Arizona's "papers please" law inspires frijoles-swastikas

Anonymous

I don’t have alien registration papers. I don’t carry anything but a driver’s license. But that doesn’t prove anything WRT citizenship. It would be difficult for me to prove my citizenship status if I were to find myself in Arizona, because I don’t carry a bloody passport when I’m in the US.

glaborous immolate

If someone spray paints a swastika on a synagogue, doesn’t it usually mean that the painters are hateful nazis who hate the people who run the synagogue?

Isn’t it interesting that opponents of laws against illegal immigration would smear swastikas on the buildings of their opponents. Why does it mean the opposite?

anacecitux

Considering that this law was made to “stop drugdealing”, this law will totally fail. Think about it, must drugdealers have enough money to buy the best fake IDs they can. So, who’s gonna end up in jail? The people who take care of your kids, clean up your messes and pick up your harvests. Didn’t anyone think of this?

Anonymous

Fun thought experiment..
how Do I know the arresting officer is a legal us citizen?

greengestalt

This will doubtless be an unpopular opinion here, but I think laws like this are necessary, though I have better solutions.

Simply put, ditch the “Race Card” and let’s go to the root of this “Illegal Immigration” issue: Economic Class War.

The “Rich Elite” have been in open war with us since the 50s prosperity era. A penny at a time they’ve been taking back “Their” money, and buying up the media to create fake “Left/Right” debate over it.

When it suits their purposes at the time, Capitalists will argue “The law of supply and demand”. This is proof of that, for illegal labor combined with tariff and trade barrier free (even subsidized) “Outsourcing” of manufacturing and skilled technical labor is what is crushing this country’s economy.

How can a man bargain his labor when not just one illegal immigrant, but his whole family will do it for half his minimum wage? How can a man keep his job at a shoe factory when overseas a 6 year old girl chained to a post in a factory that could catch fire any day can much cheaper sew the $200 ‘sports’ shoes? How can a skilled engineer compete when a foreign firm offers to do the job at less than half what he could possibly bid for the time/labor?

And, last but not least, how can any holdout “Made in the USA” firms compete when the companies that outsource can LEGALLY have it “Made in China” but have the “Made in the USA” label put on in a sweatshop just outside the USA?

The answer is they can’t. We’ve had our wages shorted and prices raised. We can’t bargain our labor, and because of the government bailing out companies, even ‘boycotts’ do not work.

One of the quickest ways to turn this around is not so much a fence or profiling but to target employers who hire illegals. Just check randomly and often, focusing on agriculture and low-wage jobs. Then throw the book at them. Also shut down the “Tariff/Trade Barrier” freedom these “Outsourcing” companies have.

All they are doing is punching a hole in a dam to power a small waterwheel for “Free” power. This costs 9 parts of energy to the real generator for every 1 made and threatens to destroy the structure. It should be treated as fraud, if not treason.

And the worst of it is that they themselves use the “Race Card” to hide behind. They want to set one group of people against another, so they keep fighting and don’t realize who is really robbing them. “Divide and Conquer” is the controllers long term strategy. The Bretons conquered the UK by setting one tribe, one kingdom against another. Later they did the same in the Americas, and they used Africans to help capture and sell other Africans in the slave trade. As that empire faded, replaced by the American one and the “Globalist” one, these tactics were re-used and refined.

But race is not an issue, save a surface. The real goal is to take what little standard of living that we thought we were entitled to, so that every person is a scared, starving slave to elites who think they are kings and gods.

We need to pass laws like this, and failing that we need local pressure. Let the Supreme Court and ACLU get them struck down, we can pass them faster than they can take them down. And in the case of “State Defiance”, the government wouldn’t be able to “Force” anything as long as it wasn’t open armed rebellion. Such as the “national ID card” which even Dubya’s team wimped away from when some states refused.

And if the states refuse, we the people need to take action. I won’t suggest or talk about anything “extralegal” over the net. I don’t have to. Besides, lots of cool “Legal” stuff we can do, not the least of which is the “Jury Nullification” protest.

1. Make any crime committed against an illegal “Nullification” bait. If they weren’t in this country illegally, they could not be victims of crimes. The exception is to be those that employ them and crimes they commit against them.

2. Target “Coward Cops” who refuse to go after illegals but are so brave when they give you a ticket cause you couldn’t afford to replace that light till payday. Post notices (via your local Vigilante/citizen’s group) that they are “Coward Cops” and subject to “Nullification” of any crime they have a hand in busting (except illegal immigration) or any crime committed against them, just in case they accidentally encounter a “Deadly fugitive” when stopping someone for a “Fine” job of “Justice by Points”.

3. Find and target those that employ illegals. Describe them as “Traitor” as you post their faces all over the city. “Traitor and thief” as they help drain the country’s money into pennies for the starving and giant bags of money for themselves. Declare that they are unworthy of any help from the law (again jury nullification argument) because they steal from our society and so do not fairly own their property.

A few incidents, like a “Throw self in front of a car to sue owner” getting crutches and a ticket home. A sicko keeping prisoners in a “Dungeon” as long as he caught, but didn’t ‘buy’ them. An employer getting a “Postal Service Job Complaint” that is deemed “not guilty” because he replaced a guy with an illegal…

A few incidents like that, the states will start taking action and SCRUB the towns of illegals and go hard on those that employ them. They do things like this, as Saul Alinsky pointed out, because they “Lose their power” in any event if they have to scream for “Big Brother” to come in and help them.

Thalia

Your method will just make the money flow that much faster from the tax dollars collected from “us” to the lawyers who are clearly “them.” Passing unconstitutional laws is not the answer.

Want a better one? BUY from American companies. Refuse to go to restaurants that don’t hire American dishwashers. Bus your own damn table. The only voice anyone will notice is when you vote with your feet or with your dollars.

Your paranoid rantings are amusing but kind of ridiculous.
- greengestalt
  
  It’s totally constitutional for:
  
  1. Cops to go into any place of business and “Check the Books”. That’s legal everywhere.
  
  2. People to go on Jury Duty and “Nullify”.
  
  Furthermore, the saturation has reached near critical mass. You can certainly buy “Made in the USA” and most of the time, it’s made in China and the label is put on just outside the USA. Furthermore, the saturation of illegal workers is critical.
  
  We need mainly to enforce existing laws, such as #1 and then also end tax breaks and subsidies and impose tariffs. Right now, the elites have too much influence on government. So, the disruption caused by #2 (and other actions) will force the authorities to tighten up.
  
