Post what you want! Self-linking makes the interwebs go round.
- Mystery Man mourns the soon-to-come end of cigarette magic, and links to videos of some masters of cigarette manipulation. This isn’t the first time a large, well-developed field of magic has been made obsolete by the changing times; paper cone tricks (using the paper cones that stores put your purchases in, before paper bags replaced them) were once a major staple of magic acts. But once paper cones stopped being a common daily object, the tricks looked like — well, they looked like tricks. So magicians moved on.
- Why boycotting Arizona makes sense.
- What “Alas” would have looked like on Geocities.
- Dieting can cause heart disease, cancer. In other words, stress is bad for health.
- The usual right-wing nonsense about DDT seems to be going around again. Inoculate yourself by reading Bug-Girl: DDT, Junk Science, Malaria, and the attack on Rachel Carson, then Malaria and insecticide resistance, and if you want more see her collection of links.
- Arizona’s legislature prepares to attack free speech — basically, in order to protect white people from criticism.
- “Boys’ poorer reading levels in a recent study are feeding a troubling tendency to lower literacy expectations for boys, say Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett. It’s just as destructive as the old myth about girls’ math inferiority.”
- Roman Vishniac: The Photographer’s Lies. Vishniac’s famous photos of Jewish life in Europe before WW2 have had a huge influence on what we imagine that Jewish life to be like. They were also extremely deceptive. Fascinating.
- Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline
- “Downfall” Hitler videos being yanked from Youtube due to copyright claim.
- The Silence of Our Friends is back!
- Rabbi Brant and an Israeli friend debate the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s rare to see this subject debated intelligently and respectfully; I hope this becomes a series.
- This Is Alabama—We Speak English.
- Funny how the Tea Partiers, who are soooo against government intrusion, don’t seem to be objecting to Arizona’s new law.
- NEW DATA: 97% Of Transgender Individuals Report Being Mistreated Or Harassed At Work
- Bullying and the Wall of Silence. How schools claim that bullying never, ever happens here.
- Why do we bother putting so much effort into fighting counterfeit cash?
- Wall Street’s amazing, hard-to-defend, profits
- Rebecca Allen reviews The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin.
- A collection of comics, demonstrating that virtually all comics are funnier if the original punchline is replaced with “Christ, what an asshole.”
There’s a lot of misinformation about the Arizona law. Most amusing is the “it’s a police state!!!” concerns about the requirement for legal residents to carry papers. Legal residents are already required to carry papers; it’s a Federal requirement; it’s 70 years old. The “police state” is older than most Americans, but as a Federal law affecting everyone it raises no hackles. Only when a subset declares that it will apply there at another level of government does the police state become operative, apparently.
As for racism: using my Godlike powers, I just replaced Mexico with a nation choc-full of Scots-Irish white people with NASCAR fetishes. Checking…I STILL want a strong border with effectively zero illegal immigration! Weird.
NYT on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/opinion/29kobach.html
On mistreatment of transgendered people: Is it only 97% who report mistreatment? I’d have expected 100%. Although, in the “reason to hope” department – a few years ago at my 20th high school reunion, one of the guys who came up to talk was shocked to discover that one of our classmates (one not known to me) was transgender and had apparently started living openly as such. (This is Oklahoma City, if you’re wondering.) He started going off on a rant about how “yes, one of our own is a freak” (really).
But instead of laughter or applause (which is what I frankly expected) he got a crickets-chirpingly glacial reception and more than a couple of people muttered things like “and?” or “no skin off your dick”. Which I found heartening, somewhat.
Robert’s right about the misinformation. I’ve read the text of the law and statements like Amanda Marcotte’s:
make it pretty obvious that the people making them have little concern for the truth. Either she’s criticizing the bill without having read it or she’s just flat out lying.
With regards to the concept of having to learn English to get a drivers’ license in Arizona, it’s not like it’s any kind of novel concept. I’ve blogged before about the political circumstances wherein President Obama basically walked into his Illinois Senate seat, but one point in the chain bears reviewing in this context. It all started when a part fell off a truck, a pastor with his wife and 9 kids driving in their van hit that part, and the van caught fire. Six of those kids died in the flames. Now, here’s the critical part. When the State Police stopped that truck and talked to the driver about why he didn’t check his truck and why he didn’t respond to the numerous CB radio notifications from other drivers they knew immediately that he had no right to be driving his truck. Why? How did they know that?
Simple. He didn’t speak English. And for you “anti-illegal alien laws target Hispanics” folks out there, his native language is Polish. But why did that alert the cops that something was fishy? Because you have to speak, read and write English to get a CDL.
That’s been a requirement for a long time. The concept is that you should be able to read street signs, warning signs, traffic signs, the operating documents for your vehicle, etc., etc. and be able to communicate. Now, if that’s non-controversial why should it be controversial to have to know English to drive a car? You still have to be able to read street signs and warning signs and traffic signs and operating documents, etc. to drive a car, and making a mistake in these things puts your passengers and other drivers at risk as well as yourself. What’s the problem?
From Ezra Klein’s essay:
If that’s how you define the premise of the Tea Party movement, you might have a point. But that’s misrepresenting them. Standard rhetorical practice, mind you – setting up a straw man and then knocking it down. But if you do some research on their principles you’ll find something like this:
This is actually from a document called “Contract From America”, that a lot of Tea Party folks support. The Tea Party movement folks want government to operate within it’s Constitutional limits and to not intrude into areas where it has no Constitutionally granted powers. So, for example, the government has no right to outlaw sodomy, as there is no Constitutionally granted power to do so and it is an unwarranted intrusion into individual liberty.
But there is no right for an alien to be resident in the United States, and in the Constitution the Federal Government is granted the power “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,”, which it has done. It is therefore a proper object of government to ensure that the rule is observed and that those who do not observe it are dealt with, and thus this new law fails to exceed the standard of “overreaching” that Ezra sets.
@20: actually, I’ve found that my entire life is funnier, or at least a lot less stressful, if I let loose with “Christ, what an asshole!” on occasion. It seems to be broadly applicable to unfortunately far too many situations.
I’ll bet I’m not the only one here who finds this true. In fact, I’m sure many of you have used it after reading one of my posts!
It’s been a long time since I’ve actually driven, but aren’t street signs supposed to be made so that they can be interpreted by someone with minimal skill in the local language? Should tourists be banned from driving (currently allowed if they have a valid license from their own country) if they can’t speak the local language? What about all the US military personnel driving around Germany without knowing a word of German? Should that be stopped? Actually, given how they drive, it might not be a bad idea. But then who could we play the practical joke of directing them to follow the signs to Umleitung on?
A fair point, I guess. But we all know that Mandolin’s chief concern in selecting a title was to oppose oppression – especially the oppression of the subjective tense. Imagining a counter-factual proposition requires the use of the subjunctive verb. The Cowardly Lion knew that he was not really king of the forest, so he sang “If I … WERE king … of the forest…” not “If I … WAS king … of the forest….”
Because the Tea Party is not (very) Black, Tim Wise invites us to imagine a counter-factual situation, requiring the use of the subjective verb: “Imagine if the Tea Party WERE Black”
(And don’t get me started on John Lennon’s “Imagine.”)
It’s been a long time since I’ve actually driven, but aren’t street signs supposed to be made so that they can be interpreted by someone with minimal skill in the local language?
I presume you mean warning and traffic control signs, not street signs. Sure, some of them are pretty standard. But if you drive around the U.S. there are plenty of signs that have differing messages on them that are the same standard shape or that don’t meet any international standards at all. What Germany does with it’s signs and it’s concerns about how tourists get around are no concern here. The issue is whether it’s a good idea that anyone who drives should know English, and I’d say yes. Apparently for truck drivers at least the government agrees with me.
While there are hazards that a large truck, school bus, etc. present to traffic that a car does not, there are still hazards that a car driven by someone who can’t read signs and other things would present to other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, etc.
nobody.really, I think you have a cross-post here.
Ron: Excellent idea! If tourists can’t drive they’ll stick to cities with good public transportation like NYC and we’ll collect all their money. Eh, nothing to see out in the middle of the country anyway. However…
But if you drive around the U.S. there are plenty of signs that have differing messages on them that are the same standard shape or that don’t meet any international standards at all.
This strikes me as more a problem with the US and its inability to make adequate street signs than a problem with the drivers, whatever language they may speak.
I think that it is broadly true that the same folks who freak the hell out over government power when it comes to things like “seeing to it that all Americans have access to affordable health care” are generally apologists for those in positions of power when it comes to things like police misconduct, military misconduct, and abuse of power by school officials.
I think that this comes from two sources. First, a weird fetish for men in positions of authority, preferably armed. Second, a near-certainty that they won’t be on the receiving end of any of this, being neither, poor, brown, foreign, or children.
—Myca
Posting this here because Amp wants it off his thread (for good reasons):
Sailorman, I’m not sure whether the thread happened here or at feministe. I only remember two incidents here that might fit your description: once, when I suggested I sometimes had sex when I wasn’t in the mood, and Qgrrl said it was unfathomable why my partner (or any partner) would want to have sex under those circumstances. And a long conversation about whether or not it was okay to pressure one’s partner after an initial “no.”
In neither of these cases would the summary “it is pretty much never OK to make sacrifices in a relationship” be even remotely close to fair.
I have not read all threads at feministe ever, so I can’t guarantee that no one ever said that.
But “it is morally problematic for sex to occur when one partner isn’t enthusiastic” IS NOT TRANSLATABLE as “it is never OK to make sacrifices in a relationship.”
You know, after reading a bunch of those threads, I stopped having sex as often when I wasn’t in the mood. From the time I was 18, I’d always consented to sex, because I thought it was part of what I had to do, what I owed a man for putting up with me. If you don’t know, sex when you’re a woman who’s not interested can be painful. I used to have a variety of techniques for concealing that pain. I would measure my breath, I would pay attention to how my face looked, I would avoid looking my partner in the eye.
You think that doesn’t affect a relationship? When your intimate moments are painful? When the hormonal lull that’s supposed to smooth things along is replaced by pain?
It wasn’t rape–though, yeah, I’ve had male partners ignore me when I said “no” repeatedly to some activity, or in some place. They just keep doing it, even while you say no. It’s not like you have anything approximating their strength, so you can’t get them off you. Maybe you’re in public and the reason you’re saying no (rather than acquiescing) is because you don’t want to have sex in public, and if you push him off and scream, you’re going to get more people looking at you than if he just keeps going. Maybe you shut up and he does it, and you know he doesn’t give a fuck what you think or feel, he’s just doing it anyway.
And I still generally say I’ve never been raped or assaulted. What I’ve experienced is very mild. It’s only the normal amount of rape a woman experiences. Because, yeah, usually we experience some. And that’s fucked up, and comments like yours sometimes work to conceal how fucked up it is.
