superiority.

Plus, the US need not apologize to anyone for its immigration system. The US allows more people to lawfully immigrate than any other country in the world does. And, on top of that - the largest group of immigrants to the US are from Mexico, and the second largest group of immigrants to the US is from India. So, any silly claims bout "brown" people not being welcome in the US needs to stop. It is counterfactual and irrational.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm for legal pot-smoking, but against illegal pot-smoking.
I'm for legal roller-coaster riding, but against illegal roller-coaster riding.
I'm for legal arson, but against illegal arson.
I'm for legal slavery, but against illegal slavery.
I'm for legal harboring of Jews, but against illegal harboring of Jews.



Seeing a pattern? What difference does legality make? Either you're fucking with other people or you're not. If you're not bothering anyone, you should be left alone. What right does anyone have to tell me I can't hire anyone I want on my own farm or orchard?

All anti-illegal stuff is just prohibition, applied to an entire labor market.

All countries regulate who is permitted to comes across their borders and who is not.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think we're taking entirely the wrong approach to illegal immigration. We just need to keep pushing free-trade-uber-alles economic policy, and pretty soon all the good jobs will be gone and they'll go back home where there's more opportunity! I find it curious that there's quite a bit of overlap between the folks who think the minimum wage should be eliminated to lower prices and the folks who want to get rid of the workers who are keeping prices lower by working undocumented for less than minimum wage. (And of course, if prices go up, they'll blame "big government". )

Soooooo....you....want illegal aliens to work in the United States under the table?

No. Merely pointing out a contradiction.

But there was no contradiction. Free trade doesn't mean "the US opens its borders while other countries don't."

Why? The State of Arizona is enacting a solution to Arizona's problem. Nobody else is helping them. If you have a better solution, what is it?

Economic policies that encourage our neighbors and trading partners to pay a decent living wage would be a good start.

Arizona has no ability or power to make such "economic policies" and "encourage" Mexico to do anything. What, exactly, do you think would be an economic policy that would encourage Mexico to pay a decent living wage? And, what would be a decent living wage in Mexico, in your opinion?

It's an innocent until proven guilty law, the antithesis of the way our legal system is supposed to work,

Innocent until proven guilty is how our laws are supposed to work. If you mean, guilty until proven innocent, this law is not that. It allows state police to, in connection with a lawful stop of a person for a normal crime or infraction, to check immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion based on objective, non-race related criteria. Reasonable suspicion is a very well vetted legal principle in the US - a cop needs "reasonable suspicion" to "stop and frisk" ANY person, citizen or not, for example. If reasonable suspicion is good enough to allow a cop to stop and frisk me, then it sure as fuck should be sufficient to check if I'm lawfully in the country.

Heh, my brain thought them in one order and my fingers typed them in another.

By what criteria other than appearance or speech does a cop decide to ask for proof of legal status?

The facts and circumstances of a given situation determine that. Examples of criteria would include, say, a van is pulled over for speeding on one of the main roads from the Mexican border. The police officer questions the driver, asks for his drivers license, and the license is not valid or he doesn't have one, the driver acts nervous and furtively and gives evasive answers about where he is going, a peak behind the driver reveals that the van without seats in the back contains a group of 10 people huddled in the back.

Another example would be where a driver stopped for a traffic violation has no license, or record of a driver's license or other form of federal or state identification. Or, a police officer observes someone buying fraudulent identity documents or crossing the border illegally, or a police officer recognizes a gang member back on the street who he knows has been previously deported by the federal government.

In addition, when Arizona’s governor signed the new law, she also issued an executive order requiring the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to provide local police with additional training on what does and what does not constitute “reasonable suspicion.” http://www.azpost.state.az.us/bulletins/eo201009.pdf

Taco Bell wrappers in a speeder's car?

No. See above.

How many white guys will be detained until family members can find their drivers' licenses versus the number of darker-skinned people who will go through this?

I don't know, but we're talking about citizenship here and drivers licenses are not proof of citizenship. What the officer would do would be to contact the immigration service and the department of state to verify citizenship or immigration status. Employers can verify immigration employment eligibility online by using e-verify: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ ... 18190aRCRD -- a cop can likewise verify citizenship by calling the Department of State, or immigration status by calling US Citizenship & Immigration Services. This isn't rocket science.

It's interesting that the federal government has required, for decades now, US citizens to prove their citizenship status in order to work in the United States. If you've ever filled out an I-9 form prior to taking a job in the United States, you'll remember producing a passport or birth certificate, and social security card, and filling out and signing a form. That's not something employers choose to do in the free market - that is the federal government delegating a law enforcement function to employers: verify their citizenship or immigration status to prove their eligibility to work in the US. NO SUSPICION OF ANYTHING IS REQUIRED there.

and it's set up so that any yahoo with an axe to grind against anybody with vaguely brownish skin can essentially force a police officer, via threat of lawsuit, to stop someone on the street and demand "papers",

That it does not do.

If Mr. Diaz cuts me off in traffic and I'm so pissed off at him that I anonymously call the police and tell them "I saw Mr. Diaz selling pot in the parking lot!", what are the odds he'll be asked to produce ID, and the odds that if he doesn't have it on him,

The odds are that the police will not take you seriously. People can call the cops on anyone who cuts them off in traffic NOW. You think the cops go running out to Mr. Diaz's house to check him out because you call in and say you saw him selling pot? And, in the cases where they do, eventually, check out Mr. Diaz, you better damn skippy well be right about his pot sales, because if you file false reports to a police department you're committing a felony, and they don't like that shit.

he'll have his life disrupted because he has to sit in a holding cell until his ID is verified, pot or no pot? Now, what are the odds of the same thing happening if I call in to complain about John Smith? And if they don't ask Mr. D for his papers, I have the right to sue them for it.

