AZ, ur doing it rong
Jun. 15th, 2010 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioNow I am clearly in a minority among my friends; I don't believe that we should just turn a blind eye to law-breaking. Illegals shouldn't get "amnesty" just because they're already here; even if we are going to set aside their past crimes, at the very least the ones who came here of their own free will should go to the back of the line, behind everyone who's following the process, and it's not wrong to make them wait at home. Impractical, maybe, but not wrong. (Also impractical is any large-scale hunt for them; catch them where you find them and by all means look at large, suspect employers, but leave it at that.) I have sympathy for people who came here illegally in their parents' arms, and I don't know what to do about that.
And I believe that if a police officer who stops you for a traffic violation can give you a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, a local misdemeanor, then how much the moreso should it be perfectly legal to check for felony-level violations of federal law. And I also believe that "anchor babies" born to illegals should not confer citizenship, though they are unambiguously citizens themselves per the Constitution.
But. Arizona, you're gone off the deep end and you're making it harder for your law-respecting allies to hold any traction in this debate. Stop it. You're giving ammo to the other side.
Certain things are the domain of federal law, and you should butt out. Don't make your local police officers, who often have to rely on the good will of communities they work in, into the enemy. And for heaven's sake, what on earth possessed you to go up against the US Constitution? That can only end badly. (You should maybe try reading it sometime.) If Congress passes legislation granting automatic citizenship to illegals who come here to have their kids, those us us who have a problem with that will hold you directly responsible.
The immigration reform I want to see goes something like this:
- Eliminate quotas. Anyone who wants to come here legally is welcome and a path to citizenship should exist as it does now. Entry should be expedited for anyone with a credible need for asylum.
- (Edit based on comments:) Streamline and simplify the application process.
- Government-funded support is only for citizens. We can't afford, nor should we be on the hook, to support all the world's needy.
- Punish those who employ illegals along with the illegals. If this means that consumer prices go up because the people "who will do the dirty jobs Americans won't do" are replaced by others at a higher price, I really don't have a problem with that. I'd rather not be part of a system of exploitation and I realize that's not free.
- Citizen children should be treated the same way they would be if, instead of being deported, mom and dad were doing jail time for a different crime. We don't forgive armed robbery or murder just because there are kids; why should we do something different in this case? (The children can always leave with the parents, of course. Many things in life are not fair; parents' bad decisions, and just plain dumb luck, can have effects on kids. And these wouldn't be the first kids who are uprooted from their friends and community because the parents have to move.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:10 am (UTC)http://www.ecanadanow.com/world/us-world/2010/06/15/can-landmines-secure-us-border/
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:14 am (UTC)Government-funded support is only for citizens. We can't afford, nor should we be on the hook, to support all the world's needy.
Does this include public schools for children?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 10:37 am (UTC)I confess, this is where my utilitarian streak kicks in and gives up. There are many evils and injustices in the world. At some point, I decide I prefer things to function than for justice to be done. Amnesty is just plain easier, cheaper, and resolves certain economic problems associated with the creation of a large, captive work force.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 08:39 pm (UTC)Allow me to give an example from my work. Use of wireless microphones in the broadcast bands has always required a license from the Federal Communications Commission. These licenses are limited to those involved in the production of broadcast programming, cable programming, or movie production. Because the FCC turned a blind eye to enforcement over the last 20 years, these wireless microphones became widely available. They are sold in commercial outlets, and marketed by the manufacturers who are well aware that they are marketing and selling the equipment in violation of FCC rules. When we tried to estimate the number of illegal wireless microphones out there, we gave up. But our conservative estimate topped one million.
These microphones are sources of interference with the new licensed services that spent $19 billion for former TV channels 52-61, as well as public safety services on those frequencies. On channels 2-51, they are impeding the development of unlicensed use in the broadcast white spaces -- a lawful FCC proceeding that has taken 8 years and in which companies have invested many millions of dollars to satisfy FCC standards testing.
Do you tell all the purchasers of illegal wireless microphones "sorry, your equipment is illegal. Stop using it." Or do you try to figure out how to deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of churches, theaters, universities, conference centers, karoke bars, entertainers and others bought these things and are using them?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 11:17 pm (UTC)Granted the cases are different; you could argue that the purchasers should have known that the equipment was illegal at purchase time. Presumably that was hard to know, rather than that hundreds of thousands of institutions all decided to defy the law. This is not my field and I've never been part of such a purchase, so I really have no idea what was likely to have happened on the way to deploying these mics in churches etc.