But back to the topic of the comment–Yeah, I make sacrifices. I live in this fucking city I hate. I don’t get to have a teaching job because there are none available where we are. I make daily sacrifices. But I don’t generally have sex when I don’t want to anymore.
Your hasty generalization getting rid of the difference between “it’s morally problematic to have sex when one partner isn’t a happy participant” and “it’s not okay to ever make sacrifices” is mean-spirited, nasty, unfair, and wrong. Please stop.
@10; Myca, is that supposed to be relevant to the new Arizona bill regarding illegal aliens?
There are obvious reasons why we want as near as possible to everyone driving to have gone through the process of getting a license. It’s our best way of certifying that everyone driving has a basic understanding of the rules of the road, has been told “you’re not safe to drive unless you wear glasses,” has demonstrated an ability to park the car without hitting the car parked next to them, and so on.
So why don’t we make the requirements to get a noncommercial drivers license tougher? We could make the driving courses harder; we could do a reflex text and then disqualify everyone who isn’t in the top 60% of scorers. We could not give licenses to people who are blind without their glasses (after all, what if the glasses fall off during a situation requiring a sharp brake?).
There’s a lot we could do to make the people with drivers licenses better drivers, by making the requirements more stringent.
The problem is, the more stringent the requirements become, the more we’re going to have people driving without licenses. So every time someone proposes making the rules for getting a license more stringent, we have to balance “this would make licensed drivers marginally safer drivers” against “this would cause more people to not bother getting the license in the first place, because they don’t think they could pass, but they need to drive to live.”
In order to get a license, you have to pass tests that require you to correctly identify and respond to stop signs, yield signs, speed limit signs, and so on. That’s sufficient. Requiring more English usage than the minimum required to drive safely in ordinary driving situations would, I’d suspect, have only marginal gains in safety, which would be more than wiped out by the loss to safety caused by a significant increase in unlicensed drivers.
There’s also the important loss of taking away people liberty. Our default state should be treating all people equally; if we’re going to start treating some people (non-English speakers, in this case) less than equally, then we should be able to show through compelling evidence that doing so serves an important government function.
In other words: Before we take away people’s liberty to drive, we should have strong evidence — not just anecdotes — that non-English speakers are causing a significant and disproportionate number of accidents, after adjusting for other demographic factors (like age and sex); and that changing the requirements for a license will lead to fewer accidents overall. To do otherwise implies that we don’t think individual liberty has much value.
Not the same thing, but I was reminded of it by this discussion: Why states should allow undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses.
So every time someone proposes making the rules for getting a license more stringent, we have to balance “this would make licensed drivers marginally safer drivers” against “this would cause more people to not bother getting the license in the first place, because they don’t think they could pass, but they need to drive to live.”
I agree with most of what you wrote, but why should the majority of people need to drive to live? Most people live in urban areas where public transportation should be available and as easy as, if not easier than, driving.
Dianne, public transport has not been able to be set up with reasonable economies anywhere that I know of besides in urban cores, and in getting people in and out of them.
Take my example. I live in the Chicago suburbs. Chicago itself is reasonably well served for transit to and from destinations in it’s interior. If you want to get to it from the suburbs there are about 10 or 12 commuter railroad lines that go in and out of it, each with multiple stops with parking in most cases. So if you work in Chicago (as I did for a while) you’ll probably find it reasonably convenient and economic.
But I don’t work in Chicago anymore. I live in one suburb and work in another. The population densities and the distribution of places to work are such that public transport is NOT convenient or economical for a great many people – like me, someone who was glad to use public transport when he worked in Chicago. Even though there are more people who live in the Chicago suburbs now than live in Chicago itself. I don’t really see how either the distribution of the people and jobs or the economics of public transport could be changed.
Mandolin it may not mean much to you, being a stranger, but I am sorry for what happened to you. (can’t think of anything else useful to say)
I suppose there’s a level of English comprehension that enables you to understand traffic control signs without knowing enough English to pass a written and oral licensing test. It seems to me that you’d have a hard time understanding a police officer’s requests or directions at that point, and you’d also have a hard time understanding the scrolling traffic advisory signs that are becoming more and more popular, but we’ll let that go for now.
You raise the question of liberty. Let’s posit that a license exam does not require a particularly high level of English reading and comprehension skills. Someone born in America is going to have learned English well enough to pass a drivers license exam. That leaves immigrants and transients from foreign countries. People going for citizenship are required to learn a level of English that I at least think should be sufficient to pass a license exam. That leaves permanent resident aliens and and transients. Resident aliens are either working or are going to school. Once again you have to figure that they’ve learned enough English to pass a license exam.
So that leaves either transients or people who aren’t supposed to be here in the first place. I think. Perhaps my analysis is incomplete, feel free (as I’m sure you will) to take a whack at it.
I’m not so bothered if a legal transient who doesn’t read and write English enough to pass a license exam can’t get a license, frankly. So that would leave people who aren’t supposed to be here. Now we get to the idea of just how much liberty such people are due. Yes, this is the land of liberty. Yes, we don’t want unskilled drivers on the road. But what liberty are people who aren’t supposed to be here due?
I don’t know what this guy’s motivations are. I suspect the motives of all politicians, candidates, pundits, advocates, etc., etc., but that doesn’t mean that they are proven purely by their actions. So I don’t care about him. But an appeal to liberty is not absolute. People who have abused our liberty can legitimately be restricted from its benefits. If there is a class of people who have not done so and yet haven’t learned enough English to pass a license exam let’s talk about that.
Yeah, Mandolin, I wasn’t quite sure what to say about your last post. Regardless of whether or not you call it rape (I lean towards “rape”), it’s clearly not RIGHT. We go back and forth about legal cases and accusations and discipline codes, and there’s things to talk about there. But people have a right to say “no” and have that taken seriously by other people, no matter what the nature of the relationship is.
Are there always sacrifices in a relationship? Sure. I’ve made them, my wife has made them. Having sex when at least your initial feelings are “meh …” might be one you’re willing to make, but not one you should be expected to. Having sex when your initial feeling is “No” definitely should not have to be.
re: 6
The folks in Phoenix have had it in for Raza Studies for a long, long time. What’s changed in Arizona is that until last year Janet Napolitano was the governor, and she was not shy about using the veto. The big question when she left was how the more moderate Republicans would position themselves now that their “yes” votes on this stuff would make it actual law, as opposed to a campaign talking point. The answer is that the campaign talking point wins.
A counter-example to #20.
Legal residents are already required to carry papers; it’s a Federal requirement.
But citizens aren’t. And if I’m a brown-skinned person who speaks with a strong accent who also is a naturalized citizen, I shouldn’t have to carry my papers to the grocery store on the off chance that an officer thinks I didn’t come to a complete stop.
Yes, I’d be able to get it sorted out eventually, but I shouldn’t have to sort it out. I should be able to take my traffic ticket and go on with my day, just like any other law-abiding citizen.
As for racist, the question isn’t how you feel about a hypothetical nation of bubbas south of the Big River. The question is whether a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian who may or may not have overstayed his work visa is going to be asked to produce his papers when he doesn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
Chingona, you’re not carrying your papers now, yet any law officer could theoretically do the same assume-she’s-illegal routine now. Arizona’s law hasn’t changed anything.
Yes, I’d be able to get it sorted out eventually, but I shouldn’t have to sort it out. I should be able to take my traffic ticket and go on with my day, just like any other law-abiding citizen.
I agree, you should be able to do that.
Unfortunately there is a huge social problem caused by people who happen to look like you. That, unfairly, makes it (however much) less likely that you can get your traffic ticket and go home without further hassle.
Deport every person in this country illegally, and you CAN start having hassle-free traffic stops like everyone else, because there won’t be a pool of criminal residents using their resemblance to legal residents like you to try and pass.
The question is whether a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian who may or may not have overstayed his work visa is going to be asked to produce his papers when he doesn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
He certainly should be. Fucking Canadians, coming down here and taking our jobs.
He certainly should be. Fucking Canadians, coming down here and taking our jobs.
Seriously. The newspaper I worked for in Tucson employed two Canadian reporters. Given the state of the industry, the claim that they couldn’t find a qualified American applicant was getting pretty weak.
And most of the Canadians among us are not going to register one bit on the “reasonable suspicion” scale.
Chingona, you’re not carrying your papers now, yet any law officer could theoretically do the same assume-she’s-illegal routine now. Arizona’s law hasn’t changed anything.
Except that a lot of departments currently have policies against doing this because they see serving as immigration enforcement as detrimental to their primary goal of keeping the community safe. The Arizona law would allow anyone who doesn’t like that to sue the police department.
Unfortunately there is a huge social problem caused by people who happen to look like you. That, unfairly, makes it (however much) less likely that you can get your traffic ticket and go home without further hassle.
Stealing from Jon Stewart, I’ll note that this is the same thing free blacks used to have to do.
Actually, no. That “huge social problem” is generally handled only by ICE agents, not routine traffic stops, because making it impossible for 11 million people to utilize law enforcement to deal with more important crimes than being in the country illegally is an absurdity that police forces everywhere would prefer not to be forced into.
Do you really want people who are being questioned about a crime they may have witnessed to first be asked for proof of residency if they don’t speak English, and then be hauled off to be deported if they can’t produce papers? How many crime investigations will that ruin because the witnesses are now out of the country? How many more will it ruin because anyone who can’t produce papers will fail to report crimes and avoid being identified as a possible witness?
They’ve just changed the text of the law so that they can only ask people about immigration status during a “lawful stop, detention or arrest,” presumably to avoid the problem you’re referring to.
They also changed the text so that it’s no longer legal for cops to stop based on race AND some other factor; now, at least on paper, the cops have to say that the stop was not based on race in any way at all.
To make up for those two improvements, they also changed the law to make it clear that cops will be asking about immigration status while “investigating local ordinances and even civil violations, not just federal and state laws.”
(Anyone naive enough to believe that this law won’t in practice mean ethnic and racial profiling, please remember to send me the $100 reading charge you owe me for every month you’ve been reading “Alas.” You can send it via Paypal to my email address.)
chingona:
You might want to read the bill you’re criticizing before you complain about what it requires or enables the cops to do. Here’s what the law says (and my link above is incorrect, I apologize). First, as Amp noted (and it’s their ALL CAPS, not mine):
Second, to your scenario:
So your scenario in fact would unfold exactly as you said you think that it should – providing that you do, in fact, have a valid drivers’ license. In a process I’m more familiar with than I should be the cops check the status of your vehicle registration and drivers’ license every time they pull you over, even if you’re a middle-aged white guy like me.
Point 4 is interesting. I checked the requirements for an Arizona Drivers’ License. You have to provide at least one document that verifies your legal residency. That document can be a valid drivers license from another state, except for 5 states that (in Arizona’s opinion, anyway) don’t require you to prove legal residence in the U.S. in order to get a drivers’ license from them. Two of those states are Hawaii and Illinois. I thought that rather ironic.
