Walt

Glorious.

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yournamehere

Now see - there's the rub, highlighted above. It's mainly Republicans who bitch and moan that every problem in our country is the fault of some illegal alien; yet these same Republicans are the business owners who employ them in order to maximize their profit. Common sense tells us that if you go after the employers, the jobs will go away; but no Republican is ever going to suggest, let alone enforce a bill that will put business owners in jail.

Besides, to tell you the truth, if all the illegals at the car wash down the street got deported, I don't think, even in this economy, too many people will be in line fighting over those $3.50 an hour jobs

And what is the reaction going to be in our supermarkets when suppliers have to start paying minimum wage to have all our produce planted, collected, and transported? Are you going to smile every time you buy a $3 apple, knowing it wasn't picked by a brown person?

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hunnychile

The rebublicans are hoping that the "tail is gonna wag the dog."

/At least in their scheme of closing our borders and doing racial profiling./

It's going to get real ugly and fast.

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Walt

How so?

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Plan9

I won't touch this thread, but "Rebublicans" is definitely a useful term.

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dc_dux

I would describe as more pandering to the base.

The constitutionality of the law is questionable at so many levels, most notable is the fact that legislating immigration/naturalization is a federal issue, not a state issue (the state can enforce the federal law).

Then you have 4th amendment issues, civil rights issues......

I would be surprised it if ever sees the light of day.

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hunnychile

Rebublicans as in "Bubbas" or 'Bumblicans.

A useful term I learned of when I lived in northern California....somewhere, think it was born in a Zippy the Pinhead cartoon.

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Walt

When the federal government leaves border states vulnerable by failing to meaningfully address illegal immigration, does illegal immigration then become a state issue?

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dc_dux

I would agree with you that the federal immigration laws have failed.

But that does not change the fact that it still remains a federal issue to legislate.

The authority starts here:
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: Congress shall have the power...To establish a uniform rule of naturalization...

States do not have that power, even with the "failure" of the federal government.

And beyond that, there are the other issues....4th amendment rights, etc.

I can see where several provisions of the AZ on their own merit might have standing....like, picking up day workers on a public street could be legislated at the state level as a crime (?) of "impeding traffic"

But requiring immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and giving authority for local law enforcement to check "suspicious" people....no way.

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Walt

I am strongly against giving law enforcement the authority to demand documents from anyone on the basis of their perceived citizenship. There has to be a better way of going about this without shitting on due process.

I'm not sure on where I stand regarding the requirement that aliens carry their registration documents at all times.

.....

From what I understand, Art 1, Sec 8 reserves the ability to grant US citizenship to the federal government. I don't see how this is applicable to AZ's attempt to counter illegal immigration.

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dc_dux

It would seem to me that the Constitutional role of Congress to establish "uniform rules of naturalization" would prohibit a state from establishing their own rules, including a rule (law) requiring naturalized citizens (or those with green cards) to carry documentation of their status.

Beyond that there is the supremacy clause of the Constitution which makes federal laws the "supreme law of the land" and states cant legislation provisions that go beyond those federal laws.

And then you have members of Congress like Brian Bilbray (R-CA) who suggests that the AZ laws doesnt promote profiling but that police can spot illegal immigrants by the clothes they wear:

They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there’s different type of attire, there’s different type of…right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.

Suspicion based on clothing?

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Plan9

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dippin

The issue of illegal immigration has nothing to do with "offending" anyone. Everyone just loves their .99 cheeseburgers and their spotless lawns.

The hypocrisy on the issue of immigration in this country is astounding. "Yes, I'll make the life of an illegal immigrant living hell, but I'll hire them every chance I get."

The status quo is just too convenient. Everyone wants their cheap labor. Deporting them is costly and does away with the cheap labor. Giving them a path to citizenship means you can't blackmail them into lower wages anymore.

roachboy

the issue is also misframed as an immigration matter. this is a labor flow. based on above-ground flows, for every 100 people who enter the united states, approximately 80 leave again. so the border is a space of labor flows and the people who come across are frequently undocumented. but its harder to imagine some "invasion" by undocumented workers than it is by "illegal immigrants."

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dogzilla

As well as deporting illegal immigrants, I'm also in favor of fining businesses that employ illegal immigrants.

