Immigration Law

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My favorite response to that article was

I have a suspicion that there will be more to this story.

 

As I said, if they need a reason to do what they want to do they will find one.

 

I think the reason is far simpler than that - the police officer saw the birth certificate, saw it was from Puetro Rico, and said he wasn't born in America, therefore an illegal immigrant. (Never mind that everyone born in Puerto Rico is an American citizen, even though they don't get electoral votes or seats in Congress.)

Never suspect deviousness when stupidity can suffice as an explanation.

 

Point taken.

And I forgot all the jokes about Americans and geography ... ... Puerto Rico as in 'cruise ships go there'.

 

Ummm ... did this even happen in Arizona? If not, why is it even relevant? Are you stating "If this horrendous incident could happen in a wonderful place like Chicago, with its excellent reputation for outstanding law enforcement, it could happen anywhere"?

 

T2,
I remember someone telling me (can't find a link atm) that having no ID at hand for an American doesn't pose problems, in particular that getting arrested is unlikely. The Chicago case illustrates that there can be problems and shows how they will look like.

 

Excellent point. I'm curious as to how many people will think this happened in AZ as it gets posted around the internet?

 

Ragusa it is interesting that the problem and example was not from Arizona ... there are abuses everywhere and this particular incident would have violated the Arizona law as well. Once again, how is this example relevant to the immigration law in Arizona? "Well .. it could happen" is not a valid argument.

 

It is topic related. I was (belatedly) responding to this:

 

And BTA was clearly talking about the law in Arizona. I believe he also accepted that there would be some officers, out of stupidity or malice, who would violate the law (BTA please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

The example in Chicago really only shows the law in Arizona is redundant -- there are already laws on the books that allow detainment of illegal immigrants when they have committed a crime. So what's the big deal?

 

The AZ law aims on finding undocumented aliens, or what they think that is, and handing them over to federal authorities. An ID check will be a routine procedure in AZ practice under the AZ law. So will be handing over suspect immigration offenders to immigration authorities.

If you don't have ID on you and look foreign (i.e. Hispanic) like this hapless Puerto Rican ... the Chicago case shows what can happen when you're unable to show ID, and the local police doubts your citizen status (for whatever reasons) and hands you over to the immigration authorities. It's not even the worst case - the guy could have been deported.

 

An ID check is routine procedure in every jurisdiction in the US when dealing with a criminal. How does the Arizona law change that? It's obvious that, at least Chicago and probably many other communities, police forces are quite willing to turn illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities if they fail a background check. How is this any different than the procedure formalized in Arizona?

My impression is the law in Arizona only put practice into writing. It's not really a big deal.

 

This case shows what an abuse could potentially look like, and it shows that there's incompetence at the federal level as well as at the state level, but little else. It's potentially educational, but not a warning.

 

I just want to bring this one up for comparison. I think the accusations are ridiculous, but the media and expert reactions to those accusations are what I really want to show. Apparently, some conservatives are calling the new tax on tanning beds racist.

Spoiler

The case can seem deceptively simple: Since patrons of tanning salons are almost exclusively white, the tax will be almost entirely paid by white people and, therefore, violates their constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

But does the argument have any merit? Not remotely said Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School specializing in racial conflict and law.

"There is no constitutional problem at all, because a plaintiff would have to show that the government intended to disadvantage a particular group, not simply that the group is disadvantaged in effect," he said.

Kennedy said that this is why courts have upheld a raft of other laws that also happen to have a disproportionate impact on particular groups. For example, laws that impose higher penalties for possession or trafficking of crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine resulted in far harsher sentences for African Americans compared to whites. And laws that offer preferential treatment for veterans are much more likely to benefit men than women. But in both cases judges ruled that, because lawmakers did not intend to disadvantage black people or women when drafting those laws, they are legal.

What would it take to prove that President Obama or members of Congress intended to discriminate against white people when they included the tan tax in the health-care law? There would have to be some record of direct or indirect comments by the officials involved, Kennedy said. Or there would have to be no possible alternate reason for adopting the tan tax.

So, a law banning illegal immigration for all immigrants is racist, because it disproportionally impacts hispanics, but a law taxing tanning beds for all tanners isn't, because it wasn't the intent of the law to be racist? Does anyone else smell a double standard?

Of course, the supremacy clause claim is totally unrelated, and that's the one going to court, but I did find the parallel telling.

 

I must admit, I never thought of the tanning tax as being racist, but they may be on to something. Can you imagine the outrage if there was a 7% sales tax on tacos (Mexican), rice (Asian), Kosher food (Jewish), etc. I wonder what the rationale was for the tanning tax.

 

... either that or the high cost of disposal of waste generated by the tanning beds (the bulbs contain mercury).

 

I totally see NOG's point -- intent is irrelevant to people without logic -- only the outcome, and if the outcome disproportionately affects a particular group, then that is "evidence" of hatred against those groups. It's <snip> logic when used on the tanning beds, and it's <snip> logic when used on the illegal immigration issue. It's <snip> logic all around.

 

LKD I could see that if I believed it was simply people feeling mistreated and targetted. In this case however, I believe it more a 'if you can do it so can I' kind of immature response to minimize real discrimintation.