JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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LFRAgain
arrestpaul, sfjp330, et al,
You've all gone great lengths to explain that the law isn't designed to punish Arizona businesses. I'm perfectly aware of that.
What I'm asking is why not?
For years, the failed approach has been to round up illegals and send them back. We've tried beefing up the border patrols. We've tried to build walls. We've even let loons with dreams of "Red Dawn" dancing in their heads arm themselves and "patrol" the border as so-called "Minutemen" (as offensive a tribute to the real thing as I can imagine).
And for years, everyone's been standing around with one thumb up their nether-region, and one hand scratching their head, absolutely baffled that illegals still keep popping up. It's not advanced calculus, folks.
Illegals keep returning to the U.S. BECAUSE THERE ARE STILL JOBS TO BE HAD.
As long as jobs are still available and employers willing to flaunt VERY forgiving laws against hiring illegals, the number of illegals in Arizona and across the Southwest will remain steady, no matter how many ways we contrive to arrest them and send them back. they.
Why is it so ridiculously hard to get this concept to stick in your collective skulls?
I'm not saying the new law isn't strict enough. I'm saying it's the wrong law altogether, which has been the main complaint among opponents from the start.
I’m also saying that you could give the police the legal right to walk straight up to anyone who looks even remotely Hispanic, ask them for proof of citizens ship, and the power to ship non-citizens out that very moment, and it’s not going to stop them from coming back.
This isn't about forgiving illegals. It isn't about amnesty programs. It is and always has been about treating the problem at the source. We certainly can't do anything about making the Mexican economy more robust, but we can do something on our side of the fence to make the U.S. less attractive: Eliminate the jobs that tempt illegals to take far greater physical risks for a simple menial labor job than most lazy, spoiled Americans could ever imagine.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
jruaustralia,
Wha--?! White Supremacy? Where the hell did this come from? Talk about overkill. Nothing in the above discussion about White Supremacy, friend. Your imagination's going into a bit of overdrive.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
jruaustralia,
I wonder just how glib you would be if it were you who were forced to have to carry around secondary identification, like a birth certificate to protect your right to move freely in your own country. Not very, I'd wager.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
arrestpaul,
You either need to read the bill yourself or read my posts a little better. My point was that for as serious a problem illegal immigration is portrayed to be, proponents don't seen very serious about stopping the employers who would hire illegals. Yes, there are provisions against hiring, just as they have ALWAYS been courtesy of federal law. My complaint has always been directed at why even this "tough" (coff!) Arizona law still continues to approach employers breaking the law with comparative kid gloves.
This is what happens for a first offense:
Oooooohhhh! Scaaaary . . . An order to stop employing illegals, followed by a demand for affidavits and apaltry 3-year probationary period.
And the best part? All violators have to do to avoid a suspension of their business license is submit within THREE DAYS of being ordered to stop a signed promise never to employ illegals again . Whoop-dee-doo.
Second violations -- assuming they occur within the probationary period, because violators who hire illegals again outside of the probationary period get reset back to “first violation” status” (rolls eyes) -- involve a permanent revocation of one’s business license for that particular business. No provisions preventing someone from just getting a new license sometime down the road. No fines. No jail time. No demonstrable punishments whatsoever against employers who continue to exploit illegal workers for a problem that’s supposedly “bleeding our communities dry,” but a law chock full of generous opportunities for those who employ illegals to get off the hook by demonstrating “good faith” efforts to comply with the law.
This law is a very, very poor joke.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
If this law results in the massive increase in arrests that proponents insist it will, the legal system will be flooded by this supposed torrent of newly-caught illegals having to be processed for deportation. After all, U.S. immigration isn't going to magically have more personnel in place to handle the flood of deportees Arizona is promising its voters. So those illegals caught will have to be held somewhere, likely local jails, which will in turn result in increased inmate costs.
The local police, in the meantime, will be tied up with an entirely new regime of paperwork and processing responsibilities to deal with this new influx, all on top of their other duties. Which will result in a significant spike in man-hours. Which means overtime costs for a state that's already $36 billion in debt.
In the meantime, while the police are legally obligated to run in every illegal they find, caught for any petty offence, as Molenir insists is the case, who's watching over the citizens of Arizona and making sure the locals are behaving?
Any hopes for a financial windfall of any sort are misplaced. This law is a pointless feel-good Band-Aid, and nothing more. There's got to be a better solution aimed at the underlying causes.