(Nothing in this comment should be taken as an argument for any particular course of action; I don't know enough yet. I'm trying to understand the problem better.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:32 am (UTC)How about those people who have green cards (they aren't citizens, but are here legally). They pay taxes ... shouldn't they be eligible for government support? Or, if they don't get government support, they shouldn't pay taxes. :)
Overall I agree with what you said, especially about coming here legally (my parents did it the right way when they emigrated to the states).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:06 am (UTC)I've thought about services as pay-to-play -- you get them IFF you're a taxpayer -- but that has unfortunate consequences for the non-tax-paying citizen. Is it fair to say that being a citizen or being a taxpayer is good enough? Or should there be some incentive to become a citizen? I think there will always be people who pay in more than they get (you and I will never see anything for our lifetimes of social-security payments, for instance), and unless we're prepared to go over completely to a fee-for-service scheme (even if it were practical), we can't make it completely, universally fair.
So yeah, that's not 100% cast in stone, but that's my current thinking.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 09:39 am (UTC)Unfortunately as it stands, no, but you can choose to rent (not own property) so you're not paying them directly or live where the taxes are minimal :-). We don't mind paying our property taxes as it is in our best interest to have a well-educated workforce (since they'll be taking care of us in our old age :-).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:08 pm (UTC)Were it not for the obligation to be within walking distance of the place I want to be on Shabbat, I would not live in the city. (Not just for this, but because the government and the majority who elect them are insufficiently interested in a sound economy.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:37 pm (UTC)On a humorous note, we could all take the "Family Car" route of lodging :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:19 am (UTC)...what's the problem? I'm confused by you position. Entirely putting aside my own opinions on this issue: what's do you see the problem being with denying citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants? If it's wrong to "cut in line" (receive amnesty for already being here), why should they be able to "steal" a citizenship for their children by cutting in line on their behalf?
I think the argument is that so long as the children of illegal immigrants are automatically legal citizens, there is an incentive to come here illegally to procure citizenships for one's children, and by eliminating citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, coming here illegally is deincentivized.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:30 am (UTC)As I understand it -- and I could well be wrong here as it's not an area I've studied deeply, so I welcome correction -- the main attraction of sneaking across the border to have a child is that then you can parlay that into getting to stay yourself under "family unification" laws or policies. (Meanwhile, because there are currently quotas, someone else got pushed back in line.) Rather than attacking the child's citizenship I prefer to first attack "family unification", saying that having a child here does not help you one whit. That seems far less damaging and has a good-enough chance of helping that we should try it.
Denying citizenship to the child (and thus eliminating the problem more coarsely) is legislatively possible but would seem to require a constitutional amendment. I don't support that proposal, just to be clear.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:48 am (UTC)Ahhhh! OK, that makes more sense.
Rather than attacking the child's citizenship I prefer to first attack "family unification", saying that having a child here does not help you one whit. That seems far less damaging and has a good-enough chance of helping that we should try it.
I think... that is because you don't know much about child protective services. Even just considering the economics of the thing. Taking a child from parents who are providing from her and making her a ward of the state is horrendously expensive. The state winds up having to pay people to do what her parents were doing for free. If she's not the right color, young enough, and free enough of medical issues to be rapidly adopted, the state's going to get stuck with the bill for 18 years (plus possibly college tuition).
I mean, even if one thought taking infants from their parents wasn't a bad thing for the infant... one does have to confront the bottom line. There's a reason these folks in AZ aren't so hot to throw the parents out and keep the kids: the last thing they want is Another Mouth To Feed, times several thousand.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 03:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 11:00 pm (UTC)If the family feels that the child would be better off staying here with someone else in the US, that's cool too. But if family unification is the goal, that can be accomplished by having the child leave with the parents to the child's other country of citizenship. The child, being a US citizen, is of course free to return when able. The parents are free to begin the application process to come here legally.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 07:38 am (UTC)Basically, I'd like to see the ability to apply for a new class of visa from within the US, while you're here on a different type, instead of having to go home and expend a waiting period before even asking.
I know Arizona is (unsurprisingly, given their location) focused on illegal immigrants who entered illicitly and never had a legal presence in this country. However, my understanding is that either a majority or a large minority of "illegal immigrants" are visa-overstays, or "I started the paperwork, and my visa expired while the paperwork is in process, and now I can't re-file because I'm technically illegal, and I can't leave because if I leave I'll be barred from return for a decade because I'm now here illegally. But if I stay quietly and keep my head down, maybe the paperwork will come back and I'll be legal again? Or will I? It's not like I can just call up INS and ask, unless I feel like being imprisoned and deported by force, instead of either leaving with my dignity intact or staying quietly and hoping..."