Amp, I challenge your statement that “They’ve just changed the text of the law …”. First, the text of the law wasn’t changed; it would take the passage of another bill to do that. Second, with regards to the bill; I can’t quite nail the dates down, but in looking at the calendars, amendments and agendas in the Arizona House for this bill the changes you’re talking about must have been made between 3/17/10 and 4/13/10, and I’d guess earlier rather than later. This change wasn’t “just made”. It was done weeks ago, well before it got to the governor’s desk.
Ron, I stand by my statement.
From KGUN (a Tuscon station):
Your mistake was searching for SB1070 on that site, when you should have searched for HB2162. As you can see (scroll to the bottom of the page), HB2162 was passed by the Arizona House and Senate just yesterday.
BTW, the text you quote in comment #27 is outdated as of yesterday; the word “solely” was deleted, since leaving it in implied that racial profiling was okay, as long as it was racial profiling plus something else.
Hm. So they DID pass another bill. Got me. Sorry about that.
I was directed to an op-ed in the New York Times written by one of the contributors to the bill. He gives answers to the objections that
1) It’s unfair to ask aliens to carry documentation of their residence/immigration status with them at all times (apparently it’s been Federal law since 1940)
2) Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct (it’s a term that’s been used in legislation for years and has loThe law will allow police to engage in racial profiling.ts of law and decisions made defining it).
3)
A New York Times op-ed written by one of the authors of Arizona SB1070 addresses a number of common objections to the bill. Specifically:
1) It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. “But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them.”
2) “Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. “Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words.”
3) The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. He answers this, but he’s been overtaken by events that have actually (as Amp noted) tightened up the language.
4) It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. “Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt” (and note #1 as well – Fed law requires them to carry something noting their status at all times).
5) State governments aren’t allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. “While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law.”
I’ve condensed his arguments and not linked in his links that he cites in support of his statements. Have a look and see what you think. It appears with regards to #5 that Congress might be able to pass a law that would supercede Arizona’s law – but I don’t think you’ll see such a bill get through the Senate.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you there’s no potential for racist abuse of this law -but then, just about every law on the books has been abused in a racist fashion. I have confidence in the professionalism of the Arizona law enforcement professionals and the Arizona (and Federal) courts in the matter. They know they’ll be under a microscope.
RonF:
This is not true. (There are plenty of resident alien housewives who have permanent residency because they’re married to American citizens, for example.)
Only if you assume that all workplaces absolutely require all employees to speak English, which would not be true even if the previous sentence had been true, which it was not.
Sooo, a vacationer from Japan or Italy or somewhere who has a valid license from their own nation but doesn’t speak English shouldn’t be able to rent a car to drive around the USA?
Apart from that being a pointless government regulation that would deter tourist spending, it would threaten the reciprocal agreements that allow Americans to rent cars and drive around in nations where they don’t speak the local language; if Americans don’t let anyone else do it, why would anyone else continue to let them do it?
(Speaking as a resident alien, I now have no desire to ever go to Arizona.)
RonF,
So your scenario in fact would unfold exactly as you said you think that it should – providing that you do, in fact, have a valid drivers’ license.
Ever forget your wallet at home in your other pants? Do you think you should go to jail for that?
Oh, and here’s a guy who got handcuffed even after he presented his CDL and his social security card, even before this new law passed, and was only let go when his wife showed up with his birth certificate. He’s a natural-born citizen. Good thing his wife knew where his birth certificate was. I’m pretty sure mine is still at my parents’ house on the other side of the country. Guess I better get it next time I visit them.
I’m sure very rare occurrences like this will remain just as rare under this law. Just like the very rare accidental deportation of citizens.
In comments at another blog, someone said that MLB players from other countries don’t have possession of their passports and visas – their teams keep them locked up back in the offices. Anyone know if this is true?
Does the site look really weird/hardly readable to anyone else?
It looks fine when I click on comments, but all messed up if I’m on the main page.
Ever forget your wallet at home in your other pants?
Yep. And when I did I was real damn careful not to speed or turn right on red without stopping.
Do you think you should go to jail for that?
Nope. We’ll have to see how they work that one out. The bottom line is that if you drive without proof you have the privilege of doing so you’re going to have some hassle from the cops.
Oh, and here’s a guy who got handcuffed even after he presented his CDL and his social security card, even before this new law passed, and was only let go when his wife showed up with his birth certificate.
Any explanation from the cops about their side of the story on this?
I’m sure very rare occurrences like this will remain just as rare under this law. Just like the very rare accidental deportation of citizens.
So am I.
In comments at another blog, someone said that MLB players from other countries don’t have possession of their passports and visas – their teams keep them locked up back in the offices. Anyone know if this is true?
Here in Chicago the manager of the Chicago White Sox is an immigrant from Venezuela. He just got naturalized a couple of years ago. They’ve been interviewing him and a couple of the Latino players. Of course they’re spinning out the “They can just grab you up off the street” scenario. But one of the Latino players said he was worried about himself and his wife and kids being grabbed up and not having their passports on them because they leave them at the hotel so they don’t lose them. That implies to me a) he’s ignorant of the law that says that he’s REQUIRED to carry his passport at all times, and b) he’s got possession of his passport.
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……………..So you think that we legally resident aliens should be expected to be really damn careful not to look or sound like legally resident aliens? More to the point, do you realise how racist this concept is?
I never carry my passport around (though I usually have my perm card) and have never been hassled by the police for it, and if I show them my state driver’s license they don’t even tend to ask to see my perm card. Funny, that. Must be something to do with being a beneficiary of racism.
Ampersand: Thanks for the link to The Czech!
Q: Why is this thread so anti-immigrant?
Doesn’t it seem plausible that the activist groups in Arizona who have been following this bill for a long time are aware of the language it contains? Doesn’t the long-time residency of many Arizona activists give them insight into how such a law will be implemented? Do we believe that chican@s, latin@s, Mexican immigrants, and all those who might “look” like “illegals” don’t know what’s best for themselves? That they are in hysterics over nothing, and just need to listen to the calm, cool reasoning of non-affected white citizens?
My personal philosophy is: trust the people most affected. They know what’s best for themselves.
Because Ron has been posting in it, and he has a long history of either not seeing or not caring about racism.
—Myca
I never carry my passport around (though I usually have my perm card) and have never been hassled by the police for it, and if I show them my state driver’s license they don’t even tend to ask to see my perm card. Funny, that. Must be something to do with being a beneficiary of racism
No, you’re the benefit of the fact that in 45 states in the union you have to prove you’re a legal resident of the U.S. in order to qualify for a driver’s license. That’s why according to the new Arizona law if you have and show the cops your drivers’ license they presume you’re a legal resident and you don’t need to show them a passport or resident alien card. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re in violation of Federal law by not carrying your resident alien card. But that’s your worry, not Arizona’s.
Anti-immigrant? At what point have I ever said I’m against immigration into the U.S.? I’m all in favor of immigration into the U.S. I’ve had a fair amount of contact with immigrants; I work and have worked with both resident aliens and naturalized citizens from every inhabited continent on the planet and many of my wife’s relatives are immigrants. When a couple of people I work with became naturalized citizens I organized recognition for them and gave one of them an American flag as a present. I think immigration into the U.S. is a fine thing. The only problem I have is with illegal aliens, and even there that’s regardless of whether they are immigrants or transients. Obey the law is all I ask.
Conflating “immigrant” with “illegal alien” has been a neat rhetorical trick, I must admit. It makes it sound – without any foundation whatsoever – that people who oppose the presence of illegal aliens are against all immigration or immigrants. As a means to pervert the public debate in order to gain one’s ends it’s been fairly effective, but it’s quite dishonest.
As far as racism goes, this law is not racist. It has the potential to be enforced in a racist fashion of course. Name a law that hasn’t been abused in a racist fashion. Every law from speeding to murder has been abused in a racist fashion. We haven’t gotten rid of those laws, we’ve fixed the way they’re been enforced.
No, we haven’t, and the fact that you think we have is a big part of why I was right to say what I did.
—Myca
A PERSON IS PRESUMED TO NOT BE AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES IF THE PERSON PROVIDES TO THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OR AGENCY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. A VALID ARIZONA DRIVER LICENSE.
2. A VALID ARIZONA NONOPERATING IDENTIFICATION LICENSE.
3. A VALID TRIBAL ENROLLMENT CARD OR OTHER FORM OF TRIBAL IDENTIFICATION.
4. IF THE ENTITY REQUIRES PROOF OF LEGAL PRESENCE IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE ISSUANCE, ANY VALID UNITED STATES FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ISSUED IDENTIFICATION.
Huh. I don’t drive. I’ve never bothered with the non-operating ID. I’m not a member of any tribe, DNA evidence or no. So, I guess I am required to carry my passport if I ever go to Arizona again. Though it might puzzle the AZ police as to where they should deport me to if I were caught.
Flippant comments aside, though, have you considered the effects on Latino/a citizens? Suppose you’re an Latino/a Nth generation US citizen. Normally you probably wouldn’t worry about doing something like walking to the store or going for a jog without any ID on you. But if the police are out looking for “illegal aliens”-well, how are you going to prove you’re a citizen if you don’t have ID on you? You might find yourself arrested or “deported” to a country in which you had no background, contacts, or knowledge of the local language simply for looking like you might be a non-citizen.
I enjoy the spirited exchange of ideas between the thoughtful people on this blog — even if the spirited part sometimes obscures the ideas part.
I understand RonF to raise the point that a wide variety of laws – laws that many of us find entirely reasonable – can produce bad outcomes, whether by accident or design. A philosophy that rejects any law that MIGHT produce a bad outcome is basically a philosophy of lawlessness.
I understand Myca (among others) to allege that the Arizona law is designed to facilitate bad outcomes. Moreover, I understand some people’s interpretation of the law to be influenced in part by the political atmosphere in which the law was adopted. Thus, some people may regard the focus on the law’s text, to the exclusion of the law’s context, to miss the larger point.
I’m reminded of the case of Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 269 (1967). The California legislature passed fair housing laws designed to limit a property owner’s power to discriminate on the basis of race in selling or renting houses. Thereafter a populist initiative amended the California constitution to reestablish “common law property rights” – including the property owner’s right to discriminate on pretty much any basis she chose.
The Supreme Court struck down the California amendment. Even though on its face the law merely re-established common law property rights, the Court found that “the intent of [the initiative] was to authorize private racial discrimination in the housing market.” It was this impermissible intent, not the law’s text, that violated the 14th Amendment.
Did you mean RonF? For all my disagreements with Sailorman, he has never displayed the kind of knee-jerk disregard for racism that Ron does.
