On Wednesday, LAPD’s Chief Charlie Beck, and Chiefs of Police from Houston and Philadelphia met with Attorney General Eric Holder about Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070. The three chiefs said what has needed saying for a long while about this law, and that is the fact that it makes law enforcement harder.
The Washington Post has the report:
Arizona’s new crackdown on illegal immigration will increase crime in U.S. cities, not reduce it, by driving a wedge between police and immigrant communities, police chiefs from several of the state’s and the nation’s largest cities said Wednesday.
Arizona’s law will intimidate crime victims and witnesses who are illegal immigrants and divert police from investigating more serious crimes, chiefs from Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia said before meeting with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss the measure. Counterparts from Phoenix, Tucson, San Jose and Montgomery County, among others, joined them.
“This is not a law that increases public safety. This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. “Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state.”
This is precisely why Los Angeles passed Special Order 40 in 1979-–and why it was embraced by conservative LAPD Chief Daryl Gates and every chief who has come after.
(Special Order 40 “precludes officers from asking a person about his or her alien status and from notifying the INS about a person’s undocumented status unless the person has been arrested.” If there is an arrest, officers are required to notify higher-ups of his or her immigration standing.)
The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police are not down with the law either, however many of the elected sheriffs in the state are for it, as are the majority of Americans, most of them fed up with the lack of border enforcement.
AND ABOUT THAT BORDER ENFORCEMENT
As you likely know, President Obama has just sent 1200 national guard troops to the Arizona border to beef up security.
In an editorial Thursday, the LA Times points out why such a move was needed.
Here are some clips:
The troops will be stationed in Arizona and other border states, where they’ll help local law enforcement intercept drug traffickers. It is an overdue step. For political reasons, including the delicate relationship with Mexico, Obama has tried to resist giving the appearance of militarizing the border. But the lack of security, particularly in areas a stone’s throw from Mexico’s drug war, undermines public confidence in the ability of the federal government to regulate immigration. And if any meaningful immigration reform is to be passed, it will require that confidence.
Over the years, presidents have tended to view immigration through an economic lens, paying heed to issues of bilateral trade and facilitating the flow of low-skilled labor. But addressing the broken immigration system, including making it easier for employers to hire foreign workers legally and bringing forward the 11 million undocumented people living in the shadows of American society, will only be achieved when the public sees that Washington can successfully secure the border.
Yep. I can’t stand the Arizona law either. But it is unwise and unfair to ignore some of the legitimate concerns that drove it (as opposed to the nativist hysteria that also drove it). Addressing those concerns is the only way we are ever to get real immigration reform that the nation desperately needs.
IMHO anyone who kvetches about all of this illegal immigration – that was, frankly, encouraged by business interests in this country for decades – but who doesn’t support a 21st Century Social Security card (that relies on Credit Card/ATM Card-worty electronics both for ID and instantaneious data base connection, rather than a piece of paper and random checkups) isn’t serious. It’s like “deficit hawks” who have supported the tax cuts that are driving the bulk of current deficits. Not even remotely serious – just demagogic and ineffectual. Ending the job magnet would end the overwhelming % of illegal immigration from the southern border. Then the police could focus on the real and dangerous “illegals” who are involved in arms or drug trafficking. Not using police to chase after millions of people, most of whom are guilty of a misdemeanor under current law. Troops on the border and fences won’t stop desperate people seeking to immigrate as long as there is the possibility of them entering US labor markets. Control the demand – end it for any job that requires payrolling – and the problem is reduced to a modest, manageable nuisance that allows policing to focus on real criminals. The Arizona law is bullshit – for people who like to hear shit that they like to hear because they’re driven by emotions or wishful thinking, not pragmatism. The Arizona law is an insult to police professionals at the local level – it’s like asking someone in a scuba suit to shut down the Gulf oil spill by sticking their finger in the hole. Let politicians at the national level get serious, using the kind of technology that each of us carries in our back pocket who uses ATM machines or credit cards. And it wouldn’t be a “national ID” that people would have to carry around with them – most folks would only present it several times in their entire life, when they got a new job. But Glenn Beck will scream “Nazi” if Obama or the Democrats try to achieve this effective regulation of illegal employment. Wait and see…
For sake of clarity, it appears that the link above is for an OLD version of the bill.