  Furthermore, I’m sick already of your personal attack on me. I’m “Left wing” if anything, though IMO the “Left/Right” is a conspiracy of “Divide and Conquer”. But I want to be able to say “I can do this job and I want this much money” rather than beg for ‘charity’ of having the work because of the illegals inside and the ‘outsourced’ jobs outside.
MertvayaRuka

1. Make any crime committed against an illegal “Nullification” bait. If they weren’t in this country illegally, they could not be victims of crimes. The exception is to be those that employ them and crimes they commit against them.

Right. I guess whatever happens to them, they were asking for it by being here. Amazing how you’ll talk about how the elites are setting us to fighting each other out of one side of your mouth and out the other side you’ll start talking about how other human beings don’t deserve the same legal protections as the rest of us because they’re violating boundaries set by those same elites.

People don’t stop being people because they break the law and trying to set that up for a group of people you don’t happen to belong to at the moment is exactly the kind of thing the elites you supposedly disdain so much love to have handed to them on a silver platter. But the way you keep blathering on about “the race card”, I suspect you’re one of those folks who wants the government off his back so it can get on the backs of those you think deserve it.

Anonymous

This law seems like it will only promote racism and will probably do little to prevent illegal immigration. If the government really wants to stop illegal immigration, they should impose huge fines on employers who hire them. This law just picks on the little guy who has no power to fight back.

Mark Gordon

For native-born US citizens, “papers” pretty much means “passport,” since drivers’ licenses generally don’t prove citizenship. Effectively, US citizens now need passports to visit Arizona. For US citizens without passports who live in Arizona, it’s a suspension of habeas corpus.

There’s another aspect to this that I haven’t seen widely discussed. Given that the Arizona legislature is also working on a “birther bill” that would allow the Secretary of State to leave candidates off the Presidential ballot based on skepticism over Hawaiian-issued birth certificates and the like, there’s clearly some risk that President Obama would be arrested for being “undocumented” if he were to visit Arizona. I’m sure that more than a few police officers down there believe he was born in Kenya and was never naturalized, or that he effectively renounced his citizenship while living in Indonesia. Moreover, agencies that decline to arrest him would be exposed to birther lawsuits.

CrazyMohawk

I think its FUNNY how everyone likes to complain about the enforcement of immigration laws, and then turn around and gripe about the lack of jobs and decent health care in the US. The mass number of freeloaders in the country directly results in higher health care costs, let alone all the illegalâ€™s are making money under the table for bottom of the barrel rates and just sending it off to their families in whatever country they came from. You donâ€™t think they are using healthcare systems provided for legitimate US citizens? Look at the Medicare and Medicaid systems and tell me that there arenâ€™t thousands of non-citizens that are exploiting the AMERICAN tax system to get free care. You donâ€™t think youâ€™re paying for their kids? Look at how those programs are provisioned for â€¦. ITâ€™S YOUR TAX DOLLARSâ€¦
Personally I think that the host nations of illegalâ€™s that come to the US should have to be taxed and have tariffs placed on them until they eliminate the problem on their end, and any illegal that gets deported should cost their government for all of the stolen healthcare that comes from our tax dollars.
And to all of you who complain that they just being people and trying to live in a better place, well there is a system in place for them to become legitimate citizens, itâ€™s called pass the citizenship test, join the military, or get the heck out. Most other countries of the world donâ€™t even offer the chance to become a citizen so why let them exploit us?

Anonymous

i’m not worried about me because i am a light-skinned mexican. i AM worried about my relatives who are dark-skinned. even though they are citizens they are likely to be combative if they were ever pulled over for “driving while brown”. i have relatives who were in the brown berets. i have relatives who worked for chicano civil rights and i have relatives who STILL drive out to the desert to leave water and provisions for illegals crossing into arizona. it’s bad enough with the minutemen out there shooting anything that looks brown, now we have this completely asshole law that’s only going to make legal dark-skinned people really really fucking mad when they’re asked for their papers. i don’t forsee things going down well at all. for anyone.

ill lich

I’m tired of all the “Nazi”-sh!t. I disliked comparing Bush to Hitler, and now I dislike it for Obama. The law is stupid, and will eventually get struck down when enough innocent Latinos (or any dark skinned person, be they Indian or Turk or George Hamilton) gets pulled over and harassed.

This is really more “Know-Nothing Party” than Nazi.

Anonymous

“First, they came for the Communists, but I wasn’t a Communist, so I didn’t say anything. Then they came for the Jews, but I’m not a Jew, I didn’t say anything. Then they came for the Catholics, but I’m a Protestant. Then when they came for me, there was nobody to speak.”

Anonymous

Wait, are you saying you were the only protestant?

SamSam

I believe that the only way to get this kind of thinking reversed is to have a few high-profile cases showing how ridiculous it is.

Can we get some fairly-well-known (legal) Hispanic celebrities to wander around Phoenix without papers (as it is their legal right to do) until they get arrested?

Or, perhaps with the help of some Hispanic officers in the police force, can we have a large spate of arresting legal Canadian immigrants and tourists?

Ooh ooh, arrest a few Jewish tourists as well. That might start triggering a couple of neurons in people’s brains.

Am I correct in my assumption that the police are required to stop tourists and arrest them if they don’t have papers? Or does that only apply to brown people?

ripley

Studies by INS, the Pew Hispanic Center, and sociologist Douglas Massey all find that between 41-45% of illegal immigrants are â€œvisa overstayersâ€ from more than 2 dozen countries including Canada, England, and Australia. And most of these overstayers are college students. If SB 1070 was really about counteracting illegal immigration, then will white Canadians wearing college logo sweatshirts be profiled?

(I’m quoting Minh-ha Pham http://erstwhilethreads.wordpress.com/ commenting on an article about “clothes profiling” http://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/foucault-was-right-gop-rep-targets-illegals-via-dress/#
by Mimi Nguyen)

Anonymous

I say that Arizona should ‘fix’ its busted economy by building interment camps for every non-white person they see in their state. Toss in all the brown people in (Middle Easterners, Indians, Pacific Islanders included), the Asians, the Jews, the blacks – hell while they are at it, toss in the gays, those who are pro choice, atheists, mouth-breathers, those who did’nt vote for McCain, the cardinals football organization because they stink… anyone who thinks different! Lock them up and Arizona’s problems will all be solved!!! FREEDOM is just a police state away!!! HEIL JAN BREWER!!!!!