—Myca
Whoops. Thanks, Myca; that’s correct, and I’ve just changed my post #45.
And if you’re talking about RonF, part of my problem here is with his assumption that the laws we have now are applied fairly. Once you’ve adopted that stunted worldview, of course you think this law will be acceptable, because of course we can just ‘fix’ it, like we did those laws about speeding (Yep! Certainly nobody gets stopped for driving while black anymore!) and murder (Yep! Blacks are arrested, convicted, and sentenced in pretty much the same proportions as white people!).
It’s a worldview that could only come from not having to ever fear the police because of your race. As Ta-Nehisi Coates said recently,
This is what I was talking about back in comment #10, and it’s why Ron responded the way he did in comment #12, because, “Hyuck! Hyuck! What possible connection could an opposition to government power have to an expansion of police power? They’re totally disconnected!”
When you’re white, and middle-to-upper-class, when someone says “government power” you hear “higher taxes,” or maybe “business regulation.” If someone uses “government power” to mean something else, you can safely stop listening, because, not to worry, it doesn’t apply to you.
—Myca
And, actually, this also deeply influences how they use the term ‘liberty’. Liberty means ‘liberty from government action’ exclusively only to people who have only ever had to fear that sort of infringement.
If you’ve never had to worry about having your liberty to eat where you like, go to school where you like, etc., infringed, then it doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to you. This is why there are so many conservatives opposed to say, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, since they can easily envision the government forcing them to do something with their business they’d rather not do, and cannot really envision experiencing the kind of systematic exclusion from full participation in society that black people were experiencing at the time.
—Myca
Without disrespect for the specific personalities involved in this discussion, I’m more interested in the policy debate.
You clearly don’t believe that laws against speeding and murder have been adequately “fixed.” I won’t dispute this conclusion.
But then what? Do you therefore conclude that there should be no laws against speeding and murder?
Or do you acknowledge that some public policies are sufficiently valued that we are justified in establishing laws about them – notwithstanding the fact that the only means we have for enforcing those laws are imperfect human beings? “Nobody [applies the law] exactly right; great judges do it better than the rest of us. It is necessary that someone shall so it, if we are to realize the hope that we can collectively rule ourselves.” (Learned Hand, In commemoration of fifty years of federal judicial service, 264 F.2d xxxvii (2d Cir. 1959).)
To my mind, the relevant policy arguments focus on the costs and benefits of illegal immigration, relative to the cost and benefits of policies designed to alter illegal immigration.
To be sure, there is no shortage of libertarian literature about the evils of permitting the state to wield force. One libertarian answer to the problem of immigration is to open the borders to all comers, but also to withdraw the duty of citizens to finance goods and services for people who just happen to come within our borders, thereby eliminating any financial (“legitimate”) interest a citizen might have to control migration. I find a modicum of internal consistency to this philosophy, whatever its other shortcomings.
Myca, your point is well taken. Rather than “fixed” it would have been better choice to say “gone to great effort to remove racism from”. There are certainly still instances of people being stopped for “driving while black”, etc. as you rightfully cite. I need read no further than either the Chicago Tribune or this blog to find evidence of that.
But my broader point stands – we have laws against murder and other offenses. They have been at times applied in a racist fashion. We have not thrown out the laws, as there is general agreement that the situations they cover are things that we as a society find desirable to eliminate. Instead, we have tried to remove the racism in the way they are enforced and adjudicated. One of those situations is controlling who enters the United States. On that basis the Federal government has passed laws to control immigration into the United States and to punish and remove people who violate them. Despite the objections of some those laws remain on the books. The people of the State of Arizona have a right to expect the Federal government to take those laws seriously and enforce them – but it has not. So they have exercised their sovereignty within their own borders to pass laws that punish and turn over to the Federal government those people who are present illegally.
The concept that these laws have the potential to be abused and be applied in a racist fashion deserves to be taken seriously. I support keeping a very close eye on just how they are enforced. But I do not accept that the laws as written are inherently racist. The U.S. has a right to control its borders. Arizona has a right to make it illegal to violate the law and to deal with people who have violated the law.
The people who passed and approve of these laws deny any racist intent, but they face accusations of racism that call into question their motives and their honesty. So I think it’s fair to do the same to these laws’ opponents. I personally am not so sure that many of the people who decry these laws are primarily worried about racism. I think that they actually want open borders and the elimination of much if not all of immigration law, and are using accusations of racism to defeat the intent of these laws and the will of the majority of the people, and to aid lawbreakers. The “Revolucion Sin Fronteras” crowd was represented at the May Day marches, yet I don’t hear the people asking the Tea Party movement folks to disavow the racists circling around the edges suggesting that the organizations backing the May Day anti-Arizona demonstrations to do the same.
I can’t edit the above, so I’d add in the second paragraph that the U.S. and Arizona consider that they have the right and the need to control the people who cross their borders and to deal with those who do so illegally. You may not think so, but they do and this is still a democracy.
nobody.really:
True. That was my intent.
But what I find is that often when I question whether or not racism is a factor in a given situation there is a knee-jerk reaction that I mean to disparage the concept of racism entirely.
Is that why you didn’t answer my question in #12? So you could set up a straw man about it later?
That kind of summarizes both sides of the argument.
Dianne:
That would be a worry if the police were, in fact, “out looking for illegal aliens”. But that’s not what the law gives the cops license to do. Now, if you commit some offense while walking the dog or going for a jog then you’ve got some cause for concern – but then if you commit some offense you’ve got some cause for concern anyway. And the law says that your race or skin color alone is not cause for the cops to determine your immigration status, so I have to wonder what the cop will say when challenged by you, your lawyer, or his or her superiors on just why you were stopped.
No law is perfect. No law is going to be perfect, as has been cited upthread. Only God can grant justice – laws are our human approximation. I expect that the kind of situation you describe will be vanishingly small. Little comfort to the individual caught up in it, I should say. But again, innocent people are caught up in the law every day. We should do our very best to eliminate such, but again as cited there’s a balance between eliminating imperfection and eliminating violations of the law.
Dianne, I must ask; how you get through life with no ID? I have to show ID when I write a check and I’m often asked when I use a debit or credit card. I seem to get asked for my license a lot. In fact, I’m quite certain that literally 99% of the time that I’ve been asked for ID it’s been a private party and not a cop who has asked for it.
It’s not that I think you mean to disparage the concept of racism, it’s that I think that you are incapable of recognizing racism. You have a track record here that does nothing but confirm that.
It’s pretty easy if you don’t write checks. I know of one place in the city that asks for ID when I use a credit card. Other than that one store, I can’t remember the last time I needed to show ID when not traveling by air.
So the short answer is: don’t write checks and don’t travel by air.
That would be a worry if the police were, in fact, “out looking for illegal aliens”. But that’s not what the law gives the cops license to do. Now, if you commit some offense while walking the dog or going for a jog then you’ve got some cause for concern – but then if you commit some offense you’ve got some cause for concern anyway. And the law says that your race or skin color alone is not cause for the cops to determine your immigration status, so I have to wonder what the cop will say when challenged by you, your lawyer, or his or her superiors on just why you were stopped.
And if you believe that, please send me your bank account number so I can deposit $100,000 in it. I need a way to get it to the US from Nigeria, you see.
How can you prove that the cops didn’t have “probable cause” to stop you? If you say, “I was just out walking my dog when the cops showed up and asked for ID” and the cops say, “He was yelling at us and throwing rocks” who is the jury going to believe? And are you even going to get the chance to talk to a lawyer or anyone else or are they going to put you straight into detention and kick you out of your own country at the first possible moment. It’s happened before. To US citizens whose families have been in the US for generations.
Dianne, I must ask; how you get through life with no ID? I have to show ID when I write a check and I’m often asked when I use a debit or credit card.
People simply don’t ask me for my ID. Technically my work ID is a state issued ID so I could drag it out if anyone did ask, but really I can’t remember the last time someone asked for my ID outside of an airport. I don’t even get asked when I’m in a foreign country where I’m obviously foreign. Apparently I register as “completely harmless” to 99% of people. I have no good explanation for this.
RonF:
Yes, some of your best friends are resident aliens, we have heard this one before, please stop trying it, please stop with the implication that naturalisation is the end goal of emigration because that’s really insulting from my POV as a resident alien who has no real interest in citizenship for any reason other than legal safety.
I got fast-tracked for getting my perm card and I have absolutely no reason to believe it happened other than because I am white and I come from an English-speaking nation that itself has strong documentation systems.
I conflate ‘immigrant’ with ‘illegal alien’ because I am sick of hearing people like you congratulate me on my ability to use the privileges I was born with to jump through meaningless hoops. I have no more inherent right to be here than any undocumented immigrant who shares my circumstances but who didn’t have the money or the whiteness to navigate immigration.
I would also like to refer you to Amp’s previously stated policy of encouraging Alasers to say ‘undocumented immigrant’ rather than ‘illegal alien’. Speaking as a documented immigrant I think it is a far more accurate term.
I have to second Thene at #58.
When I say “immigrant” in this conversation, I am referring to someone born outside the US who now resides inside it. Because our immigration laws are so grossly inhumane and intended mostly to keep America as white and affluent as possible, I see no reason to discern between legal and illegal immigrants… it is often simply a matter of luck or birth that determines which you might be. The desire to discern between the two seems to me to be mostly a diversion tactic to avoid conversations about race.
RonF said: “Obey the law is all I ask.”
And when the law is unjust?
We’re back at the stealing-a-loaf-of-bread quandary. Do you believe in stealing? But wouldn’t you steal a loaf of bread if your family was starving and you had no money?
Replace “stealing” with “immigrating illegally”.
Are people still discussing the new Arizona law?
Does it matter who they believe? I’m not aware of any Arizona law against yelling and throwing rocks. Are you suggesting that the new Arizona law regulates these activities?
Or perhaps you’re referring to yelling threats, or throwing rocks at people or private property? I suspect Arizona has long had criminal laws against assault, battery and property damage. Thus if the police wanted to falsely accuse someone of engaging in these practices, it’s unclear how the new law alters their ability to do so.
Indeed this did happen before – perhaps most notoriously during the Great Depression. Under the stress of a catastrophically bad economy, people look for scapegoats. In the US, we selected people of Hispanic origin, and we deported them in droves – even though many were US citizens.
(Not the US’s proudest moment. Then again, consider the context. When the Germans were confronted with the Great Depression they chose a different ethnic group to scapegoat, and chose a different means for disposing of this group. In other words, we coulda done worse.)
But I can’t help noticing that all of this bad stuff happened prior to the adoption of this new Arizona law. So if your point is that police (among others) have the power to lie, cheat, and fabricate excuses to harass people, you’re right. But how does the new Arizona law alter that fact?