I believe the new language and links are below (Please correct me if I am wrong!). Note the new language – ” MAY NOT SOLELY CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN”.
Don’t be like the idiots Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano who criticized the law, while admitting when questioned to never actually reading the Arizona law.
First, we have police chiefs saying that this law will cause a rise in serious crime. I think anti-immigration zealots have their priorities seriously mixed up.
Second, Reg, I think the reason we have such problems is that there are many elites who believe (perhaps correctly) that immigration is a net positive for the country. There are plenty of economists and think tankers who argue that the drain on public services is dwarfed by the economic contributions of immigrants – illegal or otherwise. Combine that sentiment with a virulent American dislike of immigrants (especially Latinos) and you have a political class that pays lip service to reducing immigration while fearing the consequences. Sane policy was always a longshot and gets more difficult as people get angrier and more radical.
There’s no net gain for the economy if it’s dependent on illegal shadow labor. The meatpacking industry in the midwest used to be unionized. Now it’s not. I also believe that the net gain/net cost isn’t distributed in any rational way – especially in such an anti-tax environment. Overall, I think that you can find “plenty of economists and think tankers” to promote lots of terrible ideas – like “free trade” that is a deal between countries that openly oppress their workers and countries that try to maintain some decent labor standards. Personally, I’m not a fan of the Walmartization of our economy, whether it’s internationally or domestically. Lots of cheap shit, but also depressed wages, skewed benefits from GDP growth and depression of entire regions. The economics profession is, overwhelmingly, a gaggle of nitwits who don’t have a clue except a firm belief in abstractions like the “free market” and “free trade” that are unhinged from social, political – and even economic – reality.
I am, incidentally, generally pro-immigration. I am against illegal immigration as a “solution” to any labor market issues. While I am sympathetic to the individuals involved, this has been a back-door exploited by the worst corporate greedheads. The demise of the UFW isn’t just a matter of their internal problems – the availability of cheap, mostly undocumented immigrants was key to breaking the back of farmworkers short-lived success at unionization. This is wrong. Let’s have liberal immigration policies from many countries, but let’s not allow a pocket of shadow residents to grow who aren’t on a path to citizenship and equal rights with the rest of us. It’s also bad for Mexico, frankly. It allows the political and upper economic classes to use us as their safety valve for their corruption and ineptitude, which is undeserved and prolongs the people’s problems. As for the people who came here and have become de facto working residents – especially those with families here – give them green cards and open a path to citizenship according to certain principles that will help them assimilate even more than they have. I don’t buy the CATO Institute “open borders to grow the economy” attitudes any more than I buy the nativism and ineffectual rage-mongering.
Incidentally, in defense of my blast at economists in dealing with a problem like illegal immigration and the economy, look at this discussion – scroll down to “a job for a job.”
It makes the obvious argument that lower wage workers afford investment opportunities, there is job creation and people spend these wages. What it doesn’t take into account – and what separates the question of immigration of illegal immigration in a way that economists tend to ignore, is whether having a large segment of your labor force not be citizens, willing and able to exercise their democratic rights, depresses labor standards and general wages at the bottom rungs because you have a “shadow class.” These discussions also fail to address the regional differentials in terms of these low-paid workers needing to access social services that are already stressed in many urban areas. Simple “input” “output” aggregation of economic data can remain completely oblivious of what actually happens on the ground in particular industries and particular regions that have a heavy influx of people who are living outside of the “system.” I’ve also seen studies that state that while wages of people at the bottom rungs of the labor market have been depressed, it has nothing to do with immigration because Ohio has had even greater wage depression without lots of illegal immigration. Well, duh!!! Ohio has been victim of decades of deindustrializtion, related to our trade policies among other things. I’m supposed to stand up and cheer because wages in California haven’t been as depressed as they have in Ohio in recent decades ??? When economists who are supposed to be experts start tossing around numbers and someone as randomly and ineptly knowledgable about this stuff as myself can see giant holes, I question whether these folks are anything other than ideologues in academic clothing.
sorry – here’s the link with some discussion by both liberal and conservative economists, none of which I find particularly satisfying. Especially when they don’t look at particular industries like construction and meatpacking where there has been a dramatic shift in “legal” vs. “undocumented” labor (when I see some more focused studies on those industries, including farm labor, I’ll begin to take the information I’m being fed more seriously.)