If people trying their best to stay within their legal status and/or obtain the necessary legal status end up stymied because of the complexity of the application process or its duration, UR DOIN IT RONG. And by "U", I mean us, in the form of the US Government.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 09:37 am (UTC)There are currently huge backlogs on immigration paperwork. I personally know three people who had paperwork get lost repeatedly with lots of delays and refilings, leading to a 10 year process instead of the nominal 5 years.
These people were in San Francisco, New York, and Miami and were originally from South Korea, the UK, and Curacao. Perhaps it gets handled better if you're in a region where the INS is not so overworked?
My understanding is, however, that a lot of the visa overstays are intentional. Of course, we have no way of knowing since the U.S. has no passport control on exiting the country. (Non-citizens have a piece of paper they are supposed to turn in, but they've been known to forget.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 12:00 pm (UTC)As the child of legal immigrants, I know firsthand that keeping one's status legal and working towards citizenship is much more difficult and complex than people whose image of illegal immigrants is entirely "sneaking over the border" often credit or even realize.
*restrains self from saying more*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 12:58 pm (UTC)I know several people who went from student visa to worker visa to green card without leaving. Did they just get lucky?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 08:42 pm (UTC)Also, problems have grown in recent years as backlogs have increased and because consolidation in DHS screwed up lots of things. How long ago did your friends go through the system?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 11:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 10:47 am (UTC)The cases are not quite parallel for several reasons. A parent in prison is usually eligible for release -- often at some point reasonably proximate temporally. Deported parents are not. The family is permanently severed. Children of parents in prison often have family who can serve as parent or guardian. Usually not the case here. finally, where the state must assume guardianship of the child of a prisoner, the state jurisdiction is clear. That is less true in cases of children separated from parents by deportation. Which jurisdiction is responsible for such children? The jurisdiction in which the illegally present parents are apprehended? The jurisdiction in which the child is resident?
This last is exceedingly important because of cost. States with high illegal immigrant populations will assume a disproportionate cost of fostering and caring for citizen children of illegal immigrants.
Morally, the situation is the same, but the scale is ridiculous. We are already dealing with this in "three strikes" states where voters simply did not consider the cost of scaling the existing system.
Mind, I should confess to a bias for open citizenship and amnesty even independent of my utilitarian concerns. I consider all who come to this country looking for a better life to share the same dream that drew my own ancestors here. I recognize the "my ancestors came legally -- some even died because they couldn't come legally" moral claim.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:18 pm (UTC)I consider all who come to this country looking for a better life to share the same dream that drew my own ancestors here.
Yes. Among people whose ancestors weren't here from the very beginning, "I got here first so you don't get to come in" is not a sound argument.
Open immigration and publicly-funded services (education, health care, welfare, etc) don't mix. How would you balance the two?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 08:48 pm (UTC)True, since immigrants are more often renters (at least initially), there is a disproportionate stress on public schools (which are funded almost exclusively by property tax and federal money). On the flip side, however, this does increase the value of rental property, so we could just have better assessment of rental property for tax purposes. Alternatively, we could impose a special tax on international money transfers. These are disproportionately made by immigrants to families abroad, so a surcharge imposed on such transfers (say a 5% surcharge) would generate revenue almost exclusively from the immigrant population that could be used to make up any additional public cost.
But as I say, I'm skeptical of the premise.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 12:55 pm (UTC)As for government-funded services, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, we don't have enough money to pay for people who just wander in to get them -- that's like a restaurant that lets homeless people walk in and eat for free, then jacks up the prices for the paying customers. On the other hand, basic health services are essential: if they are going to be here you don't want them to be vectors for the next plague.
I also agree there should not be quotas, with the provision that it should be very hard to get in. Canada does a good job with this. I'm not even sure I would qualify to get in!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 01:22 pm (UTC)(This does mean, though, that the "anchor baby" has a second citizenship; sending the child home with the parents is not creating some sort of stateless person.)
Why do you want it to be hard to get in? Because they're going to take from publicly-funded services, or for some other reason? I want it to be easy to get in (I'd do a criminal background check but that's about it), but in exchange I want to say that you have to be self-sufficient.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 08:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-16 11:06 pm (UTC)What about the other case -- do you know of any countries that do not confer citizenship to the child of a citizen (regardless of where that child was born)? The US-born child of an immigrant is pretty much always a dual citizen, right?
Citizenship
Date: 2010-06-29 02:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-17 12:10 am (UTC)That said, my preference is for wide open borders. Let everyone in, and have government-funded support for no one. I have no more desire to be forced to support American parasites than I do foreign ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-17 12:18 am (UTC)There is a misconception about the severity of the law. Entering the U.S. without being "admitted and inspected" is, indeed, a crime. But what type of crime? The maximum penalty for this crime is a maximum of 6 months in jail and a $200 fine. That's it. It equates to a class B misdemeanor in Utah (I use Utah as an example simply because I know the equivalency there). If you've ever driven your car for a month or two after the registration expired or for a time after your license expired for after your insurance expired, you've committed a crime of the exact same
magnitude. Furthermore, a lot of the immigrants who are here actually entered legally and just overstayed their visas. That IS NOT a crime. There is no criminal penalty associated with it.