You know what the icing on the entire cake is? Anyone that gets deported will probably just come back, especially when there are still jobs to be had.
These folks crossed a desert at the risk of dying of thirst, heat stroke, or possibly even being shot by those yahoo police-wanna’-be, ahem, Minutemen, in order to get a better paying job. Does anyone here really believe that the threat of deportation is going to deter them?
Here’s an idea: If this illegal alien thing is the scourge that everyone claims it is, if it’s really such a "terrible plague upon our nation," then why don't people start acting like it and going to the source of the problem, namely the people who employ illegals at great personal financial benefit? Why doesn't Arizona put its money where its mouth is, and nail those who hire illegals to the wall?
No, not this namby-pamby fine, coupled with a short-term suspension of their business license, plus a very genial probation during which the employer has to submit- -- egads! -- regular reports proving what a good citizen they are. Hit them with heavy fines plus jail time right out of the gate. First offense, BAM! Off to jail you go. You want to see illegals stop coming to the U.S.? Make their would-be employers quake in their boots at the consequences of hiring them and you’ll see a faster drop in border crossings than anything this law promises to deliver.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Boy, I really hope this child makes it through this with minimum scarring, both mental and physical. This is just wrong on so many levels.
Posted in: 8-year-old girl in critical condition after being stabbed on Osaka street
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LFRAgain
Molenir,
Precisely! They were handed over to ICE after being arrested for some other crime. And deported.
So how is this new law supposed to be any different from the old system if the police still ostensibly have to arrest a person for committing some other crime first, before they can establish citizenship? Honestly, being able to ask a person on the spot if they're a citizen versus asking them an hour or two later doesn't really seem worth all the hubbub that's been generated by this.
Illegals who commit crimes will be caught with the same frequency they would have before – as fast as the police can catch them. And they’ll be deported, just like they were before.
Illegals who never commit crimes that would draw the attention of the police will never be asked about their citizenship status. And they will continue to live and work in Arizona as they did before.
So unless there’s some other magical way police officers are going to be rounding up illegal aliens in greater numbers as a result of this law, no one has made a very compelling argument for why and how this law is any more effective than what was in place before. Considering someone has to commit a crime or be under reasonable suspicion of having committed a crime (exclusive of legal residency status), I still don’t see how this law is going to produce results that in any way deliver a hearty ”boo-yah!” to the efforts of the federal government unless racial profiling is exercised.
To be honest, I'm starting to reassess my original hypothesis about this law. I don’t think it’s going to turn into a civil rights disaster at all. I don’t think that law enforcement officials are going to be foolish enough to undertake the racial profiling that would be necessary to make this law even remotely useful. Because of that, it’s becoming more evident to me that this law is little more than a worthless piece of feel-good legislation dreamt up by politicians seeking another term in office. This law is an attempt to pander to the conservative constituency that eats this nonsense up. And it looks like it worked.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Molenir,
Not a very good one. There is absolutely nothing in the above scenario that wouldn't have occurred at any point during a normal criminal investigation of a speeding traffic violation under the old regime. Upon not producing a valid driver’s license, the police would have had the opportunity to discover if the violator had legitimate business in the state, courtesy of the vast NCIC database. If the driver didn’t show up in the system at all, he or she would’ve faced greater scrutiny, and if found to be an undocumented alien, would have been deported -- the way it’s been happening for years.
So again, what's so different about this new law that couldn't have been achieved under the old system, other than giving local law enforcement broader powers to check the IDs of citizens and illegals alike? Not much, except for implicit government consent to broaden the opportunities for an officer to ask someone for ID.
If the point of this new law is truly to effect a higher rate of discovery of illegals, then it’s a deeply flawed law, as it makes no special provisions for stopping someone outside of the usual reasons outlined in the civil code, i.e., speeding. All things being equal here, including an unchanging rate of speeding violations, robberies, assaults, etc., police aren’t going to experience any greater opportunities to check IDs with this new law than they experienced under the old system. So where are the much-ballyhooed benefits of this new law for Arizonans? How are illegals going to be sent fleeing to the supposed safety of border states with supposedly greater scrutiny from law enforcement officials?
They aren’t.
In order for this law to have any teeth whatsoever, in order for this law to see any demonstrable improvement over the old system, officers are going to have to exercise greater latitude in how they determine whether someone is worth asking for ID. After all, the police can’t just set up on a street corner and ask everyone who walks by (although I’d wager there are some out there who would think that perfectly acceptable).
