Saturday, April 24, 2010

BORDERING ON RACISM? A TOUGH ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW PASSES.

You may have heard of the bill recently passed in Arizona which establishes increased penalties and enforcement capabilities involving illegal immigrants. The bill, Arizona Senate bill 1070, contains sweeping changes in policy, and has drawn much ire from liberal groups, up to and including the President himself. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney went so far as to call the mandate to show legal papers to prove legal status in this country bordering on "Nazism" (your papers, please).
Here is the bill in a nutshell...
"a law enforcement officer, without benefit of a warrant, may arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that a person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States"
"...it is unlawful for a person who is unlawfully present in the United States to knowingly apply for work, solicit work in a public place, or perform work as an employee or independent contractor"
"...it is illegal to transport an illegal alien if they know or recklessly disregard this law"
"it is illegal to conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any building or means of transportation..."
"...an employer shall not knowingly employ an illegal immigrant, and shall keep records of all immigrant workers status for a period of 3 years through the federal e-verify program..."
The bill also contains a very narrow definition of entrapment on the part of law enforcement agencies, especially if the employer is "predisposed to hire such labor." It establishes strict fines, criminal penalties, and allows for the confiscation of motor vehicles in the case of blatant disregard for the laws. It also allows people to sue their local or state government agencies if they believe the immigration laws are not being enforced.
Will this lead to massive sweeps of known places immigrants congregate, especially where they have been known to look for work? Yes. Will this result in some citizens being forced to show proof of citizenship merely as a result of their appearance or heritage (racial profiling)? Yes. Will it require everyone be able to provide proof of citizenship on demand of any law enforcement agent, even if they are not presently involved in criminal activity? Yes.
And so you would expect a bleeding heart liberal such as myself to be screaming bigotry and fervently against such a bill. Better sit down...I cannot. Yes, in Arizona,this bill will severely effect Hispanics. If passed elsewhere, in Florida it will effect Haitians, in New York, it will effect Puerto Ricans,and on and on.
The bottom line is, this is a great country, and if you want to enjoy immigrant status here, carrying papers to prove you are here illegally is not to much to ask. If you are an employer who frequently hires illegal immigrants, you should be held to the law. I am not crazy about law enforcement agents in sting operations trying to catch you, but the courts will protect you from overt entrapment.
This is merely a drastic step to protect its citizens from the unfortunate situations on our Mexican border....illegal drug smuggling, illegal immigrant smuggling, Mexican criminals seeking refuge here in the United States, illegal immigrants here to commit crimes in the United States, and illegal gun and weapon smuggling in the United States. Carried out correctly, this will be a small thing. Will law enforcement take this way too far? Possibly, but if enforced judiciously and to the letter of the law, it will be yet another tool to protect our borders and weed out the criminals in our society here illegally. I am holding my nose slightly, and I am biting my liberal, card carrying ACLU bent somewhat, but I am 60-40 in favor of this bill. Good Lord help me....but I am siding with the GOP on this one....and praying I will not hear stories of massive abuse of this law by bigoted law enforcement agencies.

2 comments:

Papa Giorgio said...

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Study Population of an incarcerated group of illegal aliens -- 55,322 = 700,000 criminal offenses:

24% were drug offenses;
21% were immigration offenses;
15% were property related offenses such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage;
12% were murder.

Arrests were made mostly in three states:

California - 58%
Texas - 14%
Arizona - 8%

Out of this group you had an average number of 13 criminal offenses per illegal alien, a median number of 10.


I do not know how this stands up to a similar swath of non-illegal immigrants, but this is a large swath of crime exhumed if the police are able to ask -- Russian, a Lithuanian, a Peruvian, a Mexican, a Britain, a Hatian, a Puerto Rican, a Venezuelan, a Syrian, a Saudi -- if they are here legally or if their visa has expired... or if they have crossed the border somehow without documentation.

This allows law enforcement to do their job Kimba, it just so happens that most of the crimes committed in these three states are a high % by illegal aliens, and a good portion of them are comprised of Mexicans. The left likes to make the case that law enforcement is racist all the time... using the disproportionate amount of blacks in jail versus the population percentages of whites and blacks. But as Larry Elder pointed out in 2000, the numbers speak for themselves:

In one recent year, the FBI recorded 1.7 million violent acts -- murder, manslaughter, rape, and aggravated assault -- of interracial crime. Of that figure, nearly 1.2 million involved black-white crime. Ninety percent of these cases involved a black perpetrator and a white victim. Thus, blacks, while comprising 12 percent of the population, committed over one million acts of violent crime against whites. On the other hand, whites, while comprising 70 percent of the population, committed about 100,000 acts of violent crime against blacks.

To label law enforcement the tools to protect my family (since we live right above one of the worst crime infected areas of the SCV) as racist (not you Kimba, but other ACLU "members"), is dangerous. May I add here that we need to press businesses, by enforcing current laws or legislating new ones, to ask these same questions by getting fined if they hire people who have expired visas and/or fully illegal persons. Businesses should do what is right as well.

I applaud your honesty in this fight Kimba, and, I suspect... if you knew the kinds of cases fought for by the ACLU, you would tear up that card.

Much thought and good post Kimba,

PapaG

PS - Whenever you are up to a French press at my place... holler. A French press, by the way, is a way to make coffee... just to make clear to the most guttural visitors that grace this site.

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Kim said...

Thanks, Papa.
As you know I work in an industry subject to large amounts of "casual" laborers available to my customers....and they do get picked up by passers by to perform various jobs, always paid with cash "under the table." Needless to say, this is asking for trouble...you never know who you are letting into your house.

On less "pressing" issues...although I do drink drip coffee at work, my pressure pot (or french press) is the way I brew coffee at home (and always goes camping with me). You can control the temperature of the water and the steeping time, which makes a huge difference, not to mention the remaining coffee does not sit on a burner.
Of course I grind the beans just before I make a pot. I prefer Trader Joes Java blend or Starbucks French or Italian roasts...but on occasion I will save money and buy Vons beans and they are just fine as well. But almost never do I drink flavored coffees.