Anonymous

without reading too much into the law – I could be wrong. But I’m never setting foot or passing through arizona ever again, even if they repeal it, who knows what else the same kind of people could come up with. I consider it a very possible danger being there. the law doesn’t just cover illegals as people like to say, it is whoever doesn’t at this exact moment in time have all the documentation of who they are on them. I’m white as bleach, but from another country and here on a very legal work visa, but I don’t really feel like I should have all of my documentation on me every time I go outside. what the hell, maybe I want to go to the store in my t-shirt and shorts and not carry a bunch of papers, apparently that would make me a criminal now. my papers cover more than just one card, so I have a bundle I would now have to have on me at all times – I only bring it into work on my first day to show HR and then its back in a folder at home. count me out, sometimes I forget my keys, I’d be in jail in Arizona.

not to mention the fun you could have if you were a cop or knew one, just wait until your noisy neighbor is out for a jog and have the cops nab him – 24 hours in jail unless you stick all your papers in your spandex jogging shorts. if i was a cop there, i would be arresting white people for this faster than you could point at them.

dealing with illegals, sure, but this law covers a WHOLE LOT more than that.

anyhoo, been there once and didn’t really want to see it again anyways.

Cydonia

I remember Stephen Colbert talking about the new laws.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/281867/april-21-2010/the-word—no-problemo

bardfinn

The problems with the law include

A: Cops now have to spend time and resources investigating the citizenship status of actual citizens, rather than investigating and arresting and prosecuting thieves, pedophiles, murderers, etcetera;

B: Cops now have to spend time and resources investigating the citizenship status of actual citizens;

C: Cops now have to spend time and resources investigating the citizenship status of actual citizens who aren’t White Protestant English-speaking Middle-class-or-better.

The law in question makes the basis for the investigation a “reasonable suspicion”, but is not supposed to be solely on the basis of race, or colour of skin, or nationality, or ability to speak English.

Well, shit, son – who the hell suspects that a White Protestant English-speaking Middle-class-or-better person, with a wallet and a credit card in it, is an illegal immigrant? They /got/ the “American Dream”.

This brown fellow, though, who speaks only imperfect, accented English, and is wearing dirty, worn clothes and is driving a car held together by bumper stickers – ?

I’ve been driving in my NDN KAR with pound of the wheels drumming in my brain
the dash is dusty, the plates are expired – please mr. officer, let me explain
I got to make it to a pow-wow tonight, I’ll be singin’ 49, down by the riverside
lookin’ for sugar, drivin’ in my NDN KAR

Got my t-bird in the glove box, I ain’t got no spare
got a feather from an eagle, I ain’t got no care
the road is emptyin’ my bottle of desire, daylight is breakin’, sun touches fire
I got to make another pow-wow tonight, I’ll be singin’ 49, down by the riverside
lookin for sugar, drivin’ in my NDN KAR

My car is dented, the radiator steams, one headlight don’t work, the radio can scream
I got a sticker that says “ndn pwr”, I stuck it on my bumper – it’s what holds my car together
We’re on a circuit of an Indian dream, we don’t get old, we just get younger
When we’re flying down the highway, riding in our NDN KARS

– Keith Secola, NDN KARS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVQBXjEktS8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_Indian_reservations_in_Arizona

Anonymous

I don’t get it.
If people oppose these measures, why would they paint a Nazi symbol? That’s pretty much an instant argument killer. Yeah, it looks Nazi, but don’t give Glenn Beck fodder to call your cause Nazi/Fascist/Communist

Thalia

Yelling Racism shouldn’t preclude discussion of enforcing immigration laws. But the Constitution should preclude people from being differently treated based on the color of their skin. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution applies to all people. Reread the 14th Amendment, and you will see that it addresses the right of citizens to vote, and the right of all people to have the equal protection of the laws. This distinction is not accidental.

an0nymous

I do not disagree.

MrsBug

Salon has an interesting article here on why it’s unconstitutional..

So, first we have DWB – driving while black, and now we’ll have WWB – walking while brown. Nice, Arizona. Nice. The Salon article mentions that 30% of Arizona’s population is Hispanic.

funkyderek

If 30% of the state’s population is Hispanic, then the police would necessarily have to use other criteria to find the illegal ones. It makes no sense to stop a third of the population in the hope of finding a tiny number of illegals.

SamSam

Look at the Medicare and Medicaid systems and tell me that there arenâ€™t thousands of non-citizens that are exploiting the AMERICAN tax system to get free care. You donâ€™t think youâ€™re paying for their kids? Look at how those programs are provisioned for â€¦. ITâ€™S YOUR TAX DOLLARSâ€¦

I hate to break it to you, CrazyMohawk, but the majority of illegal immigrants pay taxes, including Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes.

“The Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare.”

Links: USA Today, Reason.org, MSNBC, NY Times

Also, they frequently pay more in taxes than they get out of them, because of restrictions on who may have access to services. From the above first article:

“The impact on Social Security is significant, though, because most of that money is never claimed by the people who pay it but instead helps cover retirement checks to legal workers.”

So, CrazyMohawk, it’s actually the illegals that are paying your social security, not the other way around.

Cowicide

Oh, snap….!

anacecitux

Being Mexican and all, I should be against this law. Still, I couldn’t care less. You know why? Because it’s a law on a country that is not mine and therefore the government in the US is free to do as they please. If here in Mexico we enacted some law to stop central american immigration, nobody could really say anything because it’s our choice.

Still, I think most of you aren’t seeing the big picture. Our Dumbass President Vicente Fox made a few years ago a remark saying that mexican immigrants took care of work not even black people wanted to do. There was this huge uproar saying was racist and stuff. The thing is, he wasn’t wrong at all. His remark was quite rude and dumb, but he wasn’t lying. The truth is Mexican immigrants do jobs nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to do work picking up harvest and cleaning out toilets because “they are too qualified”, “its too little money” or ” its below me”. You know why mexicans are willing to work for little money? Because 1 dollar is equivalent to 13 pesos and 13 pesos on this side of the border can put food on your family’s table. What mexicans make on crappy works in 1 day is what most of them would make on a month. That sucky things are on this side.

Still I don’t blame Americans for wanting to close the border. We need to do some serious cleaning on this side and we shouldn’t expect the US to help us all the time.