You tell me. If you have some evidence to back up your assertion, then link to it, or describe it. Your conclusory claim that this is going to be used to harass people of Mexican descent or with "brownish" skin is ludicrous. There is a very high population of lawful immigrants from Mexico and other latin American countries in Arizona, and nobody is fucking with them now any more than the police fuck with other people. Many of the Police themselves are hispanic, and spanish speakers are accommodated quite a bit in Arizona with many bilingual signs, bilingual government documents and forms, etc.

The statistics do not bear out that latinos are discriminated against by government, police and law enforcement in the US. We have more Mexican immigrants to the US than any other group. We have New Mexico with Spanish as co-official language with English. If you're going to claim that everyone named Diaz or equivalent is suddenly going to be checked for papers while other ethnic groups won't, you'll have to demonstrate that.

This is about people who come here illegally, period.

It's about illegals, but it can't help but target the 30% of Arizona's population who are legal immigrants.

Yes, it can. It doesn't "target" them. It targets illegal immigrants. A person is only investigated for immigration status if they are stopped (lawfully) for some other violation already, and there is - in addition to that - reasonable suspicion (as will be in detail set out in law enforcement policy and procedure) that the person may not be lawfully in the country.

I'm a US citizen, and I and hundreds of millions like me, produce our proof of citizenship in circumstances where there is NO SUSPICION WHATSOEVER on many occasions. If the law in Arizona is applied where police are pulling people over because of race, then there is big-time legal recourse under 42 USC section 1983 for a state actor violating someone's civil rights under color of law. That's a nice lawsuit right there. To say, however, that this law is necessarily going to do that is jumping the gun.

[Coito ergo sum]

Anti-illegal immigration protesters attacked in San Francisco: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=7417829

[maiforpeace]

Anti-illegal immigration protesters attacked in San Francisco: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=7417829

We had a riot downtown for the May Day rally for worker's and immigrant rights . My husband and I left just in time too, we were having dinner downtown that same evening.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_14998618

[Godless Libertarian]

All countries regulate who is permitted to comes across their borders and who is not.

This is simply an appeal to popularity. There is no difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration other than bureaucratic red tape.

I'd recommend watching this video (fast forward to around 19:00, but the rest of it is pretty good too, mostly about immigration):

[Ian]

All countries regulate who is permitted to comes across their borders and who is not.

This is simply an appeal to popularity. There is no difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration other than bureaucratic red tape.

The difference is taxes. Illegals may be working under the table, away from the radar of the IRS. Meanwhile they use roads, police, firefighters, emergency rooms, schools and everything else paid for by legal residents.

There's a strong pro-business lobby not to enforce deportation of illegals for economic reasons, but I have a hard time believing that the low-wage jobs most illegals are doing offset the cost they cause in terms of draining taxpayer resources. If someone can actually show me some numbers of how non-taxpaying aliens provide more benefit than cost, I'll be happy to look at them.

I have no problem with immigrants, mind you. My dad is an immigrant from Jamaica - a legal one. I'm irritated by those who happen to take from Uncle Sam without giving back.

[Trolldor]

Taxes, registration, background checks and so on. Not to mention as a legal migrant you are entitled to state support, depending on your circumstances. Most illegal immigrants are escaping worse conditions than they're entering though, and don't really care. The streets of America, at least, have homeless shelters. Can't say much the same for other places.

[Coito ergo sum]

All countries regulate who is permitted to comes across their borders and who is not.

This is simply an appeal to popularity. There is no difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration other than bureaucratic red tape.

That's not true. The difference is that we do not live in a libertarian world. We have 200+ independent nations, each with competing interests. It would be folly - foolhardy - for one nation to simply open its borders under the rubric that everyone else should do the same. Everyone else would simply say, "great! here ya go! We're going to send a nice load of our nicest people over your open borders for ya!"

It's not an appeal to popularity - it's an appeal to reality. All nations do control their borders and limit who can cross and when. They do it because people tend to migrate from where they don't want to live to where they do want to live, and that can have major effects on the economies, livelihoods and lives of the people who make up the particular country. If one nation that has a great standard of living decides to drop its borders, particular when bordered by a country with a not-so-great standard of living, then those in the not-so-great country are going to make their way to where things are better. That can, depending on the numbers involved and the speed at which they are assimilated, have hugely negative effects on the receiving country. That's just reality.

So, right or wrong, we have choices to make - open the border in the name of an ideology, and take no care for what the rest of the world does, or be pragmatic and protect ourselves.

[Coito ergo sum]

I have no problem with immigrants, mind you. My dad is an immigrant from Jamaica - a legal one. I'm irritated by those who happen to take from Uncle Sam without giving back.

My parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and even a sibling of mine, are immigrants - legal ones. And, even THEY can't understand the opposition to restriction of illegal immigration.

[Ian]

Happy Cinqo de Mayo!

Or as they say in Arizona, "Happy May 5th. Now let me see some ID, por favor...."

[owtth]

Robert Rodriguez has released a trailer for Machete to mark Cinco de Mayo as well as giving a fuck you to the Arizona law

the trailer is all kinds of kick ass

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44943