To see any benefit from this law whatsoever, officers would have to use new and more liberal criteria for stopping people in the hopes of catching more illegals -- especially since the number of law breakers attracting police attention, locals and illegals alike, isn't going to magically go up in harmonious cooperation with State's desire to give police more chances to net illegals.
Arizona essentially drew a line in the sand or the nation, daring anyone to prove them wrong about this law, but has only ended up trapping itself in a corner of having to prove that this law wasn’t a fluke, or at the least, a huge waste of time, and at worst, a willful trashing of American civil rights.
So now Arizona has to pony up results or look like a fool.
The law lacking any of those special provisions I was talking about earlier, leaves law enforcement officials no other choice but to artificially inflate their opportunities to catch illegals. They aren’t going to get the results they boasted about any other way. And the only criteria available for giving the police those increased opportunities is if they look at skin color.
Which means a lot of Hispanic Arizonans are going to have to give up a right Caucasian Arizonans take for granted by virtue of being lighter skinned. Color it any way you like, but that's racial profiling, and it will occur with increasing frequency, now largely because it has the blessings of the State.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
arrestpaul,
If you're going to make asinine, fear-mongering blanket statements along such lines as "[those opposed to the bill do so simply because ] they support illegal aliens and amnesty", then you're going to have a very hard time getting anyone to take you seriously.
Before this law was passed, law enforcement officials already had the power to ask for ID of any person caught in the act of committing a crime. At which point, if the person was deemed to be illegal, they were remanded to the custody of U.S. Immigration to be deported.
So how does this new law make it any easier or more efficient for AZ police to find and deport illegal aliens when they already had the power to check for ID and deport illegals before the law came into being?
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Is anyone actually surprised by this?
Posted in: New UK cabinet criticized for lack of diversity
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LFRAgain
Still waiting for someone here to present a plausible situation in which Arizona law enforcement officers would have just cause to stop someone and ask them for proof of citizenship that won't involve stopping someone for looking Mexican, which means Hispanic (which would be, by definition, racial profiling).
Anyone?
Anyone?
Proponents of this law are all gung-ho about this new power given to Arizona police, claiming it'll change everything, without one iota of racial profiling involved.
So what's the criteria a cop might follow to justifiably stop someone in order to check their papers? Is there some sort of "I'm not an American" way of walking, talking, or dressing that stands out in Arizona that the rest of the country isn't aware of?
Anyone at all . . . ?
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Tigermoth,
Let's be honest here. Locking down the borders wasn't exactly a priority for eight years of conservative leadership either, so taking the partisan route in refuting my statement isn't very effective. Sure, anti-terrorism efforts were expanded, but illegal immigrants creating the kind of economic hardship that border states are experiencing were largely ignored.
I couldn't agree with you more. The problem is that most Americans don't agree with one another on what constitutes "shutting down our borders." And if you're suggesting that only liberals tack pork spending onto immigration legislation, I'd be sorely tempted to call you naïve .
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
adaydream,
And I'm saying that your excercise in what-if can't possibly apply here. Your examples aren't the same beast by any stretch of the imagination. All laws are not inherently equal, either in inception or execution. Make the penalty for jaywalking in GA deportation or execution, and then maybe we can talk about the boycott angle.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
sfjp330,
Umm... Two majorities? Does that mean the L.A. population is 101% Hispanic? Interesting math.
Been to L.A. a few times. It's nothing like the fantasy you spun.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Molenir,
No. What it means is that illegals in the state will do what they've always done, but stay even further off the radar of law enforcement officials. They will work harder to not stand out, which will force the police to adopt more legally dubious methods of ferreting out illegals from actual citizens, i.e., racial profiling.
Everyone keeps insisting, "Naw, it's not racial profiling to stop someone who looks like they might Mexican, and therefore illegal."
But tell me this? What exactly is the criteria for deciding who gets asked and who doesn't? No. Seriously. How are they going to tell who's legal and who's not when they make the field call to stop someone and ask? Only Hispanics riding in motor vehicles in groups larger than eight? Five? Three? They’re going to net a whole lot of legal citizens that way, opening up the State of Arizona to a lot of illegal search and seizure lawsuits.
Will they only ask Hispanics who are in the midst of breaking a law besides immigration one? Well, these alien would've been caught under the old regime.