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/05/does-immigration-cost-jobs/
In the latter half of that ridiculously long 2nd paragraph, I failed to note that California was being referenced in terms of wage depression, and then compared to Ohio.
I am pro-immigration and anti uncontrolled illegal-immigration.
Poor un-educated labors from Elbonia, who speak elbonics would cause the same problems and have the same negative impact on our wages, healthcare and schools.
Free-Trade (sic) with China has decimated our manufacturing jobs and just as illegal immigration has destroyed the high paying trade union jobs in the construction industry.
The lazy economist who say that illegal aliens are plus to our economy, can be right, but only in their ivory tower minds, since they conveniently leave out of their calculus the FIVE children (US Citizens) of the illegal alien who are now filling up our schools, waiting in our emergency room hospitals, driving without insurance and taxing our social services. If the alien stayed celibate, never drove a cars and went home when he got to retirement age he might be a positive.
I basically agree with everything you wrote, reg, but I think it’s worth noting a confluence of forces that have decimated unions from international trade to cheap labor to conservative governance and beyond. This is why you need to avoid those stupid fights with surefire that might get you banned. You have too many interesting things to say.
Pokey, my understanding is that most of what has destroyed American manufacturing jobs is mechanization. Technology has made that set of skilled but uneducated labor somewhat obsolete. It’s terrible for the people who held those jobs (which is why I support strong safety nets and retraining programs) but good for overall productivity (for whatever that’s worth) and, most importantly, somewhat unavoidable. Free trade speeds the process along but the trend is thanks to technological advancement.
Anyone who thinks we should rely on politicians, and that’s what big city police chiefs are, to tell us how to work this problem after years of ineptitude and neglect by other politicians are crazy. They are exaggerating what this bill will do to pander to their own bosses and nothing more.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that states can enact laws like this as long as their not in conflict with federal law and this law isn’t. It’s really as simple as that. Where Reg is right in some of his thoughts that he posts The Arizona Law is bullshit and police will be chasing after “millions of people” is goofy. Obama’s already starting to send troops to the border, think the law isn’t working? Hell yeah it is and it hasn’t even started yet.
Mavis – I think we should discard the notion of “free trade” because it’s never “free” in the sense that the low-ball competitors are using a different set of rules. I’m fine with seeing our workforce change as we innovate and other countries develop industries, but I’d like to see it managed, with some notion of fairness and labor standards held to, and not assume that market forces – when we’re dealing with outfits like China – are somehow sacrosanct and “natural.” I don’t believe for a minute the Chinese aren’t essentially protectionist and managing their own industries to whatever degree suits them. I don’t want trade wars, but the idea of “free trade” strikes me as an ideological term, not a description of reality.
It is disgraceful that our police chief cares more about coddling criminals–and that’s what ILLEGAL aliens are, BY DEFINITION–than he does about arresting them.
Cop-haters are rampant on this website…
We should lower the cost of a college eduaction by replacing California’s over-paid tenured university and college professors, with a cheaper harder-working labor force from India.
We should also replace all of the LAUSD teachers with thousands of well eduacted teachers from India who would certainly do a better job of educating our students.
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2007/11/the_spiraling_cost_of_higher_e.html
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The second major problem is the fundamental culture of “selective” universities, such as the University of California. Such institutions get caught up in a “keep up with the Joneses” method of operation by comparing themselves to other “comparable” universities. For example, when the University of Chicago gives its administrators a salary increase, the UC administration gives its administrators an increase. The next year, the University of Chicago gives an increase because last year UC gave one – and “the beat goes on.”