No, probably not when unemployment pays, at least around here, $10.00/hr (some $400.00/week) for up to 2 years now.

Why is this an issue? If illegal immigrants are given amnesty and legal immigrant status, then they will have to be paid minimum wage if they aren't already. So there's no savings by giving them legal status.

Obama says his plan is to have illegal immigrants pay a fine and go to the end of the line applying for legal status. As I wrote to Obama, that's fine as long as the back of the line is in the country where they came from.

Derwood

Stupid brown people, amirite?

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Plan9

I was referring to the relationship between the feds and the state.

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WinchesterAA

I want to write a skinny-puppy style song about relentlessly pestering a country until it gets so angry that it devours itself.

It would be great for a 3 or 4 minute long "America in 3 or 4 minutes" video that takes key elements from social programs ( i won't say "failed" social program, because social programs by their very nature are built to fail, thus failure is implicitly declared ), street violence, knee-jerk reactions that wax sociopathic, etc etc and chain these events together to illustrate the unsurprising result of widespread violence and outrage expressed by individuals the nation over.

Finally, with the chorus roaring, show the actual war footage from the ground, and end with the first dead baby in an American Flag T-shirt you come across.

Sun Tzu

When does a person become a criminal? When they commit a felony or only if they are caught and convicted?

US Code
title 8 section 1325

Arizona isn't doing anything other than giving law enforcement authority to enforce a federal law that is already on the books. title 8 section Sec. 1357

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WinchesterAA

I would argue that it all depends on the people you're dealing with.

Some people will view you as a criminal just because you're in handcuffs.

Some will hesitate and think, "I wonder if that guy's civil rights are being violated..."

Some people will exercise restraint in forming an opinion without all the facts, and indeed wait until the court exposes the issues and allegations to starting thinking about it.

Though, I will also argue that if you live in the USA, and you leave your house from time to time, you've probably committed a few felonies you didn't even know about.

Or, in other words, you don't become a criminal when you do wrong, or you get caught doing wrong, you become a criminal as soon as that birth certificate is filled out.

dogzilla

In my case this has absolutely nothing to do with race or ethnic background. No matter who you are, if you are here illegally, you should be deported and get to start over again at the end of the line of people applying for legal immigration status.

No matter who you are, if you are here legally, I have no problem with you being here.

How is the current situation even remotely fair to those who have gone thru the legal immigration process or are going thru that process?

Why is it unreasonable to expect the federal government to actually enforce immigration laws and control the border? I've read that Mexico has little or no tolerance for illegal immigration into Mexico.

With unemployment in the range of 10%, why should we be even considering granting any kind of amnesty or other consideration to those who can't follow the law?

roachboy

is this a serious question?

in a system defined around due process, one "becomes" a felon when one is convicted by a court of law. until then you're, you know, a suspect. because of the whole due process thing.

in a system defined around vigilantism, it makes some sense that one "becomes" a "criminal" when one commits an act. or is seen, perhaps by some racist half-wit with a weapon, as having maybe done so.

blam blam blam.

doesn't really matter:
if it turns out the vigilante was wrong, it's just another brown person gunned down in the desert.
if it turns out the vigilante was right, it's just another brown person gunned down in the desert.

blam blam blam.

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Walt

[citation needed]

[citation needed]

A path like this?

Those seeking legitimate employment are the only people illegally crossing the border? I think you're oversimplifying a bit.

Whats the difference between an undocumented worker and an illegal immigrant?

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dippin

So you want me to prove a negative on the first post? Well, I would think that the fact that there are no Americans lining up in front of Home Depots in the places where crackdowns have made illegal immigrants move away is enough evidence.

In any case, there are plenty of evidence out there that doesn't rely on asking Americans if they'd work for the same salaries as illegal immigrants. All you have to do is look at what happened when the guest worker visa renewal was delayed. Now, that isn't illegal immigration per se, and those guest workers, though paid less than Americans, still make more money than actual illegals. In any case:

Immigration's Fallout: Fewer Fresh Tomatoes? : NPR

If you still don't buy it, polls have consistently shown that a majority Americans think illegal immigrants take jobs Americans don't want.
Immigration

There are other stories like it if you want.