Anonymous

I have to present my papers upon request. I’m an american citizen. Why should criminals be exempt from this requirement?
I also had to prove my legal status upon employment.
I still say go after the employers though, don’t go after the individuals, it’s just not effective. 1m fine per illegal employee, no excuses. Start with an audit of the domestic help for all federal senators and reps, once you’re done there move on to the states. Should be good clean fun, and it will make a nice dent in the budget.

SamSam

I have to present my papers upon request.

Bullsh*t. Unless you live in Arizona, you do not have to show any papers to a police officer “upon request,” and you are not required to carry papers on you.

The only time you are required to show “papers” are if you are doing something that requires a license, such as showing a driver’s license when you are driving a car, or some proof of age when you are drinking in a bar.

Outside of these times, there is no case where you are required by law to carry “papers.”
- Scixual
  
  When I was a kid a cop almost arrested me (or rather, thinking back, tried to scare me) for “vagrancy,” citing the fact that I had neither money nor ID on my person at the time.
  
  I tell this not to disagree with you, but to point out why we Americans might have that idea.

Anonymous

We can thank Obama for this, albeit indirectly. He took away our Democratic governor, stuck her in the position of Homeboy Security. With that, we somehow ended up with a Republican governor, which means it’s Republicans, all the way down.

As a result, we have a state with a huge hole of a deficit, and all we can do is pass laws on carrying concealed weapons, and pulling over brown people. Meanwhile, we’re on the verge of shutting down state parks (when tourism is a major moneymaker for the state), we’re so broke.

The R’s are on a rampage, pushing through every bit of nonsense legislation they can, fiddling while Rome burns. I suppose they figure that’s what the voting base wants, so they’re giving it to them so long as they’re in control.

Anonymous

Even seperate from the obvious moral and ethical issues, it’s a very poorly written law. I wouldn’t want to be a cop in Arizona. The police are going to be damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The very first time an american citizen or legal resident gets picked up under this, there’s going to be hell to pay. And it won’t be the legislature who will be getting sued into the ground or fired because of it.

Cowicide

As someone who relatively recently lived in AZ and in the short time I lived there I had my car stolen by a mexican criminal who was there illegally and in another state was nearly killed and left for dead by a Mexican gang which I’m still trying to recover from to this day… I can say that I understand the frustration of some of the populace of AZ.

That said, this new law is draconian and spawned by fear (or worse, hate) instead of reason. There are much smarter, long term actions that could improve the situation… but I don’t expect that from conservatives.

Stop the drug war? No way, that would empower the drug lords… er, what? Make the legal immigration process easier? No way, can’t have a bunch of documented workers that we can properly tax and help keep track of criminals, etc.

Conservatives in power often seem to utilize fear and hatred to energize the populace and end up making everything worse by enacting brainless, knee-jerk policies. I wish the public would start thinking beyond their lizard brain and do some cross-refenced research on the matters instead of being driven by FEAR.

Irrational, fear based legislation…. what could possibly go wrong?

P.S. Hispanic protesters? Quit carrying and waving around the Mexican flag at protests. I don’t have a problem with it at all myself, but it creates a visceral bad response and causes many fence-sitters to jump off your side. It’s fanning flames and it’s counterproductive for you, believe me. Itâ€™s poor strategy. Stop it.

Connor Anderson

Xeni, I understand that you’ve been getting mauled with lots of racist stuff lately, but the cops aren’t the gestapo and that kind of language is beneath you and not very helpful.

I work with loads of law enforcement agencies and I can tell you that there are lots of cops up and down the chain of command who find this entire thing distasteful and wrong. But they don’t get to chose which laws to enforce.

Let’s try to back off on the rhetoric a bit and concentrate on the real problems: craven politicians who make awful laws.

Anonymous

Per Wiki;

The Nuremberg Defense is a legal defense that essentially states that the defendant was “only following orders” (“Befehl ist Befehl”, literally “order is order”) and is therefore not responsible for his or her crimes. The defense was most famously employed during the Nuremberg Trials, after which it is named.
Antinous / Moderator

But they don’t get to chose which laws to enforce.

Of course they do. They can refuse. They can get their union to strike. They can resign. They can have ethics and morals. Or they can say that they were just following orders.

Oh, look. We’ve come full circle.
Anonymous

Connor – Actually yes those cops DO get to choose which laws they will
enforce. Its real simple. All they have to do is never use that law to
ask people for their “proof of citizenship”.

You see, its the same choice the people who ran the gas chambers during
WWII had. Don’t like the rule? OK- refuse to help enforce it.

“But they will lose their jobs!” You whine in response.

Too effing bad. Its their choice. No one is holding a gun to their heads
making them enforce a bad law. If they disagree with it they should not
enforce it. Its that simple.

When you decide to let your personal morality/ethics guide your
decisions and behavior its called personal integrity.

Its not easy. Its not supposed to be easy. Its supposed to be “doing the
right thing”, even if it means losing your job.

So Conner, yes, any Cop or police officer who enforces this rule is
being a “Nazi” – “just following orders” – just like the people who
were prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials for having assisted in the
pre-meditated murder of thousands of helpless non-combatants whose
defense was “I was just following orders….”

Connor – Make no mistake, anyone who follows order to do something thats
wrong is ethically and morally no different from those Nazis.

Anonymous

Papiere, Bitte

arkizzle / Moderator

“And in my book, Invoking Nazi imagery doesn’t bode well for the authors credibility.”

I dare say the imagery was invoked by the swastikas.

SamSam

For those who think that this law is just fine: when the police ask a person who looks immigrant-ish for their papers, and that person says that he is a citizen and doesn’t need papers, do you believe that the cops should have the powers to bring the person downtown?

Do you not see how this 1) is a violation of habeas corpus (no evidence of a crime having been committed), and 2) allows the cops to bring every single legal Mexican-looking citizen downtown, since none of them will have (or will be required to have) papers?

Gamera

One thing that’s getting overlooked here is this: refried beans are good. Its a shame those got all smeared on that window.

AllisonWunderland

Current law enforcement efforts to arrest/deport illegal aliens have reduced the homicide rate in Mexican border states by 50%.

I want to see “papers” checked for getting a drivers license, rental of housing, opening bank accounts, sending remittances abroad, getting a library card or gaining access to any other public facilities (parks, swimming pools).