While there is something to be said about the need for universities to compete for top-notch scientists and other faculty “stars,” I have yet to see a compelling case made for UC having to compete with U-Chicago or Harvard or any other institution to recruit and retain some specific administrator. If the State of California can attract top people to be cabinet officers at salaries of less than $200,000 annually, why is it necessary for UC to pay double that amount? It is hard for me to understand why the requisite skills to be Senior Vice President of Finance in the Office of the President of UC, for example, are so significantly greater than that of being Director of Finance for the State of California. Counting beans is the same, no matter where you count them. Therefore, the salary comparison for administrative positions at UC should be based on the California job market, not a national group of “select” universities.
geez, winny. The notion that all laws deserve equal attention and emphasis is foolishness. What if there was a policy that decreased murders but increased jay walking? I think we’d all be for it. What the chiefs are saying is that this new policy may decrease illegal immigration but will increase more serious crimes that actually leave people hurt or with property loss. Doesn’t seem like a good deal to me. I think your dislike of illegal immigration is clouding your sense of priorities. Not everything that makes illegal immigration more difficult is a good idea.
There’s also an idea out there that every argument against our favored policy objective is a cynical ploy by political opponents. That’s what surefire is getting at with his accusation that all these chiefs are primarily politicians. I think it’s clear that there is bipartisan enthusiasm for reducing illegal immigration (though through different avenues) and there’s really no good reason to think that police chiefs favor illegal immigration. Instead, I would recommend looking into the arguments seriously and seeing if they actually have merit.
You can never argue a point Mavis, only follow someone you agree with. I talked to a bunch of law enforcement people last night and all of them said they never had anyone refuse to give them info based on immigration status, that problem does not exist, it’s an excuse used that some run with to keep this myth going and use it when needed, like now.
This law will not increase seious crime at all, to think it will is without looking at the facts that almost all police officers believe to be true as wrong and following instead a few chiefs whose jobs rest with the political hacks that care nothing aout illegal immigration.
Little Antonio is calling the shots for Beck.
“Little Antonio is calling the shots for Beck.”
Horse-pucky.
No doubt about it Celeste, and a lot of troops at LAPD are talking about it and not happy. Even those who like Beck and support him find his remarks to be based on where he works and who he works for, not on the law as it’s written.
Respectfully, your Horse Pucky is Horse Manure.
There’s something odd about a person who claims that their experience policing under police administrations that have explicitly refrained from heightening the level of fear and mistrust among illegal immigrants suggests what might happen under a law that mandates police to put the question of immigration status front and center in their dealings with citizens. Strikes me as horse manure. Why anyone would submit this as “evidence” of the point at issue is bizarre because, if anything, it proves the exact opposite – i.e. that policing in a context where the administrative and municipal priorities are NOT to task local cops with immigration enforcement allows for more cooperation among “illegal” victims and witnesses. That’s the only inference a rational person can draw from this “expert” testimony, which presumably is from LA-area cops working under LA rules. The chip-on-the-shoulder, everybody-hates-cops, know-it-all crapola coming from this direction with such persistence is pretty creepy. Frankly, this is the last voice I would trust on anything, given what we’ve been treated to time and again in these comments threads. I’m prepared for an ad hominem, juvenile attack on my character for pointing out a glaring and obvious hole in the “logic”, “expertise” and “experience” being touted.
Strike “citizens” – stupid choice of words – should have said “populace.”
The Arizona law is needed in California and would not hinder the efforts of law enforcement to fight or investigate crime, it would make it easier. You don’t know what you’re talking about Reg.
When have I ever said I worked for the LAPD or was subject to the way they police? You wrote this misguided nonsense, “That’s the only inference a rational person can draw from this “expert” testimony, which presumably is from LA-area cops working under LA rules”. The LAPD dictates their rules must be followed by all of SoCals many different law enforcement agencies? When did that happen, I didn’t get the memo? I don’t agree with “LAPD’s” SO40, its b.s. I would agree that in So Cal, as a matter of routine, most law enforcement agencies don’t ask for immigration status unless a suspect is doing some time at C.J. and I.C.E. takes you at the end of your sentence. Think we couldn’t get rid of lots of assholes a lot quicker if we could do something about it from the start, upon arrest?