As far as providing evidence that Americans prefer businesses that hire illegal immigrants due to lower cost, well, that one is nearly tautological, isn't it? After all, if hiring illegal immigrants wasn't giving them a boost, they wouldn't hire them, right?

In any case, the biggest companies to be busted for hiring illegal immigrants are walmart and mcdonalds. But if you still need citations and evidence:
"Cortes, Patricia. “The Effect of Low-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Prices: Evidence from
CPI Data.” Mimeo, MIT, November 2005"

In any case, I've yet to see any consumer survey where "company doesn't hire illegal aliens" has anything more than a negligible impact on buying decisions.




Now, regarding the "path to citizenship." The majority of people who become naturalized US citizen do it through family connections (i.e., they get married to American citizens, they are related to American citizens, etc.)

If that is not the case, the path to citizenship is first getting an employer to sponsor a H1B visa for you. After that, they have to apply for a PERM, which is a labor department certification that the company tried to hire an American to do that job but couldn't. With that in hand, they apply for the green card. After getting the green card, they can apply for citizenship after 5 years.

There is a 65000 cap per year for new H1bs. H1bs can be received relatively fast if one pays the premium fee. After that, the median processing time for the PERM is 7 months. For employment based green cards, unless the person has some outstanding abilities, the wait time is over 7 years for skilled workers, and 9 for non skilled workers.

Visa Bulletin April 2010

After that, the naturalization process takes about 1 and a half years.

So you are talking about a path to citizenship that, if it goes without a hitch, would take 14 years for a skilled worker doing a job his or her company couldn't find an American to do to become a citizen. 14 where this person would pay taxes, contribute to social security, medicare and medicaid but wouldn't be eligible for any of those programs, and could simply be forced to go back to their country is there is any significant lapse in employment before the green card is finalized.

WinchesterAA

All undocumented workers have jobs.
Not all illegal immigrants have jobs.


I'd also like to comment on Dippins comment, "If you still don't buy it, polls have consistently shown that a majority Americans think illegal immigrants take jobs Americans don't want."

Bollocks. American's don't have a choice in what jobs they do or don't want.

I'd slap whoever it is that said such things.

dippin

Maybe that may not be the case in whatever political philosophy you ascribe to. But it seems to me that in a very real, very concrete sense of the word, Americans do have a choice in the type of jobs they apply for and then get.

roachboy

the difference between referring to this population as undocumented workers as over against illegal immigrants should be obvious.

if amongst documented migrant populations the reverse rates are around 80% (in the aggregate) then it follows that the people who are coming into the states aren't moving here permanently; they're coming here to work and leave again.
this is not at all what the term "illegal immigrant" implies.

in other countries, there have been considerable political conflicts over this sort of naming: in france in particular the question of how this largely imaginary category (not in the sense of having no empirical correlate but in the sense of being a relatively empty signifier which people fill in with projections) gets named is a pretty accurate indicator of where one falls on the left/right scale, with the discourse of "illegal immigration" being pretty firmly front national (neo-fascist) territory. and you can see how it plays out all over the place in writing that's either done by fn people or which is influenced by it (check out brigitte bardot's last autobiography so far with its hallucinations about france being invaded by mosques as if mosques are like kudzu)...groups like sos racisme have done enormous political work trying to shift the way in which undocumented folk are talked about over to the sans papiers (without papers) or a variant.

fact is that you can't really mobilize ultra-right folk on the basis of some nationalist paranoia if you're talking about transnational labor flows. it doesn't ring the same way.

that's a difference.

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Cimarron29414

I'm confused. If you enter this country without a visa or you stay past the date of your visa - isn't that violating our laws?

Whether you want to call them immigrants or workers is not really the operative word.

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roachboy

right. because you think of everyone who breaks a law in the same way. so of course. and it's like that in general: when confronted with the relation of an adjective to a noun, emphasize the adjective.

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Cimarron29414

Avoiding the question, are we? Is it or is in not violating our laws? Yes or no? I mean, if you can't even admit that, there really is no point discussing a solution to the problem with you.

P.S. Don't for one second assume you know how I consider people who break the law. You are not so familiar with me as to make such assumptions.