Also, the "crime" in question is not the mere fact of their "presence" here. The crime is committed when you cross the border and ends the moment you enter the U.S. It is not, as has been suggested, an "on going" crime. From the law's perspective, after you are here you begin to accrue "illegal presence" which can (and almost always does) prejudice your immigration prospects, but be clear...being here illegally is NOT a crime. It's the act of crossing the border illegally that is the crime.
Also, it's a bit silly to talk about immigrants, especially those from Latino countries, "getting in line." The fact is that for the vast majority of those people there is no line. They simply won't qualify for a visa of any sort under the current laws. Also, for those who can get in the line, the wait time for most of them is interminable. For example, the current wait time for the unmarried son or daughter of U.S. citizen from Mexico is 18-years. And that's just the "legal" wait time. The actual wait time is closer to 50 years. So, if a U.S. citizen petitions for son or daughter who lives in Mexico, at a minimum it will be 18-years before that child can join them, legally,
in the U.S.
Even if you are married to a U.S. citizen and have several U.S. citizen children, and even if you've never broken a single law in the U.S., your chances of getting legal can be slim, especially if your family is healthy and intact. You see, if an alien has been in
the country illegally for more than one year, then when his or her wife or husband petitions for him or her, that alien will eventually have to return to their home country for their visa interview (the act is called "consular processing"). However, they go their interview knowing that their visa will be denied. It's an absolute fact. Once the visa is denied, they must then pay almost $700 for the opportunity to apply for a "waiver" which waives their illegal presence and allows them to enter legally. However, to qualify for the waiver you must demonstrate that failure to allow you to re-enter the country will result in "extreme hardship" to your U.S. citizen spouse (the kids don't really count under the law except insofar as their hardship impacts your spouse). Extreme hardship is defined as a hardship far beyond that which would normally be experienced by a spouse in that situation. In other words, the fact that your wife will lose the house and be cast on the street and destitute if you aren't there doesn't count because the government assumes that such hardships are the "norm" and not extreme. Thus, unless you wife, or some child, suffers from a serious physical or mental ailment, you likely won't be admitted. In that case, you can either sneak back illegally, and if you that then you are barred for life, or your wife and children can experience a de facto deportation and move to Mexico to be with you.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 06:54 pm (UTC)(Wikipedia says about 45% of illegals are visa overstays, by the way, which leaves 55% for illegal entry and/or fraud. I didn't follow the footnotes on that.)
I do think we need to make it easier for people to come here legally (there's another comment thread on that). It's crazy to make people wait 10 or 20 years. We shouldn't have quotas and long lines; anyone who passes a criminal background check should be allowed in, with the provision that taxpayer support won't be available (we can't feed, house, and care for the world) so you'd better be able to get a job.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 07:12 pm (UTC)My source is a lawyer friend who works in immigration law. He's actually the one I hired when my dad has some issues a couple years ago and was at risk of being deported. (He took care of it so the issue wasn't something that could affect my father's immigration status. Oh how I wish my father would just become a U.S. citizen. It would make life so much easier. The man has been here almost 50 years. I mean, at some point it just become ridiculous, you know?) So I don't have a written source to appeal to. I actually had pretty much the same assumptions you did, and he clued me in, which is the only reason I know any of that.
I agree with you that we need to make it easier for people to come here legally. Our current system is very much NOT WORKING and immigration is very much a good thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 08:28 pm (UTC)I did not know that "illegal" and "against the law" were not the same thing technically, despite apparent plain-English meanings of those words. What'll our legislators think of next? :-)
I'd like to see some fine associated with the deportation; without it, there's no cost to the person who's never going to try to become legal anyway. He gets caught and they send him home? Big deal; that's where he would have been if he hadn't entered illegally to begin with.
I'm glad your father's lawyer got his case straightened out.Do you know why he doesn't want to become a citizen?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 08:58 pm (UTC)I'm not really certain why my dad doesn't want to become a citizen. He used to say it was because he's schizophrenic and so it just wasn't allowed. However, I eventually looked it up, and mental illness doesn't disqualify you from becoming a U.S. citizen. I showed that to him and offered (and begged) to pay the fees for the application and everything, but he still wasn't interested. He won't say why. He just doesn't want to. Somewhere in his mind it probably makes sense.