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I want to be clear on your position. You support illegal immigration in part becauce it makes the country safer? And even though illegals commit crimes - some that are aggregious and heinous - that your assertion is that because they commit crimes at a lesser rate than citizens of this country that we ought to ignore codified immigration laws and just open the borders?Or am I missing something here?
I am for open borders, but not because illegals commit less crime. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of your assertion that they commit more crime. It's simply untrue. I do happen to believe that immigrants, both legal and illegal, make the best Americans. I think that those of us who are born here tend to lack an essential energy that they have. They chose to come, we didn't.
No, I'm just saying who cares If I have a passport; it's my given right to be able to go anywhere I want without documentation.
I do. Most other sovereign nations, presumably having given this matter some serious thought, have decided that the open borders concept is not in their best interests. While acknowledging that we must decide this issue for ourselves, I certainly give some weight to the opinion of others who are going successfully down a different path.
Where did my hypothetical suggest you were there illegally? What about owning a gun in England?
I'm sorry about your confusion. Could you point about where I stated that illegals commit more crimes than citizens? I believe you missed the point I was making entirely, but I could be wrong, so I'll let you quote me to support yourself if you can.
Sounds like you need to hang out in better crowds. That hasn't been my experience at all.
You either stated or strongly implied that this law, which concerns itself with illegal immigrants, is a means for Arizona to combat crime. This suggests to me that you equate illegals with more crime. Am I wrong in this assumption? If I am, let me know. I'd be happy to be wrong, and I would respect your viewpoint more.
Exactly.
Most people around the world, including Americans, are xenophobic. I think this is an attitude to be fought, not imitated.
You don't think the "reasonable suspicion" in the beginning of the bill, taken with its trespassing definition, allows, or at least implicitly encourages, the above situation?
Like most other issues, the problem is that the extremist (and therefore, best for ratings) groups on either side have no desire to discuss the issue rationally. Both sides simply want to demonize the other, rather than have an actual policy discussion surrounding the potential pros, cons, and consequences of various policies.
I think the crime waves AZ has recently seen tied to illegals and the Federal government refusing to do a damned thing has triggered AZ taking action to protect itself. It probably also has something to do with the economic drain that AZ is experiencing and the negative net economic impact illegals have.Nowhere did I state any comparison between crime rates between citizens and illegals. I would guess you would rather conveniently convert the argument to a different one rather than address the issue at hand, which is that it is the right of AZ to choose to protect itself as its citizens see fit, especially when the Federal government refuses to follow its Constitutional mandate. Whether that protection has to do with violent crime, economics, or otherwise is irrelevant, and what relative crime rates are is just as irrelevant.
The logic here doesn't follow. It's entirely possible to combat crime on multiple fronts simultaneously. Even if illegals commit a smaller percentage of crimes, the fact that they (or anyone) commit any at all is a valid reason for combating it.
Gee isn't that what Mayor Bloomberg was warning us about?But wait, Bloomberg's piece was nothing more than "rhetorical nonsense lacking fact and reality. You know, the people attacking this thing without actually working within the language and actual law are really coming off as less then moronic here. There is ample legal and legitimate reasons to question this law without need to devolve into this type of puffery for political talking points."
I've been saying this for 15 pages and no one seems to get it.ETA:
my point exactly.
Apparently neither you nor Bronco are either seeing or willing to admit that the main impetus behind this law is the belief among a significant number of Arizonans that their crime and economic problems are caused by an influx of illegal immigrants into their state. This belief is false, IMO.
:shakinghead:Nevermind, timmy.
You keep resorting to the xenophobia issue as if it's the only one involved. It's not.
Mexico's government itself has an economic interest in law immigration enforcement by the US. I'm not too worried about their take on our laws. Let me know when we've completed a legitimate long term study on the actual (as opposed to potential) economic affects of this law for the entire US (as opposed to Arizona alone).
What other issues do you think are in play?
This is going to be a real problem for AZ, similar to the MLK holdiay issue a few years back. People will just spend their money elsewhere. Maybe AZ does not care about this, but people voting with their wallets will be an issue in this.
Perhaps someone from Arizona can weigh in on this, but when I'm at the Galleria in Houston, or the high end mall in San Antonio, the real expensive, high end stores appear to have a significant number of wealthy Spanish-speaking folks as customers. My understanding is that a lot of the wealthy Mexican population travel to the U.S. to do their shopping.
Why doesn't it have to do with the argument here?
Protectionism.
That's just silly. If we pulled sports events from every state or locality with a law that some people don't like, we wouldn't have any more sports events.
The mall in Scottsdale is quite pale. They probably go to some outlet mall in west phx.
I'm all for taking over the Baja Peninsula right now.
It is silly that they have pulled sports events from South Carolina for the last ten years too.
Same with the Biltmore area.
I've said this several times over the last year.