The premise of many of these remarks seems to be that racist Arizona cops have been itching to oppress Hispanic people. They’ve been dying to pull over Hispanic drivers and make them produce IDs, and to bring them into custody for trumped-up charges. But golly, existing laws just don’t provide them with a means to do so. This NEW law, unlike all the prior laws, will finally give them the harassment opportunity they’ve been looking for!
I don’t find this premise very compelling. I’m not disputing the existence of racism among police officers. But I have to suspect that current laws already provide police officers with ample opportunity to harass people if that’s what police officers are motivated to do. It’s unclear to me how the new law changes that.
Indeed, this echoes what RonF stated at #51: “I think that they [certain opponents of the Arizona law] actually want open borders and the elimination of much if not all of immigration law, and are using accusations of racism to defeat the intent of these laws and the will of the majority of the people, and to aid lawbreakers.”
This comment finally addresses the unrecognized (or perhaps underrecognized) elephant in the room: Before we pass judgment on the merits of a law regulating immigration, what theory guides our views on immigration?
I share that view that, for most of us, our immigration/citizenship status reflects an arbitrary historical accident: we tend to be citizens of the nation into which we were born. I have difficulty finding any justice in the arrangement. The same can be said of the distribution of property and talents. But, for better or worse, I conclude that the powers that be have structured society to promote stability and predictability (among other things). So if you’re in, you’re in; if not, then not.
Yes, the US immigration laws produce some inhumane consequences. Yes, I believe they tend to promote greater affluence among certain classes. I’m less confident that current laws are designed to keep the US as white as possible. Past US immigration policies were much more explicit about achieving that objective, setting quotas by nation, with the largest quotes given to the North European nations. I understand the US abandoned this quota system in the 1960s/70s.
And yes, I suspect many people would be sympathetic with the plight of a starving person who steals bread. A few people take this argument to its logical conclusion and advocate abandoning private property rights. But most don’t. I suspect most people feel the sympathy, but want their private property rights defended anyway. Greedy? Perhaps so, but there it is.
Here’s my quick-and-dirty understanding of immigration policy: Immigrants tend to come to the US for jobs, not for social services. They tend to produce a net positive effect on the US economy. But they produce a lopsided effect, benefiting those who receive their services while harming those who compete with them for employment. In short, immigration tends to make rich Americans richer and poor Americans poorer. And while Americans are somewhat reconciled to the idea of living among the rich, they’re not reconciled to living among the poor.
See, Americans want to live in Disneyland. We want the people we encounter to be happy, healthy, and roughly of our own socioeconomic status. When we encounter people less well off than ourselves we want to magnanimously extend compassion to them – provided we can be confident that we won’t encounter too many of these people. Our desire to live in an egalitarian-yet-affluent society drives us to build walls to keep out the rabble.
I don’t doubt that racism plays some role in current immigration policy. And today we have to worry about terrorism. Civil libertarians express concern about national ID cards, which arguably could serve as a kind of substitute for maintaining borders. And let’s not forget the competing-for-our-jobs issue, too, which is especially prominent today. But I suspect that these forces are subordinate to the larger dynamic described above. It is our discomfort with encountering poor people that prompts us to control immigration as much as we do.
Do not use the genocide of my family as your excuse for bad behavior. Jesus fucking Christ.
I’m not aware of any Arizona law against yelling and throwing rocks.
What about “disorderly conduct”? Perhaps there is a rigorous definition of disorderly conduct, but as far as I can tell, it gets used to mean “acting in a way the police don’t approve of”.
Not the US’s proudest moment. Then again, consider the context. When the Germans were confronted with the Great Depression they chose a different ethnic group to scapegoat, and chose a different means for disposing of this group.
The US was never in as bad shape economically as Germany was in the Great Depression. So if the US’s relatively mild problems excuse its behavior (not just with Latino/as but also with people of Japanese descent and with other immigrants and refugees-remember the voyage of the damned?) do the deeper problems in Germany excuse the Holocaust? I certainly hope no one is arguing that.
I take a different lesson from the history: The last time the US really got into anti-immigrant crap was during tough economic times: the Great Depression. People are calling the current economic crisis the great recession. So shouldn’t we be being particularly cautious about not repeating past crimes against humanity (and in particular our own citizens) during times that we know are likely to tempt people into taking the easy way out and attacking the vulnerable?
Indeed this did happen before – perhaps most notoriously during the Great Depression. Under the stress of a catastrophically bad economy, people look for scapegoats. In the US, we selected people of Hispanic origin, and we deported them in droves – even though many were US citizens.
My grandmother was nearly one of them. Her family also came close to losing their property because of their ethnic origin. I’d like to think that my daughter won’t ever run that risk, but it’s always in the background, isn’t it?
Dianne @63 — Really good point.
Nobody Really wrote:
The new law changes that in a couple of ways.
1) The new law mandates that all cops have to check immigration status if they suspect someone may be an undocumented immigrant. So cops that previously would have been inclined to concentrate on other activities will now be focusing more on immigration status.
2) The new law give citizens the right to sue police departments if they believe that police department policies aren’t doing enough to address undocumented immigration. This gives the command structure a very strong motivation to pressure all cops to focus on immigration status. I wouldn’t be surprised if some departments institute unwritten quotas as a pre-emptive defense, since counties will want to be able to show in court that they’re arresting at least as many undocumented immigrants as other counties.
3) As I understand it — and this is the newest provision added to the law, so my understanding of it may change with time as legal experts have more time to weigh in on it — the new law makes it allowable for cops to check immigration status of people who have broken local zoning rules and other such minor stuff. If a tree on your law has untrimmed branches reaching out over the sidewalk, or if the cop can spot something that isn’t up to code, or if in the cop’s opinion a stereo or TV is being played too loudly — then the cop can come on to your property, to your home, and demand proof of immigration status.
On the whole, this law gives cops significantly increased incentives to harass people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants, which in practice will mean harassing brown-skinned people. It gives cops more opportunity to do so, as well, and undermines the ability of people — and in particular Latin@ people — to be secure in their homes. It increases the penalties for those people who are arrested for being undocumented immigrants.
It’s true that this law only magnifies already-existing problems, rather than creating all-new problems that never existed before. But it could magnify those problems a hell of a lot. That’s more than enough reason to oppose the law.
please stop with the implication that naturalisation is the end goal of emigration because that’s really insulting from my POV as a resident alien who has no real interest in citizenship for any reason other than legal safety.
Naturalization is the end goal of immigration from the nation’s POV. It may not be your end goal in being here, but in that case, our collective interest in having you here is somewhat attenuated. There are many individuals for whom the end purpose of immigration is cheap(er) labor, but making it easier for landscapers to get rich isn’t the purpose of our pro-immigration policies. We’re building a nation.
There is a strong progressive argument for control of the borders, which puzzles me because I rarely see it made. Reality tells us that we are not going to have open borders; the libertarians would have to win for that to become politically possible. Open borders and a cold heartless libertarian state, sure; open borders and a generous progressive social welfare state, forget it. There’s a reason that all those European social paradises *don’t have open borders*. So there’s going to be some limitation on immigration, whether set culturally, politically or economically. (Presumably if there were no jobs there would be many fewer immigrants.)
Now we get into geography. It’s easy for someone in Mexico or Canada to cross into the US illegally. It’s very very difficult for someone in China or Namibia to do the same. Walking is a lot cheaper than flying. As a result, we are relatively swamped with Mexican immigrants, relatively light on the Namibians. Namibians, more or less, cannot immigrate here illegally. There is little or no physical conduit for them do it. So they don’t.
But the Namibians are no less deserving than the Mexicans, no less hard working, no less part of the multicultural fabric of humanity. They just don’t have access to the tools of the “crime” of illegal migration.
How does this boil down? We’re only going to admit so many people; if we get more illegal people, we reduce the political support for legal people. A country that wants 6 million immigrants a year and gets 5.5 million Mexicans regardless, will only allow in another 500k from other places. If illegal immigration stopped tomorrow, the demographic demand for that labor would translate into increased legal quotas; since the illegal immigration comes regardless, it translates into decreased demand.
Right now people who live or have access to Mexico are the “privileged class” among those coming to the United States. This is horribly, horribly unfair to the billions elsewhere who also deserve a chance. The only way to fairly give out those chances is to control the process, control the border, and allow entry to the people that we want, in a fair and equitable way.
What does this mean, in practice? Is there any effective mechanism written in the law for doing anything at all to fix things if this law is abused? No, there isn’t.
Is anything effective being done to combat the already-existing racist abuses going on in Arizona? No, there isn’t.
Until conservatives start objecting in a meaningful fashion to current racist abuses, promises to “keep an eye on” future racist abuses are worthless.
There is no contradiction here. The law’s opponents may both genuinely believe that racism is a major motivating force behind Arizona’s law, and simultaneously believe in open borders. However, I think most liberals want what they claim to want, which is not open borders, but more legal immigration and guest workers than we currently allow, combined with a more available path to citizenship.
Speaking for myself, I’m further to the left on this issue than liberals are. I favor nearly open borders; an appropriately regulated market will do a better job creating an optimum level of immigration than federal or state governments are likely to do. The evidence from economic studies shows that immigration is a significant benefit to the US economy as a whole, and on the whole creates more employment for Americans by growing our economy. It’s true that a small minority of the least skilled Americans without high school degrees suffer a small drop in employment due to immigration; however, there are more effective ways of helping those Americans than harsh immigration laws.
However, I think most liberals want what they claim to want, which is not open borders, but more legal immigration and guest workers than we currently allow, combined with a more available path to citizenship.
The irony is that liberals could have what they want, since conservatives are generally pro-legal immigration. But it is politically impossible to increase legal immigration and make the process easier when the system is so broken in terms of controlling the border.
What makes people think that liberals (politicians more than citizens) are dishonest here is that they want the easy immigration and easy citizenship and they also want the borders left open. They’ll pretend to agree with my first paragraph (“oh yeah, let’s get that border under control!”) but they have no interest in shutting down the current illegal stream. They want that illegal stream PLUS more legal immigration. No.
Having read quickly through this thread, it occurs to me to ask why no law that I know of has ever been able to stop illegal migration such that it satisfies those people who most prominently support laws such as the one Arizona just passed–and I want, for the purpose of what I am about to say, to give them the benefit of the doubt that not only their intent in supporting the law is not racist, but that those with the power to do so will be vigilant in trying to make sure that the result(s) of the law are not racist either. Really all such laws tend to do, as far as I can tell, is move the problem somewhere else, the way the fence that was built during the Clinton administration in southern California pushed the people trying to get to the US illegally from Mexico over towards the border with Arizona. When you pass a law that addresses a symptom and not a cause, especially when the law is as localized as the one in Arizona, the symptom will just find somewhere else to manifest itself.
