Illegal Immigration

[scooterbug44]

Arizona has passed legislation making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant and requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is an illegal alien.

Hope they've got a lot of extra money in the budget for jails and lawsuits.

 

[Alicia Leonard]

I don't have any papers :shock:

 

[30ashopper]

Arizona has passed legislation making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant and requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is an illegal alien.

Hope they've got a lot of extra money in the budget for jails and lawsuits.

Um, it's already a crime to enter the country illegally. We deport people who do that. I think the arizona law is supposed to compensate for the fact that the federal government isn't doing it's job. Which is no real surprise to me.

 

[LuciferSam]

So technically this give the cops the right to walk up to anyone on the street and question them without probable cause, and that person has to comply with certain requirements. If you're just hnging out at the park sitting on a bench reading your kindle or listening to your ipod, the cop can tap you on the shoulder and say "Hey buddy, I have a few questions for you. First I need to see some ID". The appropriate response (from a moral standpoint not a legal one) is go eff yourself. What say you?

 

[Bob]

law is not constitutional

 

[Alicia Leonard]

Last time I researched it, it was not a criminal offense, rather a civil one. And I don't believe the first time is even considered an offense, they are just deported.

Most illegal immigrants get caught criminally if they are using a fake id or for identity theft.

Where this law will have issue is if it was somewhere everyone is Caucasian, such as many of the illegal immigrants we have in this area that are Slavic or eastern European. Not everyone that stays here past their visa expiration date or who enters illegally is brown. The feds have let the fence issue go for too long.

We should have properly maintained borders and I am really amazed that someone has not done a movie or a book on how this will lead to a major terrorist incident in the future. An unmanned border in the west and a dirty bomb has Harrison Ford written all over it.

We need an easier route to immigration and an easier route to remove those who refuse to take it. Our new citizens know more about the history of this country than 85 percent of those who were born here and will tell you they are "real Americans."

It's also important to think of what is going on in their country right now. The drug lords are ruling Mexico and slaughtering people in the streets. If I knew it was going to take anywhere from 6-12 years "depending" to become a citizen and I had no family here to sponser me, I'd be trying to get into Arizona, too. Take me to jail, at least I won't get shot for walking down the street.

 

[scooterbug44]

Aleo, Tom Clancy wrote a book years ago where Muslim terrorists went to Mexico, paid someone to take them across the border, then went on a shooting spree in the malls of the Midwest to terrorize the country. Luckily one group jumped the gun and chose a mall where his CIA agent characters were shopping so it had a happy/trial free ending.

While I understand that illegal immigration is a big problem, I don't think making it a crime to "look foreign" is a good solution.

From what I can understand, the whole idea of this law is to harass people or make them fear imprisonment/loss of wages so they stay away.

As a descendant of immigrants who came to America for a better life (like the vast majority of our population), I have a big problem with that - especially since a large portion of illegal immigrants are people who come here legally and then stay longer than allowed..............and who have their names, photos, and contact info on file with the government already!

 

[LuciferSam]

There will be massive problems with this. First there is no legal requirement that anybody even possess identification much less carry it on their person. No law requires a person to have a driver's license (of course he won't be able to drive), and nobody is required to obtain other forms of picture ID. The fact is, I've known people to leave the house without their ID, for whatever misguided reason. Not a good idea, but that's not the point. We can be certain that some legitimate US citizens are going to be questioned and unable to produce ID. They will hauled in, and questioned, probably have to phone a friend or parents to come to the station bring in their ID which is in the wallet that they left in their pants pocket. This amounts to a big fustercluck that wastes time, money and law enforcement resources. I'm in favor of widespread civil disobedience among legitimate US citizens who are questioned. I'd love to hear what the ACLU thinks about all this.

 

[Andy A]

There will be massive problems with this. First there is no legal requirement that anybody even possess identification much less carry it on their person. No law requires a person to have a driver's license (of course he won't be able to drive), and nobody is required to obtain other forms of picture ID. The fact is, I've known people to leave the house without their ID, for whatever misguided reason. Not a good idea, but that's not the point. We can be certain that some legitimate US citizens are going to be questioned and unable to produce ID. They will hauled in, and questioned, probably have to phone a friend or parents to come to the station bring in their ID which is in the wallet that they left in their pants pocket. This amounts to a big fustercluck that wastes time, money and law enforcement resources. I'm in favor of widespread civil disobedience among legitimate US citizens who are questioned. I'd love to hear what the ACLU thinks about all this.

Like so many other thing about which they are wrong, they oppose it.

 

[30A Skunkape]

It is a very interesting debate because crunching the numbers seems to suggest that illegals being here makes life less expensive for us overweight middle classers, and yes, that includes paying for their healthcare, schooling, etc. This topic was on NPR's 'Talk of the Nation' a few weeks back, and the price tag for arresting and deporting a single illegal alien is something on the order of $20,000. You start doing this on the scale of the thousands, which it would have to be in order to have any effect on the illegal population, and it isn't sustainable fiscally.