I can think of no permutation or situation in which a police officer would have just cause to question whether anyone, regardless of the color of their skin, was in the country illegally. Not one. If you or anyone else here can provide an example of a situation in which the police would have just cause, I'm all ears.
Above and beyond this, you and proponents of this bill are truly fooling yourselves if you genuinely think this law is going to make a dent in the illegal immigration problem, much less lead to a mass exodus to neighboring states. Illegal immigrants go to where the jobs are. They will go to where the quality of life is better. It’s as simple as that.
They’re already taking huge risks coming to the country illegally in the first place. They’ve already trudged 100 miles on foot across a desert to get to the U.S. in the summer heat. Do you really think the threat of being deported is going to be daunting in the least? What’s another 20,000 cops looking for them really add to the equation? So they’ll get caught and sent back. So what? They’ve been caught and sent back before. And they came back again. Why? Because the jobs are here.
I’ll tell you what you are going to see in increase of, though: Just what Egalityranny’s pointed out in an earlier post. Illegals are going to be more inclined to flee at the first sign of the police, creating more dangerous situations due to pursuit. And you’re going to see more innocent Arizonans having their physical persons put in the same dangerous line of fire as their civil rights.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
What precisely were other passengers supposed to do in this situation? Jump down onto the tracks with the girl? Stare intently with bated breath as the girl was hit?
I imagine if you were there, everything would have been vastly different do to your calm, reassoned approach to every sudden, dangerous situation. (roll eyes)
Posted in: 15-year-old girl killed by train while running across tracks in Osaka
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LFRAgain
Loki520,
Horse feathers. The problem with enforcing current federal laws has less to do with lack of interest and more to do with lack of resources. There aren't enough border patrol agents or funds to do what proponents of the bill want done, namely definitively locking down the 3,138 km U.S.-Mexican border.
If Arizonans want more to be done about illegal immigration, then they should be leading the pack calling for more taxes to give the federal agents tasked with border protect what they need.
But then again, that flies right in the face of the very demographic that opposes taxes, opposes increased government intrusion into our lives, opposes anything that might involve a government not in political and ideological lockstep with it, yet paradoxially whines because they think Uncle Sam isn't doing enough to help them with this particular issue -- that demographic being the conservative Republicans who overwhelmingly support this law.
So what Arizona has essentially done is create a redundant federal law at the local level, complete with all the budget and manpower shortfalls that have plagued the U.S. Border Patrol for years, while stacking an impossible new load of responsibilities on local law enforcement authorities overburdened with an already difficult job of enforcinf local civil laws -- All this in a state that is $36 billion in debt.
Arizona has effectively created a micro-version of the very same machine that has failed for the the federal government.
And in its desperation to look as if it's just the "common-sense thing to do," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has forced law-enforcement officials to do the very thing that she swears can't -- but inevitably will -- happen: Racial profiling.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
Egalityranny,
You only present a part of the fuller picture to build your argument.
73% of Americans do indeed support requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them, but the question in the survey doesn't take into account at all how determinations are to made by police regarding who will be asked and who won't.
It'd be nice of you to present the broader results of the Pew poll in your rush to paint your distorted picture of supposedly broad support of this Arizona law.
While 73% of Americans polled approve of the identification provision, with 23% opposing, when all elements of the Arizona law were considered, that support plunged to 59% in favor, while opposition rose to 32%.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
adaydream,
You're being disingenuous in pretending that this Arizona law is just any old law. If Georgia were to pass a law establishing institutional discrimination against, say, white Christian evangelists, then yes, I'd boycott Georgia, too.
Arguments in support of this law are frighteningly similar to arguments in support of warrantless wire-tapping, warrantless questioning by law enforcement, and suspension of habeas corpus, a la, "Well, if you've got nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about being stopped."
Sadly, the people who make this argument have virtually nil chance of ever being stopped to test that theory, mainly due to the lighter tint of their skin.
The Arizona law may have had good intentions in its conception, but it can be nothing else but racist in its execution, no matter how much one tries to justify with lofty constitutional ideals like “State’s Rights” the inevitable racial profiling (racist bigotry) that will occur. You don’t become the monster to fight one. That’s not what the U.S. is supposed to be about.
Posted in: LA approves Arizona boycott over immigration law
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LFRAgain
More like what the hell is in the water in China? That's three rampages in five days.
Posted in: 7 kindergarten children, teacher hacked to death in China