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roachboy

cimmaron, i made the case i set out to make as clearly as i can. if you want to do the move that you attempt above, which really is to swap out adjective for noun, that's your prerogative. i find it a strange move, but perhaps you have a rationale that's of interest. that i cannot imagine what it would be is maybe my limitation. so do tell, cimmaron, why the adjective "illegal" entirely supplants everything else. and then perhaps you can show how an "illegal" joint is the same as an "illegal" murder because that's where your fine argument appears to be heading. but perhaps i'm wrong. so do tell.

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dogzilla

You are correct. By current law, those who are not US citizens and who are not complying with the terms of their immigration documents or do not have any immigration documents are breaking the law. The distinction between immigrant and worker is meaningless in this context. These people are here illegally and need to be sent home.

This 'undocumented worker' concept is nothing more than liberals trying to justify the presence of people who are here illegally.

Cimarron29414

If you can't conceptualize that "our" objection is that they are illegal, not that they are workers, non-workers, immigrants, students, tourists, etc. - then there is no point discussing it with you.

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roachboy

what you characterize as "our" objection is transparent. why this is such a *problem* for you remains a mystery.

but who knows? maybe you are absolutely scrupulous about not violating any laws, so you never speed, never drive after a few too many, never allow your inspections to lapse or license to expire, never jay-walk or pee in a public place no matter the situation. because this respect for Law thing operates at the micro-level just as much as it does at the macro.

but unless you're that kind of scrupulous absolutely law-abiding person yourself, i don't buy the claim that "our" objection rests on "illegality."

because you could simply be trying to dodge the problematic outcomes of placing the rhetorical emphasis on the adjective illegal and refusing to think that the noun you use "immigrant" might not only be false as a label (given reverse migration rates at the formal level of these flows) but could maybe---just maybe--be generating problems that have nothing to do with opposing transnational labor flows because they involve an informal sector and everything to do with reactionary-to-racist nationalism.

but hey, you're all about the Law, right?

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Cimarron29414

The argument you pose is so idiotic I find it hard to even respond. As if the fact that they don't actually come here to live forever absolves them of the need to sign the guest book.

The problem that I have with "illegal workers" is and always will be the fact that their illegal act affords them the ability to avoid paying taxes on the wages that they earn. Furthermore, the companies that hire them do not pay taxes on the wages they pay them.

No amount of mean-spirited manipulation is going to morph my wish for a proper accounting of their income into your ignorant statement that we wish them to be executed on sight. Blam, blam, blam, indeed.

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roachboy

i don't recall making that statement.

i recall making a statement like that in response to what i took to be an argument against due process that departed from the question "when does a criminal become a criminal".

which if you bothered to actually read the sequence, you'd probably have known about.

context matters.


discussions work better if you bother to read what's posted rather that read isolated bits and then make stuff up.

just saying.

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it make you sick.

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Cimarron29414

You mean the open ended question in this statement which sites the US statute?

Yeah, that statement DEFINITELY can be extrapolated by rational people to imply that he wants citizens to gun down brown people on sight. Yeah, right. Keep weaving, though.

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roachboy

o for fucks sake.

emphasis added for clarity.

edit: the argument was against vigilante action.
and it included what you might take as a speculation about why it's so easy seeming for folk who imagine the Motherland to be getting Invaded by waves of Illegal Immigrants to imagine playing the vigilante. because mistakes just don't matter that much.

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it make you sick.

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Cimarron29414

o for DOUBLE fucks sake!

Your argument may be against vigilante action, but his post didn't suggest or encourage it. It was you who took it to that assumptive level because, in your narrow view, everyone who wants our immigration laws enforced also secretly wants to whack brown people from 500 meters with their Remington Model 700. Pant, pant, pant.

...and this is EXACTLY why I don't want to discuss politics with you. Because you don't want to have a discussion about real problems/solutions. As always, you want to make it all about bitter-clinger-teabagger-birther minutemen vs. your idea of how the world is or should be. Marginalizing to the extreme in order to maintain your concrete way of thinking.

I'm done, you can stop weaving now. You have a wonderful day.

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FuglyStick

I wanna frisk Eva Mendes.

Has anyone checked her papers?

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