Immigration Law

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I don't need a lecture from the likes of you [a partisan, FOX watching conservative] on what I should know or shouldn't know, or whether I choose to be an "MSNBC watching" liberal. Get over it.

 

My, my ... 'little prick'? A bit harsh and personal don't you think?

 

No. Have a nice day.

 

It sounds like Chris Rock's standup act of getting charged with a DWB - Driving While Black.

Perhaps it is a bit personal. Perhaps Chandos is simply more familiar with certain parts of NOG's anatomy that the rest of us.

 

There are soooooo many good comeback lines in that one, but I won't even start. The mods would kick me off the page if I did. So I'll just have the good sense to leave that one alone, Aldeth.

 

NOG,
that was a terrible post. In full rally-around-the-flag-and-defend-the-conservatives-against-this-new-liberal-attack mode again?

Those dastardly immigrant-hugging, liberals and their propaganda! They have done it again, and totally misrepresent the issue --- because they say things you ... happen to disagree with. Did it ever occur to you that you might be wrong and they right? At least partially? That they make valid points? Get a cool drink and give that idea a thought or two.

You object to the law being called racist. While I don't completely agree with that view, there is a point to be made that is apparently lost on you. Have you thought through how to enforce it? Tell me, how do you find Hispanic illegal immigrants? Put on your thinking hat for a second ...

Spoiler

hint: You wouldn't go look for Caucasians, Blacks or Asians ...

Spoiler

... but go and check Hispanic looking people.

Reasonable suspicion for a police check is an open legal term, NOG. It is something else than a legal definition. What 'reasonable suspicion' means is dependent on every individual case and it is in fact a judgement made by the cop on the spot. 'Reasonable suspicion' in fact gives police substantial discretion.

Now I introduce to you a novel concept: People can think one thing --- and say something else!

That is essentially what the Pima Sheriff meant: If he sends out his people to check on immigrants they will do so, and they will find a pretext for checking, exercising their discretion. It will be racial profiling in anything but the name. You know, as in *wink*wink*nod*nod* - we don't do racial profiling, we just happen to always pull over Hispanics when we enforce immigration law down here in Arizona because Caucasians, Blacks or Asians just don't look as if they might have immigrated illegally into the US from Mexico.

Because the law mandates enforcement of federal immigration laws but prohibits racial profiling a cop would go to someone Hispanic looking and say they had reasonable suspicion to check on him, because ... he drove erratic, because his back light was blinking or whatever other pretext. That is what the Pima Sheriff quite soberly was referring to: If we have to, we'll do it, my people will find a pretext, but it will be racial profiling, never mind what you prefer to call it.

That is why I think that the assurance that you hold up like a fetish that the bill expressly prohibits racial profiling is meaningless. The bill probably cannot be implemented by any other means than racial profiling. It's a built-in feature of the measure that is intended. When it necessitates racial profiling in practice, and, by making enforcement mandatory and a top priority even demands it, then it can be called ... racist? That is not a trivial point.

That there is a real immigration problem doesn't mean Arpaio (a poster boy for out-of-control sheriffs), Pearce (the bill's sponsor) and Kobach are all reasonable gentlemen. Pearce spoke in 2006 approvingly about 'Operation Wetback' and e-mailed his friends Nazi National Alliance material. And Arpaio and those Nazi types ... they just keep getting photographed together. Kobach uses in class material by Samuel Huntington (under whom he studied) that argues that today's immigrants will "divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, two languages." And then there's their single-issue-ness. But, of course, it's just a bunch of law and order conservatives *wink*wink*nod*nod* locally enforcing the federal immigration laws ...

IMO, one doesn't need to be a fictitious immigrant-hugging, politically-correct liberal to dislike the sort of stuff put forward by Arpaio, Pearce or (smoother) by Kobach. Now of course, I am obviously a gloomy, dark sort of person, with just a whiff of an idea about how people with a certain predisposition would try to game the system and formulate benign expressions for extremist thought (i.e. thinking one thing, and saying something more appealing).