The fact is that illegal migration is an international problem, one that has at its roots, among other things, an economic dynamic that is also worldwide, and while it might be true that,as Robert says, it is relatively difficult for, say, Namibians to get into the United States illegally, that does not mean that world economy, in which the US participates, is not at work in the dynamic that pushes/pulls Namibians (whom I am using just because Robert used them in his example; I don’t know if, in fact, what I am about to say is true about them in particular) to migrate illegally to whichever country/countries they migrate illegally to. In other words, we have a stake in the illegal migration that takes place elsewhere, just as other countries (not to mention our own business community) have a stake in the illegal migration that takes place here.
In the absence of laws or policies addressing that dynamic, laws such as the one just passed in Arizona, will remain local, a “not in my backyard” sort of thing, and it is that localization, the privilege that is inherent in someone’s being able to say “not in my backyard” while ignoring the larger scope of the problem that makes their wanting to fence off their backyard in the first place, that is at the root, I think, of the institutional racism that I understand some people to be pointing to in the very conception of the law, not merely in how the law will or will not be enforced. And it is also part of why, without denying that racism is and will be a problem in Arizona, I think that talking about racism–or, rather, focusing on racism, since I don’t think racism is ever not an issue in the larger scope of things when it comes to questions of immigration, can actually end up distracting us from the larger issues that are at stake when talking about laws like this. Were a similar law passed in England where, as I heard the other day on NPR, there are people up in arms over a wave of Polish immigrants who have entered the country illegally–and I am assuming/imagining, for the sake of this example, a situation in which Poles in England would be roughly equivalent to Latinos in Arizona–it would be difficult to call the law racist in the way that people are calling the law racist here, and yet I imagine the debate over and the dynamic surrounding such a law would be, allowing for differences in our two legal systems, etc., quite similar.
I don’t think anyone would deny that nations have the right and, frankly, the obligation to control their borders; but to treat the problem of illegal immigration as if it were merely a matter of personal choice–which is what the Arizona law does–as if there are not larger forces at work, forces in which the US and its citizens have a stake (and I am talking about us only because I am part of that us; the same could be said of any nation where illegal migration is a problem), forces that circumscribe–economically, politically and otherwise–the lives of most of those who choose to migrate illegally in ways that I cannot imagine my own life being circumscribed, is to indulge a privilege that, while it might not be racist in and of itself, has an awful lot in common with the racism that people have been talking about in this thread.
Robert, the entire Republican strategy in the Senate is to filibuster and vote no on almost everything of consequence — even if what’s proposed is practically a republican policy, the way that HCR was a slightly modified Republican proposal from 1993. Not a single Republican has said they’d be willing to support comprehensive immigration reform combined with border enforcement — not even if the law included mandated border goals that had to be met before the immigration reform parts of the law could start to kick in.
Furthermore, Republicans now are understandably very worried that even a slight step away from the mindless party line will lead to them being primaried. Look at Bennett, who is in major trouble now for cowriting Wyden/Bennett, a health reform bill that health policy wonks on the right and the left agreed would have been a major step forward and was a genuine compromise. (Bennett is also in trouble for being only somewhat anti-gay, rather than 100% anti-gay as it seems conservative activists would prefer.)
Even on financial regulation — a much, much, much more popular policy than immigration reform — it’s questionable whether or not any Republicans will vote for the final law. There is no chance that immigration reform gets Republican votes.
In short, your analysis seems to show that you’re completely ignorant of the political realities in DC today.
Okay, that’s really insulting, you have presented no evidence to support this assertion other than some vague rhetoric, and it doesn’t make a blind bit of sense (because the USA allows for permanent residency without ever acquiring citizenship, as do many other nations). It’s also in denial of the lived experiences of immigrants as people who have a nation of citizenship and a different nation of residence and end goals of our own.
You are making this way too easy: they do. The EU does have a policy of open borders within its own confines; border controls within the European mainland are frequently unmanned. It’s legal for people from poorer Eastern European countries to go live and work in Western Europe without having to go through any immigration process; this creates as many social kerfluffles as any other kind of migration pattern but without any legal discrimination behind it.
(I am going to take a moment to LOL at all libertarians who express deep scepticism of the bureaucratic mechanisms of the IRS, the Department of Education, etc etc, but who think USCIS is magical and holy. LOL)
Amp – I was talking about conservatives and liberals, not republicans and democrats.
@Thene:
Okay, that’s really insulting and it doesn’t make a blind bit of sense (because the USA allows for permanent residency without acquiring citizenship). It’s also in denial of the lived experiences of immigrants as people who have a nation of citizenship and a different nation of residence and end goals of our own.
I have no objection to your end goals. Follow them all you like. My obligation to support you with blood or treasure is nil. You aren’t my fellow citizen.
Yes, the USA allows permanent residency without citizenship. Universities allow community members to sit in on classes, too. That’s not the reason for the university, though.
I am not “in denial” of your lived experience. I simply don’t think it’s what defines how MY country runs.
You are making this way too easy: they do. The EU does have a policy of open borders within its own confines; border controls within the European mainland are frequently unmanned.
We have the same policy of open borders within our own confines. That is not what is meant by “open borders”. If 100,000 Namibians show up unauthorized at Heathrow, they aren’t ushered in and given the keys to their new flat; they’re put back on the plane. The Eurostates do not permit OUTSIDERS not part of their collective polity to just come waltzing in freely en masse; there are controls, limits, passports, etc.
Following on from my last comment – I don’t know what you heard, Richard, but it’s legal for Polish citizens to live and work in the UK. There is an anti-immigrant sentiment that protests that the UK is swamped by Polish people, but they’re legal migrants, not illegal ones, and policy has to be shaped accordingly.
You talked about ‘social paradises’ earlier so please stop pretending that you were referring to the EU as if it were a homogeneous whole; it isn’t, and Eastern European nations tend not to be up on the social paradise stakes. Besides, an unmanned border post is an unmanned border post. Anyone can walk past it, and I’m sure they do; I’ve done so myself on several occasions and I haven’t even spent that much time in mainland Europe.
This is, once again, vague rhetoric with no actual evidence or fact behind it.
Thanks, Thene. Perhaps I misremembered what I heard.
Oh nonsense. Sure, people did bad things back then, but those people weren’t like us. See, they were closer to the Cro-Magnons than we are. We’re moderns. We’ve been raised with strong mothers, nurturing fathers, public television, Vatican II, and a high proportion of fruits and vegetables in our diets. Ok, maybe in the past every generation, when subject to stress, has succumbed to the lure of demagogues to scapegoat minority groups. But that’s why they call it the past — to distinguish it from us!
And that would be the other point of view. And all it has in its favor is a lot of history, plus current evidence in the form of the recent rise of Fox News and the TEA Party Movement. But why trust that?
Caution is the appropriate response for things that can be avoided. I’m not cautious about this; I’m resigned. As far as I can tell, a downturn in the economy inevitably leads to a rise in demagoguery, xenophobia, nativism, protectionism and the hunt for scapegoats. Skillful leaders can steer public frustration toward relatively harmless targets (Let’s invade Granada!) but no leader can stem the tide completely. And the worse the downturn, the stronger the backlash.
Think about it: Illegal immigration is not a new problem. Indeed, I think the number of undocumented aliens in the US is declining, due in no small part to the loss of housing-related jobs. So what’s new that would prompt Arizona to pass an immigration law now? Some theories: 1) A new governor that’s willing to sign the bill. 2) Tougher border controls in California and Texas that are squeezing a higher percentage of immigrants through Arizona. 3) A tanking economy that is filling people with frustration, looking for an outlet – and what better outlet than a foreigner that is breaking our laws and stealing our jobs? I suspect all three factors play a role. But I suspect that immigrants themselves play only a tangential role in the motive for the new bill. Arizonans want to lash out at SOMEONE – and Granada is just too far away.
I sense my blunt fatalism shocks some people. (Apologies to Mandolin.) Niebuhr found that he turned people off when he’d express the view that mankind was inevitably prone to certain foibles, “original sin” if you will. Perhaps it’s time I reconsider this point of view, or at least the way I express it.
In short, I don’t regard the Arizona law as the cause of any particular mischief; I regard it as a symptom. Keep it? Repeal it? I doubt it would make any difference; immigrants are in for a tough time either way.
While acknowledging that police officers that are prone to hassle immigrants already have opportunity to give vent to this predilection, Amp identifies aspects of the Arizona law that suggest the potential for increased burden to immigrants. I’m skeptical.
Yup, the law mandates that cops check immigration status if they suspect someone is an undocumented immigrant, although I understand the police officer has to identify some other alleged violation first. And yup, it gives citizens the right to sue cops that don’t follow this law. What would this mean in practice?
I suspect most professional police officers will look on this law as the latest “flavor of the month” in law enforcement trends. They’ll ask themselves “What part of my current job should he STOP doing in order to free up time and resources to do this new stuff? Should I stop taking reports on burglaries? Rapes? Aggravated assaults? Stop filing paperwork? Stop attending staff meetings?” And they will presumably conclude: no. This is just another flavor of the month. It will come; it will go.
Recall that, unlike taking police reports on burglaries, the cop exercises almost complete control over how much extra work he has to do to enforce this new law. Do you suspect that guy of being an undocumented alien or not? If you say yes, then you have more work to do. If you say no, then you don’t. Basically, the law turns every police officer into a part-time bounty-hunter, but without any additional pay. How productive do you think an unpaid bounty hunter is?
When you’re given the choice to subject yourself to more work or not, without any additional pay, what do you do? In my house we have a rule that if you discover the dog pooped on the floor, you’re supposed to clean it up. And as you might suspect, my kids are now experts at not seeing dog poop on the floor. Why would we expect cops to behave differently?
But won’t the cops fear being sued? Sued for what, exactly? How is a citizen going to prove that a cop actually entertained a subjective suspicion about whether a given person was an undocumented alien? Imagine the case in court: “My name is Officer Moranis. I’ve had 10 years walking a beat. Sure, as a rookie cop, I thought I saw a crime around every corner. Years of seasoning have taught me that a lot of things that might on their face look out-of-place – especially things involving people from another culture – are not really grounds for suspicion. This guy who brought the suit against me – he’s behaving like a rookie cop. And ok, he got lucky; he guessed someone was an undocumented alien because the guy [had an accent or whatever], and he guessed right. But here’s a study showing that X% of Arizonans [have an accent or whatever]. If we cops stopped to query every person who [has an accent or whatever], then we’d need to raise taxes by $XXXXX to add enough cops to do all the extra work. That, or we’d have to stop enforcing laws against property crimes.” Juries almost always side with cops as it is. You think this time will be different?
Admittedly, the law could result in some changes. First, I could imagine a cop walking a beat and passing Hispanic-looking individuals while in public, and feeling the need to query the Hispanic-looking people in order to demonstrate compliance for the benefit of the crowd. The primary result of this dynamic would likely be to discourage police officers from appearing in public. After all, if no one sees you encountering a Hispanic person, no one can accuse you of not complying with the law. Thus, cops would stop walking beats; they’d spend their patrol time driving around relatively quickly with windows rolled up.