Most SoCal cities could ask about status though, just like what Arizona is planning, not many sanctuary cities around like L.A. Even though contacting I.C.E., upon an illegal inmates release isn’t mandated by LASD, that’s why the lawsuit regarding Jameel Shaw’s murder was just tossed, I believe it should be. Send the criminals back 100% of the time, what’s the problem with that? You think the illegal community wants criminals back in their neighborhoods?
Immigration status does come up when high priority type crimes make their way through the media and the suspect is an illegal but otherwise you don’t hear anything about how officers work day to day with the illegals. In Arizona, under the new law, witness and victims will not be asked about their immigration status, so Beck and the other chiefs were pandering for their local bosses when they shot their mouths off. Pretty much the same as you’re doing now, swallowing their b.s. hook, line and sinker. They are trying to derail it by spreading b.s. and it’s beneath their positions.
Your claim that the law “a law that mandates police to put the question of immigration status front and center in their dealings with citizens” is ridiculous. Front and center is the solving of crime and the arrest of suspects. As I already noted there are only a few circumstances when illegal’s won’t speak up and none have anything to do with their status and since Arizona addressed that you really have no beef you just find it impossible to shut up when I post.
Criminal illegal’s should worry, others no, you’re spreading b.s. when you don’t differentiate the two, no different than people who claim people are against immigrants when the issue is “illegal immigrants”. Here are changes made in the bill after some concerns were raised.
The law says this “For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town in this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.”
By replacing the broader phrase “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest,” the new version may have eased one worry expressed by critics of the bill –that police could use such innocuous pretexts as someone asking an officer for directions or being a victim or a witness of a crime to trigger an immigration status check.
As usual your arrogance shows same as your lack of knowledge as to what this law does and doesn’t do, or what cops deal with here. As I said before since this law doesn’t conflict with the feds law and the Supreme Court has decided in past rulings states can enact these types of measures your entire argument is weak.
Maybe you should take a little trip to Arizona and talk to a few ranchers and see the toll illegal entry has taken not only on our citizens near the border but the landscape and environment. Or you could just sit around keeping your eyes closed and pretend it’s not happening.
You of course have no expertise in the area, but should be believed for some reason I can’t figure out, and the only “juvenile attack” here was done by you regarding my character. What stood out most in your response was your ignorance regarding this whole issue along with the arrogance that carries through the majority of your posts.
Very nice job Reg.
I’m not even going to waste my time reading past this line in your rant – “I would agree that in So Cal, as a matter of routine, most law enforcement agencies don’t ask for immigration status” – by which point you’ve made reinforced my point. You have no credibility except as an angry internet troll/opinionmonger. Too nice of a day to bother with this further. I’ll trust men who have responsibility for considering this on a policy level. If you want to slander police chiefs, that’s your right – it’s America. But don’t flaunt bogus “expertise” when you obviously don’t have any basis for knowing what you’re talking about as regards how Arizona’s re-prioritizing local police work would impact law enforcement. Police chiefs have to look at the bigger picture. You’re just some guy ranting on the internet. You have no more “expertise” in that hypothetical than I do, frankly. As to arrogance, you’re so over the top it’s fucking absurd.
One more reason the Arizona law is bad for professional, effective policing:
A clause of the bill, signed last week by Governor Jan Brewer, allows Arizona citizens to file suit against any government entity that “adopts or implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”
In other words, Arizonans can sue government entities, state or local, if they believe those entities aren’t fully enforcing the law — including, of course, this new law itself. The government could be on the hook for penalties as high as $5000 per day.
That kind of explicit permission to sue the government for not enforcing the law is almost unheard of, according to Mark Miller, a professor at the University of Arizona Law School. “This kind of … private right of action for an executive decision,” — that is, a law enforcement policy adopted by the government — “is to my knowledge completely unknown, and to my mind, stunning,” Miller told TPMmuckraker. (end clip from Talking Points Memo-April28)
Reg, attack opinions not people, please. No name calling. That’s precisely what I want to eliminate.