When it’s no longer feasible to live in the USA as an illegal alien, then maybe they’ll stop being motivated to move across the border.

The indignant position that somehow these people are being “oppressed” is specious. These people are unlawfully in the USA. Just because they have “jobs” doesn’t make them “respectable.” They’re ILLEGAL ALIENS.

grimc

Current law enforcement efforts to arrest/deport illegal aliens have reduced the homicide rate in Mexican border states by 50%.

Citation, please.

And the people being oppressed here are American citizens. Or do you think being brown in America means you should be subject to special laws?

Kerov

Time to start affecting a heavy accent every time I encounter an Arizona law enforcement officer.

Also, for all those apologists saying “don’t blame the police for this, they’re just doing their job”, I counter with a quote from one of America’s most distinguished philosophers: “Calling it your job don’t make it right.”

MertvayaRuka

I think the people offended at the “Gestapo” thing need to understand that the Gestapo weren’t some sort of uniquely-German supernatural monsters that only existed in the first half of the 20th century. They were average, ordinary, perfectly human monsters. They didn’t think they were evil. They didn’t think they were “the bad guys”. They thought they were doing what was right and they had the backing of Law and Government telling them that they were right. I don’t know, maybe people believe that every single one of the the Nazis were these slavering Mr. Hyde caricatures just because some of the more notable ones really were truly monstrous. But the reality is, they had families and lives and homes and hobbies and all that other crap just like everybody else here. The ONLY difference between them and you is that they were convinced to support something monstrous because that monstrous thing was sold to them as being right, just and necessary. That’s all that was needed; the majority finding comfort in its own numbers. Just like now.

Cowicide, not being a Hispanic protester myself, I’d imagine that anyone who’s going to jump ship on them because of a piece of cloth is probably not someone they want on their side anyway. As far as the people who have a visceral bad response, they’re probably the ones who think Mexicans all carry leprosy and MDR tuberculosis that they spread while dealing drugs to the pure white children they rape before driving away drunk to go steal jobs from hardworking Americans. They don’t need to see a flag waving to act stupid or get ignorantly outraged.

robulus

They didn’t think they were evil.

Oh yeah?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEle_DLDg9Y
Cowicide

I’d imagine that anyone who’s going to jump ship on them because of a piece of cloth is probably not someone they want on their side anyway.

Everybody can vote whether you like them or not. In this case, it’s best to get as many people on your side as possible or you end up… well, you end up in the situation we’re in right now with republicans in power in AZ.

As far as the people who have a visceral bad response, they’re probably the ones who think Mexicans all carry leprosy and MDR tuberculosis that they spread while dealing drugs to the pure white children they rape before driving away drunk to go steal jobs from hardworking Americans. They don’t need to see a flag waving to act stupid or get ignorantly outraged.

Or… ah………… just the ones sitting on the fence but who see wagging Mexican flags as a sign that these protesters don’t want to assimilate into American culture or what have you.

Once again, I think by marching with Mexican flags they are accidently playing right into ignorant people’s fears and reinforcing the negative lies being pumped to them by the right wing media.

I consume right wing media almost as much as I consume legitimate new sources, so I know what line of horseshit they are pumping out. And, trust me, marching with Mexican flags only plays into and reinforces their horseshit.

It doesn’t help their cause, it hurts it.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  just the ones sitting on the fence but who see wagging Mexican flags as a sign that these protesters don’t want to assimilate into American culture or what have you.
  
  Some of us remember the Alamo. But with a slightly different viewpoint on its significance.
- MertvayaRuka
  
  Cowicide, I just don’t know what good coddling the ignorant will do them. If you consume that might right wing media, you know they don’t really NEED reinforcement, the bullshit reinforces itself. ie. the “violent SEIU thug who bit off a guy’s finger” story that neglects the part about the finger being in the guy’s mouth because he got punched in the mouth by the guy he bit. All those Mexican flags could disappear tomorrow, and the response would likely be “See? NOW they’re trying to conceal their desire for RECONQUISTA!”. That kind of bigotry is a self-reinforcing delusion, where the absence of evidence of guilt BECOMES evidence of guilt. What’s hurting their cause isn’t flags, it’s multi-million dollar media enterprises ascribing sinister connotations to those flags and lending legitimacy to the idea of “invasions” that have only ever existed in the minds of white supremacists. It’s Lou Dobbs going on CNN and claiming that leprosy cases have spiked by 1000%. It’s sensationalistic coverage of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants as if that’s the only crime that happens anymore. All of this and worse are capable of existing independent of the presence of Mexican flags at protests. What’s next? Should we demand they only speak English at their rallies so they can prove to us nervous white folks that they really do intend to assimilate? How many other conditions should we set before the idea of supporting them is no longer uncomfortable?

ADavies

Yeah, word that.

Should we all have to carry, “papers”? Or should it only be people with brown skin? Or maybe, just maybe, we all should be presumed innocent.

MertvayaRuka

Allison, none of which would address the American companies that employ and exploit undocumented immigrants. All that would do is make it even easier for them to be exploited without recourse since they’d be almost entirely dependent on their American employers for everything, for fear of being discovered and deported. That’s all this kind of bullshit law does; it punishes the workers and does nothing to the people who hire them and treat them like subhuman garbage. This is just a sop to the people who associate brown skin with crime and, whether they’re citizens or not, want them to endure further harassment from law enforcement.

Also, I’m pretty sure you just pulled that 50% figure out of your ass.

allen

Honestly, my objection to this seems like one that should resonate with the tea party. I grew up in the 80s, hearing horror stories about how bad life was “behind the iron curtain”. One of the themes that figured into almost every story was that the citizens lived in fear, and had to bring papers with them wherever they went, and would often be checked to make sure that they were in compliance. As a kid, what really registered about this was how dehumanizing and miserable this existence would be.

I don’t know if these stories were accurate or not, but I do know that I don’t want to live in a country that resembles the horror stories that we told ourselves about the soviet union. And yet, here we are, mandating that latin americans must be guilty until proven innocent, and must keep papers with them at all times when they go out in public. This just seems patently unamerican to me.