Throughout your rant you point at 'liberal propaganda' and deception. If you are questioning liberal motives already, please extend that critical attitude to the people who you are so generously giving the benefit of a doubt - guys like or Arpaio, Pearce or Kobach. Unless you do that, please shut up about liberal propaganda.

 

There are several places near where I work: temp agencies, Apollo Insurance agents, a few restaurants and bars, even a couple of specific apartment complexes. I imagine if I drove up in a 'fed looking' car and claimed to be INS, the places would vacate rather quickly. But most of the people in these places are hard working and don't cause trouble -- the INS leaves them alone.

 

But obviously that is not what the law addresses, is it not? Putative future contingencies are irrelevant here. Of course it is about Hispanics.

So in your eyes that's a by product of a routine check? That is arguably what's happening already.

What would the law change then - a vast increase in checks on traffic violations to generate more such 'chance encounters'? Point is, the law mandates a focus on immigration, even gives citizens standing to sue authorities if they are found lacking in zeal. Ponder that.

T2,
what you say is probably correct. But still, never mind where you go, who will you ask for his papers? This miscreant, or the other guy?

. ​

 

I would definitely ask Woody first, it is a guarantee he is holding.

 

Yeah, there's no telling how much trouble you can get in with a Woody....

 

Simple, you don't go looking for Hispanic illegal immigrants!! There's the lie, and all the political BS that goes with it. You look for illegal immigrants, regardless of race, class, gender, or number of passengers. If the vast majority of them are Hispanic, then the vast majority that you find will also be Hispanic, but that's not because you were looking for Hispanics. Remember, racial profiling is illegal for a reason. There are other ways to do things. Beyond that, though, the problem I see with this reasoning is that, if they racially profile to enforce this law, they're almost certainly racially profiling to enforce other laws as well. That means that this law isn't the problem, and hasn't changed anything. The problem is the status quo.

As I understand it, in the US, it's something that has to be definable, and defendable, in court. Evidence can get thrown out if 'reasonable suspicion' amounts to 'he looked suspicious', and lawsuits can follow.

I've already addressed this arguement in a previous post (and above). It amounts to, while this is a reasonable complaint, it's not a complaint against this law. THIS LAW isn't racist here, the people enforcing it are. And if they are, they'll be racist whether they're enforcing this law or not.

The issue here is how you define 'enforcement'. Now that the law mandates that they have a reason to detain a suspect before checking their legal status, the non-racist police can easily let every hispanic who is driving properly drive right on by and say 'I'm enforcing the law'. When they pull over a drunk driver, hispanic or not, and the driver doesn't have a driver's license, they can check to make sure they're legal immigrants, and they're not being racist, and they are enforcing the law.

As I have shown above, this is a false dichotomy, and the basis of the current lie. You can enforce the law without racial profiling. Will it be less effective at catching illegal immigrants? Maybe. But it'll also be legal.

This is a classic ad hominem attack. If the law is racist, it has to be in the law, not in the people who wrote it. If you're advocating for a criminal investigation of Arpaio, this is fine. If you're advocating for the removal of this law, this isn't.

I've already stated that I doubted the motives of those who crafted and supported this law. I don't doubt them as far as you do, but I do doubt them. I'm not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt and I hope any corrupt cops get a legal suit filed from the first legal Hispanic resident that they pull over and detain without cause. None of that changes the law one bit, though. I also doubt Obama's motives on a great many things he does, but I judge his actions on their own merits, not on his motives. Remember, I first criticized his criticism of this law because it was wrong.