I can only speak for my Venezuelan relatives that travel to the US to shop (Miami mainly, but that's because of the direct flights to MIA from CCS and MAR). It's a lot cheaper to shop for many goods in the US than in Latin America. Computers, electronics, some clothing, etc. are the main purchases. They are essentially avoiding the payment of import tariffs by doing so. Furthermore, in the case of Venezuelans, there's the whole issue of exchange rates. The "official" rate set by the government is like 40-50% higher than what can be found "on the street." They are allowed to exchange something like $3000 per person per year at the official rate, thus making those purchases in the US 40-50% cheaper than they ordinarily would be.I spoke with some of them in the last week, and if something like this passed in Florida, they say be less likely to do so out of the fear that something could go wrong and they get in trouble. Never mind that they have valid visas and would be legal tourists. There is real fear that they would be unfairly treated by law enforcement and the justice system.The same sentiments were echoed when I was in Mexico last week. They see this bill as being racist and targeting them, even though they would be traveling under legal documentation.
Well, here's one, and probably a very significant one in AZ voters' minds (apologies if this has been posted already):ABC News story on kidnappings in border states, particularly Phoenix
Help me understand how the negatives of passing a police state law outweighs "saving" drug dealers and illegals from kidnapping. And how many victims are we talking here? 400?
How does the new law fight kidnapping rings?
Thanks. Unfortunately I'm not finding much info on what the law defines as "lawful contact", some sites say there is no definition, others say there's almost no contact that isn't lawful. Somewhere I'd read that it's any time an LEO observes someone with any of their senses (i.e. before suspicion arises). Very broad.It seems to me that they are trying to be mindful of terry stops based solely on skin color which are specifically barred by this law and Terry. Lawful contact by a police officer seems to be that contact which results from reasonable suspicion and so forth. I think this language, for instance, refutes the post made earlier that went along the lines of saying, well if a cop finds a rape victim that turns out to be illegal she should be arrested instead of cared for, or something along those lines. I'm willing to bet such a proactive enforcement instead of reactive protection goes against the reasonableness of the act.As to your second part and the detention question, I don't know. The reasonable language makes it seem like detention is not an option because it doesn't seem very reasonable or practicable to detain every person that could fall under this solely for an identity check, but then again I can see the pitfall that ensues because how else do you make sure you did the search right. It's an interesting question.videoguy505 said:YankeeFan, if you're still in the thread, can you clear up what constitutes "lawful contact"? And if you have an opinion on the second half of my question, that'd be cool too.About Section B you quoted above, what constitutes "lawful contact"? Does that mean there must already exist a situation in which a LEO is interacting with a person (traffic stop, investigating a complaint, etc.)? Or can police initiate contact (see a brown guy walking by, question him)? And am I correct in that the police don't have power to detain?And if the LEOs make up out of whole cloth the reason to go from 'reasonable suspicion' to 'probable cause', i.e. say something like "when the person got near me, I believed I detected the smell of marijuana" which can sometimes pass for 'probable cause' for a search, once that issue is dealt with (person searched/drug sniffing dog/etc), can the person continue to be detained until alien status is determined, even though such status was unrelated to the original probable cause?B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY
21 OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS
22 STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS
23 UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
24 WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE
25 PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
26 PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373©.
The devil is what is "reasonable suspicion." Other then that it reads like a typical ordinance.
So, not knowing Arizona law beyond this and what this modifies, it seems like most of it would be ok except the reasonable suspicion language in the second part given the possibility that a Mexican can be questioned simply for being a Mexicn.
Do you understand that the laws pertaining to the "police state" you decscribe are actually quite parallel to the current illegal immigration laws currently on the books at the Federal level, right? How many people need to suffer or die before you feel it is appropriate to take action? 400 apprently isn't enough for you. Would it take 1,000? Are 10,000 victims okay? What is the threshold you establish that puts you on the side of AZ citizens wanting to protect themselves rather than acting like rabbits waiting for the fox to come by?And why would you override the overwhelming desire of the citizens of AZ to want to protect themselves as they see fit? Who are you to say they can't take actions against criminals like this and instead have to continue to be victims, as long as they comply with the Constitution in taking action?
I asked you to help me understand, then you go and ask me a bunch of #### questions.
No. 9,426,622. No. No. Huh? What? My username is phthalatemagic.
KRS has already jumped in twice with his own answers to this question but mine would simply be "economics." I don't accept the arguments that I've seen that open immigration is a net positive to our economy.
Who do you think the kidnappers are? Have you seen a similar pattern in other places in the Western Hemisphere? What kind of people committed those crimes?Per the rationale and overwhelming support of the AZ citizens, and enacted by their representatives, they feel that this gives police a tool to get leverage against the criminals. It's the same laws currently on the books on the Federal level - but that the Federal government refuses to enforce despite citizens being victimized regularly. I'm not sure why you begrudge the AZ people's desire to protect themselves.
Are you going to answer anyone or just ask them a bunch of questions?