I agree with a previous poster that said that the burden of citizenship enforcement should be on employers, banks, and landlords. It already IS with employers, and I am genuinely at a loss to understand why we are throwing out habeas corpus and the assumption that you are innocent until proven guilty before we try to enforce perfectly constitutional laws that we already have in place.

yvgeny

Just saw a recent documentary (http://9500liberty.com) about this very same type of law which was defeated in Virginia. All those who advocate this as a part of “rational” immigration policy would benefit from learning all of the myths propagated about the supposed costs and liabilities of uncontrolled immigration. Basic assumptions are made about people just because they are deemed illegal. But empirical data rarely supports these notions of how much “illegals” are putting a strain on this country or indeed any country.

Antinous / Moderator

But I agree the leap to a form of Godwin’s law rather undermined a good post.

Fascinating. Complaining about language referencing Nazis in a post about a swastika.

The first rule of Ignoring Fascism Club is…

SKR

I just want to remind everyone that Sheriff Arpaio is the same douchebag that got into a battle with a judge in the county over Deputies stealing legal documents from a defense attorney in open court. It was all on video tape.

Notary Sojac

“gestapo officers”…. Is this the fastest reductio ad Hitlerum in BB history?

For what it’s worth I agree this is not the best way to deal with illegal immigration. I would much rather go after their employers with a legal sledge hammer.

But the immediate hysteria is really amusing.

EarthtoGeoff

I heard on NPR that 30% of the population is hispanic, indeed. But when you take away the illegal immigrants and the people who are too young to vote, you are left with 17% of the population. Just throwing that out there.

Gadf1y

Posters here seem not to have read the law. It doesnâ€™t allow officers to stop people in the street: â€œFor any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official â€¦â€ â€” that is, a detention on other grounds, such as a traffic stop. Moreover, it specifically forbids police from asking for identification on the basis of race. This wonâ€™t work, but itâ€™s wrong to say that the bill is about race. Also, incidentally, a driverâ€™s license is specifically named as an acceptable proof of legal residence.

Still, the portion of the law being discussed here seems likely to be overturned. What is â€œreasonable suspicionâ€? Salon: â€œWhen asked what other factors [than race] an officer might use to single out an unlawful resident, Brewer replied, “We have to trust our law enforcement.â€™â€ In other words, whatever anyone wants, which is too vague for a law. Even Marco Rubio sees that: http://tinyurl.com/23y92uh .

SoI doubt that part of the bill will be enforced for so much as a day before the courts get rid of it. Gov. Brewer, incidentally, feels the same way. Newsweek: Asked about legal challenges, she said, â€œWell, you know, it’s probably going to survive, I think, i-i-in most areas.â€ Not very courageous of her to sign a bill that she believed to be unconstitutional â€” but, anyhow, there it is.

Seventy percent of Arizonans supported this bill, and that includes some latinos. Instead of assuming that all these people are racists who look forward to having a gestapo, why not recognize that they are trying to address a real problem?

I liked the above quote stating that the SSA â€œestimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare.â€ There are some weasel-words if Iâ€™ve ever heard any. I think some people just donâ€™t like the fact that â€” to quote an MSNBC on-screen headline â€” â€œLaw Makes It A Crime To Be Illegal Immigrant.â€

And then there are the Mexican flags. If youâ€™re waving a Mexican flag, then, please â€” go back and enjoy the country youâ€™re so fired up about. A poster states that such people â€œremember the Alamo. But with a slightly different viewpoint on its significance.â€ So theyâ€™re not only obnoxious, but also irredentist? Lovely. Guess what folks â€” â€œIstanbul Was Constantinople.â€ Or would we like to see Europe, for example, existing in a constant state of warfare?

Dear illegal immigrants in Arizona:

â€œWalking While Hispanicâ€ wonâ€™t ever be enforced, because this is America. Also, please stop trivializing the murder of six million people. All most people want is for you to go back home and get in line.

grimc

You don’t seem to have read the law, either.

The only prohibition of racial profiling is when the attorney general receives a complaint that an employer may have illegal immigrant employees. There’s absolutely nothing that “specifically forbids police from asking for identification on the basis of race”. In fact, all that a cop needs is “reasonable suspicion”.

Not only do you not seem to have read the law, you complain about weasel-words despite making claims like “[s]eventy percent of Arizonans supported this bill, and that includes some latinos”, but the poll you didn’t link (Rasmussen) doesn’t break down respondents by race. Or that “lawful contact” restricts cops to asking for papers only when they’re investigating something else, which it most certainly doesn’t.

Reading garbage like the Weekly Standard tends to warp people’s understanding of facts.
SamSam

And then there are the Mexican flags. If youâ€™re waving a Mexican flag, then, please â€” go back and enjoy the country youâ€™re so fired up about.

Wow. Do you make the same “go back to your country” comments when people wave Irish flags on St. Patrick’s Day, or only against Mexicans?

You think moving to America somehow means that you can’t also be proud of your heritage?

ackpht

We have it good here and I think that’s due in large part to the rule of law.

I think people should obey the law.

When people decide that they’re going to ignore one law, I have to wonder what other laws might they choose to ignore.

Antinous / Moderator

I think people should obey the law.

I guess we know what your position would have been on the underground railroad. Do you feel that way about misogynistic laws in Saudi Arabia or the death penalty for being gay in Iran, or does it only apply to magical, super-fantastic, always-right US law?
- ackpht
  
  That would be US law.

slgalt

There are about 120k illegal Canadians in this country. If all the police and other gov officials who are now required or fined to check if they “reasonably suspect” that white people are Canadians, they will have to ask for papers to check if they’re here legally.

If all the Hispanic officers and officials started asking all the white folks for their birth cert to prove they’re not Canadian, this law would be squashed in an instant.

MertvayaRuka

That MUCH, not that might. *facepalm*

Scott Bieser

One minor quibble about the terminology:

It’s the IRS who are the Gestapo. They have been for a long time now.

With passage of Arizona’s new law, their cops become the S.S.

Thank you.

Gamera

I thought FEMA was already the S.S.??? Geez, this is getting confusing.

ifthenwhy

Xeni

You understand the power of language.

Your calling Arizona police officers Nazis? Really? Nazis?

And Isn’t’ that the same kind of hyperbole that allows a Tea Bagger to call Obama a Socialist Tyrant?

And we wonder why we are politically f#@ked in the USA?

Antinous / Moderator

Xeni You understand the power of language. Your calling Arizona police officers Nazis?

Doesn’t it strike you as bitterly ironic that you’re accusing Xeni of abuse of language by misquoting her?
- ifthenwhy
  
  Bitterly ironic?
  
  Nope. Not at all.
  