Second, I could imagine a racist cop that had been reprimanded for racist behavior. That cop wants to hassle immigrants, but has reined himself in to avoid further conflict with his boss. The new law may give the cop license against his boss to resume his racist behavior.
Third, I could imagine police officers seeking public notoriety – bucking for a promotion, or planning a political campaign – going out and making a populist display of their efforts to rid the streets of those vicious undocumented aliens.
It could happen, I guess. And permitting people to carry concealed weapons could result in a surge of shoot-outs. I’m just skeptical that the new law will actually make much of a difference to this outcome.
please stop with the implication that naturalisation is the end goal of emigration
Relating the case of someone I know who has become naturalized is not an implication that naturalization is the end goal of emigration. My point is that I have welcomed and will continue to welcome people who come here legally, regardless of whether or not they intend to stay.
Havloa:
When I say “immigrant” in this conversation, I am referring to someone born outside the US who now resides inside it.
When I say “immigrant” I use the word as it’s defined in English, a common practice when people wish to communicate in English. From the American Heritage Dictionary:
A person who comes here for a period of time but does not intend to settle here permanently is a transient, not an immigrant. So, for example, someone who has a wife and child in one country but goes to another country to work and send money home is not an immigrant, as it’s reasonable to presume that they’re going to go back to see their wife and child at some point. They would be fairly described as a migrant worker.
Thene:
I would also like to refer you to Amp’s previously stated policy of encouraging Alasers to say ‘undocumented immigrant’ rather than ‘illegal alien’. Speaking as a documented immigrant I think it is a far more accurate term.
You may think as you please, it’s a free country. I think you’re wrong. Very often such people have documents, so they are not undocumented – they simply don’t have documentation that shows that they are in the U.S. legally. But they may have a matricular consular, which many institutions will accept to grant loans or permit major purchases. They may have a drivers license from those states that will give them to people without requiring that they prove legal residence in the U.S. They may have a fraudulent Social Security card. They may have all kinds of documentation.
“Alien” is the legal term in U.S. law to define a non-citizen. “Illegal alien” is someone whose status as an alien is illegal under the law, and the fact that their acts of entry and subsequent behavior and status is illegal is an important distinction, not one to be diminished with a euphemism. This use of the word “alien” has been constant in U.S. law since it’s beginning and predates it in English law well prior to the establishment of the U.S. Since we are talking about the law it’s well to be unambiguous about who we are talking about.
I do not care what someone’s intentions are when they come to the U.S. illegally. I don’t care if they are here for a transient purpose or with the intent to stay. The term “undocumented immigrant” is an accurate descriptor of at best a small subset of the people I am talking about. “Illegal alien” describes all the people I am talking about and includes none of the people I am not talking about. I am not going to let you define who I am talking about.
Let me be clear. I have been told on here in the past after using term “x”, “Ron, we find term ‘x’ offensive, we prefer the use of the term ‘y’.” Where I see that x = y I have no problem in using “y”. But in this case I believe that x != y, and I have to speak accordingly. I regret if anyone finds it offensive, but I cannot agree that it’s equally accurate – and accuracy in communications is more important.
Amp:
Without resorting to a dictionary, “reform” generally means “to improve via change”. On that basis, and to my mind, you have a false dichotomy here. An increase in border enforcement is immigration reform. As would be provisions such as those in AZ SB 1070 that assesses increased penalties on businesses hiring illegal aliens. But where a change to immigration law creates a path to citizenship for illegal aliens I’d say that in my opinion that’s immigration degradation, not immigration reform.
I’m not going to say that your use of the term “immigration reform” to mean (and I confess I presume, correct me if I am wrong) “create a path for citizenship for people here illegally” is wrong – what people think of as reform is a matter of opinion. But I’ve noted the media does this a lot as well. They often separate improvements in securing the border from the description “immigation reform” as if it’s not reform. Sounds like an editorial disguised as a news report to me.
I also ask why I keep hearing “We must grant these people a path to citizenship.” Why? What have they done to earn citizenship that overcomes the inequity of awarding a reward for a series of illegal acts? Why, for example, wouldn”t the very great favor of permanent residency good enough? I see no imperative for citizenship here at all.
As far as the argument about partisanship goes, in order to make a deal each party has to offer something that the other party wants. I don’t see what the Democrats have to offer being particularly attractive. They want illegal aliens to get citizenship. How is that attractive? It’s not attractive to me. The Republicans want better enforcement of existing laws. You don’t need legislation for that, that’s the responsibility of the Executive branch. The President took an oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed – let’s see him keep it.
I was around in 1986. I know that the last time this deal was offered the laws for amnesty were faithfully followed but the laws to increase border security weren’t. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Increase border security. Increase penalties for employing illegal aliens. Shut off non-emergency services for them. Throw any financial institution that grants loans to illegal aliens out of all Federal financial programs, including the FDIC. Let that deal be made AND KEPT – not like the last time.
Democrats want to reward law breakers with citizenship. I don’t want that. That’s a deal breaker. If refusing that is a deal breaker with Democrats then O.K. Let the Republicans continue to say no. Other states will then follow Arizona’s lead. Works for me.
But it seems to me that the Democrats see the current laws as “unjust”. The U.S. is under no obligation to let anyone in the country. It is obliged to follow it’s own best interests. If you think there’s an issue with the number of immigration slots open each year or with how they are allocated, fine. Propose those changes and see if people want them. If you think that the current policy of not admitting people into the U.S. simply because they are poor and are having a hard time getting a job in their home country is unjust, propose that change. But don’t make enforcing existing laws dependent on accepting that. Don’t make giving citizenship to people here illegally a part of that.
Rob, quoting me, wrote:
I pointed out that this is nonsense in comment #70; the conservatives in the Senate are dead set against what liberals want on immigration reform, no matter what they’re offered in return.
To which, Rob replied:
Robert, I stated something legislative liberals want. You responded quoting that specific sentence of mine, which was referring, again, to a specific legislative goal. When I pointed out that was complete nonsense, you responded with gibberish. I really don’t know if you’re even arguing in good faith here.
It’s not possible to talk about acheiving legislative goals in the Federal government without talking about Republicans and Democrats. In the context of our discussion, saying “I’m not talking about those mean old corrupt political parties, I’m talking about conservatives and liberals” is, at best, horribly naive.
But it’s not comprehensive immigration reform, which is what I was talking about. Apparently you’re not aware of what “comprehensive” means; may I suggest you consult a dictionary? :-P [*]
What have you ever done to “earn” your citizenship? What have I ever done, for that matter?
I’m a US citizen because I was born in New York City. I didn’t earn that.
That said, I think that permanent residency should also be an option. And so should a guest worker program, for people who want to work in the US but eventually return to their original country. I’m not advocating a one-size-fits-all solution.
Why should all these things be options? Two reasons. First of all, it would be good for everybody — good for current Americans, and good for the folks entering the country (new citizens, permanent residents, and temporary workers).
Secondly, the status quo is bad for everyone — it’s bad for Americans, and it’s bad for the folks entering the country.
But what Republicans want is government to fail as badly as possible so that Republican gains in 2010 and 2012 will be magnified. How can the Democrats be expected to offer that?
What the Republicans don’t want is any bi-partisan legislation. Bi-partisan legislation would, by and large, be good political news for Democrats and bad political news for Republicans.
Seeking a “deal” only works if both parties want a deal to be reached. If one party’s best-case scenario is that no deal be reached, then it’s not possible to negotiate.
[*] Pure snark. Not a serious suggestion.
Amp – in your statement, you said that “what liberals want” was w, x, and y and then went on to say that you were to the left of most liberals because you want x, y, and z. If you were talking about Congress, you wouldn’t have brought up your own desires. We’re talking about what the people want, not about the current state of play in the current tactical ball game. Yes, Republicans in Congress are currently waging a political battle against Democrats, and obstructionism is one of the tools they’re using. That doesn’t change the underlying beliefs of conservatives and liberals. In 2011 some majority Republican may introduce legislation to give free milk to the children of 9/11 victims, and the Democrats (pursuing their own obstruction strategy) will oppose it; that doesn’t mean Democrats hate children.
In short, I don’t regard the Arizona law as the cause of any particular mischief; I regard it as a symptom.
So what? Hypercalcemia is just a symptom of a number of diseases but it’s still deadly if not treated promptly, often before the underlying cause is discovered and dealt with. Likewise, Arizonans need to suck it up, admit that the sh!t they’re in is at least partially their own fault, and deal with it without killing innocent bystanders. Yes, humans are prone to scapegoating, but they can be talked, mocked, or if necessary coerced out of it. At least sometimes. While I agree that the tendency is just part of humanity and not likely to change without radical genetic engineering, the harmful behavior can be changed. And should be.
Democrats want to reward law breakers with citizenship. I don’t want that.
Right. Why reward bad behavior? And this automatic citizenship for being born here? Just rewarding parents’ bad behavior in sneaking over the border. Throw the kids out too. And the grandkids. And great-grandkids. Who cares how long ago it was: illegal is illegal. Got an illegal ancestor-get out of here!
…
Oops, there doesn’t appear to be anyone left. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all.
I’m intrigued. How do we identify an optimum level of immigration, and how would an appropriately regulated market influence this? Does this paragraph reflect some broader framework for thinking about immigration? Or does it simply say that the US should be less anal about immigration because, contrary to popular conceptions, immigrants really do more good than harm?
Amp:
In and of itself, no, it’s not. But to say
implied at least to me that you’re talking about two different things here; comprehensive immigration reform on the one hand and border enforcement on the other. Whereas it seems to me that border enforcement should be considered as an integral part of comprehensive immigration reform; that when you talk about the latter you should automatically be talking about the former. It’s that kind of thinking that these are two separate concepts – or at least that kind of expression – that makes the people who favor enforcement of our present laws perceive that people who are talking about “comprehensive immigration reform” oppose controlling the border. The highly vocal self-association of the “open borders” folks with the parties supporting changes in immigration law doesn’t help that, either.
Now, that self-association doesn’t mean that the majority of folks arguing for immigration law changes that would favor legalizing the status of illegal alies favor open borders any more than the self-association of other whacknut groups with the Tea Party movement means that the Tea Party movement folks favor the whacknuts. But as many of those on the left see that latter association as being valid, so do many of those on the right see the former association as valid. The left has called for the Tea Party movement to make their denial of the whacknuts clear and specific. I’d suggest that the left do the same with regards to some of their hangers-on.
Me: Jill, your room is a wreck, please clean it today.
Jill (teenage daughter): I don’t want to clean it! I’m going to do a comprehensive reorganization of everything this weekend.