But thanks for posting the TPM run down on that amendment to the law.
I’m attacking false claims of “expertise” when the facts are precisely the opposite of what’s claimed. No one who has worked policing in an environment where there is not a priority on establishing immigration status in the course of routine police work can cite their own experience as evidence that this law wouldn’t hamper routine police work. It’s just not a serious claim. To call me arrogant in that context, while reinforcing the very point, is the same old same old – internet bluster. This law actually encourages civilians to file suits against police departments – in the law. Sliming police chiefs is just a measure of resentments, not a “voice of experience” as claimed.
Claims by who, a bunch of police chiefs who haven’t seen the streets in years and have no idea what their officers deal with on a day to day basis? That’s the expertise you’re speaking of, what you’re putting your money?
Anyone who would do that hasn’t got the game to be in the conversation in the first place. Well this chief said this and that chief backed him so it must be true, lord knows I can’t think this out for myself that would take effort. Oh, and Sure Fire says something else and you never can believe that guy so I’ll just believe what anyone, and I mean anyone else says.
Being a guy who’s been a leader all his life I recognize the short comings of people like you Reg and all I can do is laugh. My experience dwarfs anyone’s her, and is way past a guy who pretended for so long he had a cop relative.
Spin all you want Reg, but the bottom line is you’re all talk like every other internet fraud I’ve run into, all talk and nothing else.
Lots of ad hominem there as well.
Reg has no police experience of any type or with the issue at hand and when he makes statements like this, “No one who has worked policing in an environment where there is not a priority on establishing immigration status in the course of routine police work can cite their own experience as evidence that this law wouldn’t hamper routine police work”, he’s responding only to hear himself speak and attempt to tweak me. Reg hasn’t even read the entirety of my post, he said so himself so his response should be tossed aside as that of a troll, because that’s how they operate.
Of course working mostly in the type of environment he speaks of for over two decades and never seeing the problems arise that these chiefs speak of gives me an insight that Reg doesn’t have. These chiefs really don’t have it either and anyone who thinks these guys are cops anymore is living in a dream world, their managers and politicians, far removed from true police work many years ago.
Reg didn’t even attempt to address that, he was busy trying to find one thing he could latch on to and make that his focus, it’s an incredibly weak style of posting, but that’s Reg. When you only read a response to a certain point, as Reg stated he did and get all excited because you think you’ve made your own point, well that’s as bush as it gets. People use this style to avoid answering up to everything an opponent might write and it’s pretty much a coward’s way to debate.
Maybe that relative of Reg’s that was a cop, than wasn’t could help him out here with his vast experience in the field.
You like being hall monitor huh Randy?
Apparently not as much as you like being the bully.
I apologize for that last statement; it was immature tit-for-tat.
I did want to point this out, however. You wrote the following:
And here you are later:
Friendly advice: if you intend to accuse others of arrogance, probably best not to make statements that open yourself up to similar claims.
Since I was a kid I’ve been a leader Randy, am I supposed to back away from that statement because you feel it’s arrogant? Reg’s posts on this thread come from a guy with no police experience, the only guy here I’ve seen post with any beside me is Pops and he hasn’t been around for some time. My statement is valid unless you can factually dispute it, so how is it arrogant?
Arrogance is shooting your mouth off on an issue with only what you find on the internet as back-up when you’re up against someone with actual experience on the topic. In Reg’s case he’s allowing himself to be lead around by the nose on an issue so he can attempt to trash my take. I think you need to take a look at your own built in biases before commenting like you do as sll you seem to want to do is nit-pick, not comment on the topic of the thread.
I’ve never been a bully, I’m the guy that’s taken care of them, if that sounds arrogant than so be it.
I think you need to take a look at your own built in biases before commenting like you do as sll you seem to want to do is nit-pick, not comment on the topic of the thread.
Just trying to keep it civil, hence my own mea culpa.