  Gestapo invokes Nazi’s. As she intended it to.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo
  - Felton
    
    I believe the frijole swastikas are what invoked Nazis.
Felton

Tell you what: We’ll only apply the gestapo comparison to the ones who start asking to see people’s papers based on their ethnicity. Okay?
- Phlip
  
  They would only be following orders.
- ifthenwhy
  
  ‘We’ll only apply the gestapo comparison to the ones who start asking to see people’s papers based on their ethnicity. Okay?”
  
  While reactionary and perhaps a bit lazy, It does seem like a far more reasonable comparison, and is least based on a historical precedent.
  
  But why do that?
  
  Isn’t it easier just to call all cops (IE Government Authority figures) in Arizona Nazis as Xeni implied?
  
  Surefeels better doesn’t it?
  - Felton
    
    I didn’t read the post as Xeni calling all cops in Arizona Nazis. I thought she was saying that they become a kind of gestapo when they start requiring people to carry, and present on demand, papers proving their citizenship, regardless of whether there’s any evidence that they’ve broken any laws.
    - ifthenwhy
      
      ‘I didn’t read the post as Xeni calling all cops in Arizona Nazis. I thought she was saying that they become a kind of gestapo when they start requiring people to carry, and present on demand, papers proving their citizenship, regardless of whether there’s any evidence that they’ve broken any laws.”
      
      Fair enough. Although it does seem to me that your being a little kind in your interpretation? Maybe that’s just me.
      
      After all, I’m pretty damn sure that the law does not specify “brown” people does it?
      
      And in my book, Invoking Nazi imagery doesn’t bode well for the authors credibility.
      
      I will maintain though, that the language in Xeni’s posting is exactly the kind of reactionary language that is making meaningful political exchange increasingly difficult in the USA.
      
      A different topic to be sure, but in my estimation, it’s one worth mentioning.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Dude,
      
      Give it a rest.

thequickbrownfox

Birther madness writ into State law.

Teller

Got no problem with the law. But to shut everyone up, they ought to mix in some Canadian-looking people. In any event, it’ll be a Fed vs States’ rights decision. I do love how most elected officials in Washington are going “Novermber… Hispanic…2012…Hispanic.”

Phlip

First they came for the Latinos

And I said nothing, because I wasn’t Latino

…

Xenu

Similar laws have been struck down elsewhere. Why would this one be any different?

grimc

The political climate and a conservative SCOTUS. The US has upheld racist laws before, no reason to think overturning this one is inevitable.
Steaming Pile

Because this time, if it goes to the Supreme Court, there are four Justices who will automatically, without thinking about it, back the Arizona Nazis. You therefore need to convince all five non-Nazi Justices to vote no. Justice in this case, as in most cases nowadays, literally hangs by a thread.

bolivar13

Arizona happens to be where ~20 or so major league baseball teams hold their spring training. Most of those teams have many latin players who may or may not be citizens.
I’m curious how the teams will react when their players start getting harassed and locked up for looking latin. If baseball teams started pulling out of AZ, the state would stand to lose a lot of revenue.

Grey Devil

No pics of the frijole swastika?

Anonymous

Your kindom, email it to me please.

http://www.towleroad.com/2010/04/watch-refried-bean-swastikas-smeared-on-arizona-state-capitol.html

Anonymous

Anyone who thinks that “it’s already illegal to immigrate without papers” probably doesn’t realize all the good that “illegals” do for us.
Do you like cheap, locally-grown and harvested produce? Illegals do that.
Do you like cheap maid service? Illegals do that.
Do you like cheaper home construction, factory work, etc? Yeah, Illegals do all the shit jobs we don’t want. And I say let them have em. If they can get by on 2 bucks an hour and they’re happy, cool. Barring Illegal immigrants from our workforce will just mean we have to pay an american (if one can even be found for the work) $7+ per hour to do it, and all our cheap crap (that doesn’t come from china) will go way up in price.

greengestalt

That’s the “False Economy”. Just as there’s no such thing as a “Free Lunch” there’s also a “Cost” to a “Savings” at times.

No money is truly “Saved” except that which the elite hoard. The costs are only “Cheaper” as the smaller competition is being destroyed, then they go right up or the economy tanks worse and the price is the same.

We end this foreign bleed (workers, outsourcing) and yeah, there will be chaos, but a chaos for the elites. They’ll face people saying “You can take this job and shove it” and actually having to beg them to come back. They’ll face a market where if they don’t sell their stuff they could go out of business. And with the lack of “Cheap” junk flooding into the country, countless small operations (staffed by their worked and laid off ex employees) will spring up and fill every niche and possibility, disintegrating the ‘big dogs’ before they know what hit them.

Anonymous

Arizona is gettin’ all “mavericky” and going for the wild west gusto. What next? Lynchings?

tsukiii

I have multiple reasons for disliking this law… first, I’m pretty sure most of the people who are support the law have illegal immigrants in their ancestry. It’s possible my family came here from Japan in the 1890′s illegally, and certainly not all European immigrants throughout history were legal (the pilgrims certainly weren’t!). There’s just a lot of hypocrisy. Also, I’m mixed race and look a bit Hispanic, so for selfish reasons I don’t like the idea that I could be asked to show my passport/driver’s license/etc. just because of my appearance. That’s humiliating!

Anonymous

Why should they have more rights than a Canadian trying to cross back into Canada, or a grandmother trying to get applesauce onto an airplane?

Just shut up and get into the cattle car.

ps. I see some humor in my Captcha challenge – it’s “president’ and “bogus”.

adm

video: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Swastikas-painted-with-beans-found-on-Capitol-grounds-92091314.html

Anonymous

I live in Arizona. I oppose this legislation. Having said that, the response to it has been completely unreasonable. That swastika is the least of the worries here now. A friend of mine (who is white) had the ever-loving crap beat out of him yesterday outside a store by two hispanic guys and a woman who kept yelling “1070″ as they were assaulting him. There were multiple witnesses and a police report was taken. So what I’m seeing from the response to this is that racism is wrong (which I agree with) but vandalism and violence is an appropriate response? You’ve got to be kidding me. This bill (which I said I oppose) may or may not result in racial profiling. Meanwhile, some opposed to it have already expressed their displeasure through violence. I have a big, BIG problem with that.

Stumpadoodle

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this give just a little too much power to local law enforcement agencies?

an0nymous

I will tread lightly here.
One question: Is it the enforcement of current immigration laws to which you guys object? Or is it the mechanics of this particular law?