Me: You’ve been saying you’ll be doing a big reorganization “this weekend” for a year. Clean your room today, please.
Jill: But it’s just a waste of time! Everything will change once I reorganize! And I’m really going to reorganize this time! Really!
Me: Regardless. Clean your room now, and then you can reorganize on the weekend all you want.
Amp:
No. Your parents/grandparents/ancestors earned it for you and bequeathed it to you. Thank them (in your prayers if necessary) on occasion. Then do what they did and work to preserve it for your children. Having debates like this – even though you and I disagree, at least you’re thinking about it and that’s more than most do – is one such preservation act. Far too many U.S. citizens think that they were given something that they need make no sacrifice to preserve and pass on. Inaction on your part may not lose you the proper benefits of U.S. citizenship, but it may deprive your children of them. A native-born American doesn’t earn citizenship for themselves, they earn it for their children. One of the reasons I’m in Scouting.
In fact, I just had a discussion on this with a lawyer we brought into a Troop meeting to discuss the rights and obligations of an American citizen with the Scouts (part of First Class Rank and also the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge, which is required for Eagle). He started the discussion by disclosing to the kids that “I’m so far left that I’m almost a Communist”, which certainly got my attention. He pointed out to the kids that there’s very little – and in the Constitution, nothing – that citizens are legally obliged to do. But there are certainly things that people need to do if the nation is to be preserved. Vote. Pay attention to what’s going on in politics and law (or as we say in the Scout Oath, “mentally awake”). Obey the laws, or if you disfavor them work to change them. Serve in the military. Get engaged in your community. These things earn citizenship.
There are a number of a visa solutions available for just such worker programs. The H1B visa program for technical workers is well known and one that I see in my profession. The H2A and H2B visa programs for temporary agricultural and non-agricultural workers are not well known. My guess is that’s because a) dealing with getting them means trying to plow through the State department and b) it’s a lot easier to hire and exploit illegal aliens. I figure that better border enforcement and laws such as those Arizona has just passed will force agricultural employers to either hire Americans (by offering higher wages) or looking at the H2A/B programs, but I would certainly favor making those programs more responsive to both employers and foreign nationals.
I could be persuaded that an illegal alien with a clean criminal record and solid employment record could be granted permanent resident alien status – as long as there was no possibility of citizenship. Let it be enough for them that they can now live their lives in America without having to look over their shoulder for the ICE and that their children will be citizens. I think that’s justice enough.
That won’t work because there are non-market factors at work. Specifically, if we had open borders, what would stop people from coming into the U.S. who had little to no employment prospects but who would find that simply relying on American social services would be a significant upgrade in their living standard compared to home? The U.S. should (and does) maintain immigration policies that broadly (allowing for some refugees) limit immigration to those who can show that they will be at least self-supporting or will be supported by private efforts (e.g., their spouse or parents) outside of State and Federal social services.
Dianne:
Oops, there doesn’t appear to be anyone left. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Speak for yourself. My ancestors either a) came over from Bermuda, Ireland, Scotland or Germany in compliance with the laws in effect at the time or b) walked over the Bering Strait Ice Bridge somewhere around 15,000 to 10,000 BC.
Amp:
That may be the position of some Republicans. But to say “Republicans” as a class denies that any of them oppose the Democratic position out of principle, which is not supportable. If my representative (who is a Democrat, and I voted for him) called me up and said “Ron, what should I do?” I’d say “I don’t want citizenship for illegal aliens. I want the present laws enforced and employer sanctions increased. If the Democrats press for citizenship then refuse the deal.” If the Democrats insist on something unacceptable then “No” is the only acceptable outcome for me.
Yep. But the debate up to this point has been dominated from a political viewpoint by seeing it as dependent on negotiations between only two entities whose positions are mutually unresolvable: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Arizona has introduced a third option that cuts them both out. If Texas and other States follow Arizona’s lead then the status quo changes. I start to get what I want without Federal action and without having to make any concessions, especially when you consider that the GOP will pick up seats in the Senate in the November elections. God bless Federalism.
Things are getting messy.
In 2004 John Kerry ran for President with the plan of addressing the burgeoning problems in Iraq by — organizing a council of nations to develop a plan. And I vaguely recall Robert’s wife demanding to know when he’d get his junk out of the garage so that she could park there. Robert reassured her: he had a plan to convene a council of neighbors to develop a plan to address the problem. She wasn’t reassured.
Now Robert’s having an analogous problem with his daughter, analogously.
Admittedly, I’ve acknowledged having difficulty keeping dog poop off my floors, analogously.
For some people, cleanliness is next to Godliness. In Robert and my households, it’s next to impossible. Who knew this had such rhetorical advantages?
That is the position of 98% of the Republicans in the Senate. And for good reason; Republican policy wonks who work to forge compromises with Democrats will be punished both by the party structure and by the voters in the next primary.
To be clear, I don’t think elected Democrats would be 100% better if the positions were reversed (although they’d be a little better, because Democratic party discipline is weaker). I think the problem is structural; our political system is set up so that the minority party is strongly motivated to take an obstructionist stand, rather than seeking legislative compromises.
My ancestors either a) came over from Bermuda, Ireland, Scotland or Germany in compliance with the laws in effect at the time or b) walked over the Bering Strait Ice Bridge somewhere around 15,000 to 10,000 BC.
Are you sure? Can you document that none of them broke the law entering the US? The ancestors from over the Bering Strait are suspicious since they may not have actually ever become citizens. Certainly at various times during history, p0ssibly including when your anecestors started to merge with the Anglo population, simply being “Indian” was enough to make you a candidate for genocide. Hey, the whites were just following the law, unlike the crazy savages, right?
The ancestors from the British Isles are questionable as well. None of them married random Americans with questionable pasts? Unless the immigrant ancestors were in the last few generations, it’s going to be tricky to prove. I think we’d best deport you just in case. One can’t be too careful about these things.
I have another idea. Let’s just cede Arizona back to Mexico. AZ’s entry into the US was shady, to say the least: basically just a bunch of terrorists making a land grab really. Time to redress old wrongs and give it back. Alternately, if Mexico doesn’t want a bunch of NPD voters, it could go back to the Southwest Amerind population. They could work out the details of who got what bit of sand.
RonF,
Anyone in the US gives US citizenship to children they bear here. The natural born citizenship of your parents has nothing to do with why you are a citizen. If your mother had just stepped on to American soil for the first time (legally or illegally) when she went into labor, you would still be a US citizen. If you want a lineage focused idea of citizenship, you’ll have to try a different country (of course, you won’t be able to be a citizen there).
Basically, this is the same problem that Robert Nozick had.
Either citizenship can only legitimately come through an unbroken chain of legal immigration, or it can’t.
If it can only come through an unbroken chain of legal immigration, then neither Ron nor I can legitimately claim citizenship, since the only reason North America has so many white people is because we were willing to kill the legal residents in order to take possession of the land.
If it can legitimately come through some other measure, like being born here (which is in fact the legal situation), then the children of undocumented immigrants, born here, are legal citizens. Period.
—Myca
Of course my preferred solution to laws like murder, which are sometimes applied in a racist fashion, isn’t to simply ‘not have laws against murder.’ That’s ludicrous. Murder needs to be illegal, and we ought to find ways of enforcing laws against it that are not racist.
What’s more important, though, is that that’s a bad parallel. Prior to the signing of the Arizona law, being in the US as an undocumented immigrant was against the law. Afterwards, it’s still against the law, but there’s a different enforcement mechanism and a new penalty. Throwing out this law wouldn’t throw open our borders, or anything else silly like that. The INS would still operate. People would still be deported. Whether you think that that’s good (as I’d guess RonF does) or bad (as many on the left do), that’s just truth.
So when I examine this law, I have to examine it as I would examine any law creating a new penalty and enforcement mechanism for an already-existing violation. That is, is it justified? Is there a pressing problem it addresses? What is the cost? Is the cost worth the benefit?
Since this law seems to apply a fairly extreme solution (fines for not carrying your ID), the problem it addresses ought to be fairly extreme as well. That is, in order for the law to be justified, we ought to have either 1) a new immigration problem that needs addressing, or 2) an old problem that the current laws are not sufficiently addressing.
When we look at the situation in Arizona, though, we see that that’s simply not true. Counter Governor Brewer’s rhetoric, undocumented border crossings have been dropping, not increasing, over the past decade, cutting the number of undocumented crossings in more than half. Down to 556,000 in FY2009 from a high of 1.8 Million in FY2000. If the new law is desperately needed to cut down on undocumented immigration … why? It seems like the existing laws have been doing a pretty fine job, actually.
But maybe it’s not the immigration rate that’s the problem. Maybe the problem is that, well, to paraphrase various right wing pundits … MEXICAN DRUG GANGS ARIZONA WAR ZONE RANCHER MURDER!
Yeah.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s bullshit too ((And the people who say these things to you are liars who believe that it is easy to manipulate you. Because they think you are stupid. Don’t prove them right.))
First, according to FBI crime statistics, the crime rate in Arizona border towns has remained essentially flat for the past decade, actually dropping a little. Second, the case that triggered all of this, the murder of rancher, Rob Krentz, who David Frum theorized was murdered by “a marijuana-smuggling illegal migrant,” well, the news isn’t great there either. According to the Arizona Daily Star, the chief suspect of the ongoing investigation is not an undocumented immigrant, but rather, a US resident.
Okay, so it seems clear that none of the justification that have been offered for why this new law is needed really hold up. Undocumented immigration has been falling for a decade, and the crime rate, both for border towns in specific and Arizona in general, has either been level or falling for years now.
Okay, but even so, if the law isn’t particularly costly, maybe it’s worth it anyway. Well, for perspectives on the likely consequences of the law, I’ll defer to some conservative commenters … Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, various hispanic Repubicans, Tom Ridge, Meg Whitman … these are not crazy lefties. These are Republicans. These are conservatives, or at the very least moderates. They see problems with this law, and they’re the same problems I see.
So look, my basic stance is not that since laws against murder are applied in a racist fashion, we should just make murder legal. My stance is that if we’re inventing a new solution, we should, first, understand that even laws against murder are applied in a racist fashion (and we actually haven’t ‘fixed them’) so it is almost certain that this law will be applied in a much more racist fashion. Second, if we’re going to create a new law that creates or encourages further racial discrimination, we should probably make sure that we’re addressing an actual problem first.
—Myca
Ron, I’m not peering into the heads of the people who wrote or support this law. I’m not judging their motives. I’m saying that this law will lead to racist outcomes. Far more brown Americans will be harassed by the police as a result of this law. Far more brown Americans will learn that they cannot trust their government, their police, or their fellow citizens. Far more brown children will learn that they are second class citizens, and will suffer as a result.
Maybe that would be justified (I don’t think so, but you might) if this were addressing an actual problem, but it’s not.
—Myca