This is also faulty. The law is a national law, and addresses a lot more than Hispanics. Locally, the law mostly impacts Hispanics, but the locals also have a legitimate problem with this activity. Just because the primary offenders of a law are of one race, gender, age, or sexual orientation doesn't mean that group is being targeted. For example, about 90% of all murders are committed by men, and usually young men. Does that mean that murder laws are sexist? Ageist? No. The act itself is problematic to society, so society has banned it. The fact that the perpetrators of that act are primarily young men is irrelevant. Likewise, the fact that most illegal immigrants in Arizona are Hispanic is irrelevant to the legality of the law.

No, this is the problem. It's not. As it stands, the police aren't authorized (or mostly trained) to do this. This law would change that.

The answer is: both.

Face it, Ragusa, you can only find racism in this law if you assume it's already there, and if it's already there then the problem isn't with the law.

 

Sorry, but the allegation that cops have been looking the other way all the time, resulting in Arizona's immigration problem, and have now to be forced by law to change that, sounds like BS to me.

The problem is likely limited resources. One can only do so much in a given time with a given amount of resources. Local police regularly have to choose where to focus. Usually that resulted in them going after violent crime instead of going after immigrants. Which is damned sensible.

And what is this nonsense about full enforcement anyway? Immigration law is not simply just securing the borders and cracking down on those without a legal right to be in country but about providing people with a means of immigrating to this country and seeking citizenship. Federal immigration officials have to balance between that. The way they do that is through federal policy and that may legitimately involve less than full enforcement. Full enforcement (i.e. asking all the guys for their papers) is a great thing ... if you have unlimited resources, which I rather, neither Arizona nor the Feds have.

SB 1070 is solely focused on the enforcement side of the equation i.e. it doesn't balance and it doesn't take into account federal immigration policy. Which is one of the key reasons why I think the law will be judged to be pre-empted in court. We had that, arrogation of competence ... Odds are great that Arizona's intensified enforcement of federal immigration laws will conflict with federal enforcement or administration of federal law, and that the Feds will make that point in the inevitable lawsuits that SB 1070 will generate.

Besides, then there is this peculiar provision that authorizes private citizen suits to force greater enforcement by Arizona government agencies. I don't think that is such a glorious idea. Citizens elect representatives to set policy. Now these representatives are being denied the discretion to decide what that policy should be by being dragged in court by immigration zealots (arguably the guys who will use this provision, and for whom it was written)?

Interestingly, the provision also involves monetary penalties for those departments who are not enforcing federal immigration laws to the fullest, also obliging them to cover the legal costs for those who sue. A PR & financing racket for anti-immigration activists, at taxpayer's expense. How handy.

NOG,
I yield my time to anyone willing to go through this with you again. And yes, you will probably find that hard to follow, but here it is anyway: A law can be a racist law even when it says nothing bad about the targeted group, but merely deliberately targets it. It's not the language but the effect it will have.

 

Google "Sanctuary cities list". Many of them officially declare themselves as such.

I think the idea that the Feds can legitimately refuse to enforce their own laws is something that would be thrown out in court. I'm not sure, but I think it would.

They aren't given the authority to sue to change official policy, but to sue to ensure enforcement. If duely elected legislators change the law, the citizens can't sue over that.

In other words you can't counter my arguements? That's the only thing I can read from the 'go over this again'. Let me ask you this one simple question, Ragusa. How will this law require more racial profiling than is already going on? That's the critical thing. If there's racial profiling already going on and this law get's caught up in that, then the problem is something else entirely. It's only if this law requires an increase in racial profiling that we have a problem. My simple response to your entire arguement is that this law only gives you racial profiling if it's already there, and if it's already there then it's a seperate problem.

 

No, that's NOT what he was saying "in other words." He has already countered your arguments and already made his point. The fact is, some of us feel your arguments are basically not very good. But feel free to hold on to them dearly.

 

No, in other words, I already have, but you won't listen, either because you don't understand or don't want to. I don't have the time, interest or inclination to waste my time with you on this. There are pleasant things I can do instead.

 

Why yes it is. If it specifically targets white gangs and not black or hispanic gangs as well, then it's racist.