Here’s a scenario for you. My wife ias a naturalized US citizen. Suppose she gets stopped in the car with a friend of ours at a DWI checkpoint who is another naturalized US citizen who lives in Tucson. Let’s say the friend is driving. My wife is not obligated to carry her US passport with her. She is fluent in English, but has a heavy Brazilian accent. A number of Brazilians have entered the US illegally in Arizona. They’re generally classified as OTM’s (other than Mexicans). What assurances do I have that they won’t turn her over to ICE, under the presumption of being here illegally?
Think things like this don’t happen. As I’m concerned Celeste’s spam filter will hld up my post, I’m not going to link to them, but I suggest that you google the names Thomas Warziniack Eduardo Caraballo and Mark Lyttle
They were all US citizens who were either nearly deported or deported throught the incompetence of ICE.
I have dealt extensively with the old INS on behalf of my wife and have a good friend who is an immigration attorney. There are consistently incompetent. We made her green card application in June 1994. Our interview was scheduled for December 1994. In the intervening six months they could not move part of a file from one floor to the other, thus delaying a decision on our application for a week. They’re even worse on the citizenship applications.
The government is incompetent in running many programs, I’ve argued that here when people post on how drugs should be legalized and the government could handle running things, no way and no thanks.
I’m sure you’ve heard that Obama has ok’d sending something like 1200 troops to the Arizona/Mexico border due to the problems there. How many troops were sent to our northern border with Canada? You know and I know its zero because there is no need. the problem is to the south.
The country to our south is a Spanish speaking one and the people are for the most part darker skinned than many here. In Canada that doesn’t apply. Switch their locations with the same problems as now and light skinned people speaking English have the problem with an Arizona type law.
It’s called bad luck for one group of people and it isn’t racism driving this law or determining who has to take some minor measures to assure they won’t be caught up in it. If your wife takes a trip to Arizona have her keep her passport on her. Is that really too much to ask to help fight the problems in Arizona due to the illegal immigrants that you can read about all over the net?
Where I’m sure I.C.E. has made mistakes, for every personal story you could post I could put one up about an illegal coming back into this country after being deported and taking someone’s life, but what’s the point in that?
If your wife takes a trip to Arizona have her keep her passport on her. Is that really too much to ask to help fight the problems in Arizona due to the illegal immigrants that you can read about all over the net?
Not if everyone is required to keep their passports with them.
Very weak.
Horseshit. Why should my wife, whose citizenship was earned by following the rules, passing a test, learning another language fluently and swearing allegiance to the country, unlike you and me whose citizenship is merely an accident of birth, be treated like a second class citizen in a nation in which she is a citizen, simply because of how she looks and her accent?
That strong enough for you?
What is the substantive difference between what you suggest and the pass laws of apartheid South Africa? Why should she have to keep her passport with her in Arizona and not you?
If that isn’t racist, then racism doesn’t exist.
Better Randy, but so over the top. I have family in Mesa, pretty much ground zero for activity both pro and con the law. My niece and nephew have a white mom, my sister, and a 100% Hispanic dad. They look 100% Hispanic.
Neither of them, or my nephew’s 100% Portugese wife (now a U.S. citizen) are concerned about the law. They show their Arizona driver’s license if stopped and no problem. As all of them are professional types they don’t worry about the law at all and support it.
If your wife had a reason to be in Arizona I doubt she would need anything but her California license. If you think she’ll be stopped just because of how she looks you’re out of your mind. I don’t think it would reguire much effort to have her passport handy, but that would be a decision you guys would have to make.
Liberals like you get offended and go off the deep end by what you perceive as some great social injustice that this bill is bringing with it. I don’t think so and my support goes to the border ranchers that are getting sued by the very illegals (with MALDEF’S help of course) that ruin their property and create crime here.
Liberals like you get offended and go off the deep end
Oh please. My concerns are genuine in my opinion and are no more or less genuine than yours are. I haven’t written “conservatives like you”, perhaps you can afford me the same courtesy.
You’ve labeled me a racist with your whacked out posts, it’s petty b.s. lacking facts of any type. Affording you any courtesy isn’t at the top of my “to do” list.
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