PhoenixFred

The view from the, what must be declared the minority, here that oppose 1070 is the law is bad not the concept.

Arizona has a long history (I’m a fourth generation native – rare here) of using and abusing these, what really are, political and economic refugees of the failed state to the south. Now that the economy has crashed, and Arizona is the second worst hit state, the easy target is being utterly vilified and attacked. This law REQUIRES racial profiling and legal retaliation against law enforcement that don’t abide.

It’s “don’t just stand there – do SOMETHING!” and, if your skins brown, you’ll just have to have your driver’s license handy and produce it constantly.

It totally ignores tough employer sanctions because…. you know.

The earliest lawsuits were from law enforcement.
Anonymous

The general consensus among legal scholars and civil libertarians — based on what I’ve been reading, anyway — is that the mechanics of this particular law are in fact deeply flawed.

Moreover, the creation of this particular law (again, from my reading) has been interpreted as a synmptom of a larger problem, which could be summed up as “enforcement of current immigration laws VERSUS trying something else that might work better.”

As to what that might be, I’m not sure. However, the “War on Drugs” has given us a couple established premises to work from: a) the U.S./Mexican border is permeable and will remain so for the forseeable future; and b) demand creates supply — so as long as there is a demand here, that demand will be supplied. Arizona lawmakers do not seem to be taking these facts into account.
absurdsequitur

I won’t presume to speak for anyone else here, but I can speak for myself. I personally despise immigration laws as a general rule of thumb. The idea that somehow someone’s status as a human being changes because they were born on the “wrong” side of an imaginary line is despicable in my opinion. It creates an atmosphere that is fundamentally no different than the artificial differences created to justify “racial superiority” of whites over blacks during America’s own history of slavery. The whole concept of keeping someone from relocating until they’ve jumped through a million hoops reinforces the artificial and repugnant notion that somehow American’s are ‘superior’, or ‘privileged’, again, based on arbitrary lines on a map.

This law in particular takes that even further, by 1) criminalizing a human being based on these arbitrary lines (think about that for a minute, by nature of where you were BORN, you can now be considered a criminal in AZ), and 2) doing it in such a way that the only real way to enforce that criminal statute is through racist policies and practices (whatever the Gov of AZ might say, there is NO way that this law can be enforced without resorting to profiling).
- funkyderek
  
  “there is NO way that this law can be enforced without resorting to profiling)”
  
  That’s not true. It’s true that it would be ridiculous to attempt to enforce this law without racial profiling. It would be absurd beyond belief and waste a huge amount of time and money. But it would certainly be possible. Police could simply pretend that they didn’t know what illegal immigrants looked like, and treat everyone as if they could be illegal with no regard to the strongest circumstantial evidence available.
- Anonymous
  
  It would be nice if birth didn’t confer certain rights, but it does and can make quite a bit of sense. Here are two examples:
  
  You were born the child of your parents. This gave you (them?) the right for you to live with them. Someone born of different parents doesn’t have the right to move right in to your family home, though they can be adopted. Letting people live in any house they chose without any limiting factor would result in some very bad results very quickly. Thus nearly every human culture has a door.
  
  The other example is related. How crowded do you want the US to be? How much do you want suburbia to sprawl? How many people do you want consuming like Americans? Forget race, religion, etc. Think just in terms of numbers of people willing to move to the US vs the number of people who should live here. This turns immigration policy back into what it really should be: population control. If you want more Americans with the problems it brings, open up immigration. If you think there are too many Americans, tighten immigration.
- an0nymous
  
  I would argue that it’s not their status as a human being that changes depending on where they are born, but there status as a citizen.
  Certain privileges are reserved for citizens of their country. Any person within the United States is entitled to those privileges conferred by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
  - St. Inky
    
    The funny thing is, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (traditionally the First through Tenth Amendments) do not contain the word “citizen.” I think that word is used once in the 14th or 16th Amendment or thereabouts.
    
    Anyway, if we only applied what we take to be basic human rights as defined in those documents to “citizens,” then it would be legal to hold non-citizens in prison without a trial, or send them off to other countries to be tortured, etc., which is obviously absurd.
    
    Wait, what?
    - an0nymous
      
      I thought I made that point myself:
      “Certain privileges are reserved for citizens of their country. *Any person* within the United States is entitled to those privileges conferred by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
      Were you writing to just agree with me?
      And I concur with your opinions regarding rendition.
    - The Chemist
      
      To your point:
      
      “AMENDMENT IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
      
      The founding fathers put this in because they never wanted us to believe that a piece of paper gave us rights. Our rights are “self-evident”, “endowed upon man by his creator.” Whether you believe in a creator or not, the concept is simple: Rights cannot be given or taken away by law, only protected or violated.
      
      I have a right to be, and to proceed about my business unharrassed so long as there is not due cause to impede my progress. The color of my skin is not due cause, anymore than the manner in which I carry myself or the clothes I choose to wear, as all of these things constitute my being or proceeding about my business.
    - glaborous immolate
      
      who are “the people” named in the Constitution?
      
      The people of the United States, to form a more perfect union.
      
      Are we in *political union* with non-citizens? Should they vote too?
      
      I wonder if a lot of rage about how this is gestapo like will actually scare illegal immigrants away?
    - an0nymous
      
      “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
      
      All it’s saying is that this document is the Constitution, it in no way limits the benefits conferred to “citizens only”.
    - The Chemist
      
      Pretty much what s/he said.
      
      Also, bursting into people’s houses to see if they’re citizens so you know whether or not you’re legally allowed to burst into their houses- MORE. ON. ICK. This is no different.
      
      This is even putting aside your ridiculous notion that the SCOTUS is staffed by illiterate idiots who in their infernal stupidity, have asserted time and time again that the rights conferred by the Constitution do not only apply to non-citizens because… I don’t know, you tell me why the SCOTUS is riddled with incompetence.
      
      Not that this is an argument in and of itself. The SCOTUS could easily be wrong, but what’s gnawing at me is how you can look at that history and not think for a moment, “Hey, maybe they’re on to something.”
      
      I recommend you read something by people smarter than you on this.[pdf]
    - The Chemist
      
      *facepalm*
      
      “have asserted time and time again that the rights conferred by the Constitution do not only apply to non-citizens…”
      
      should obviously be:
      
      “have asserted time and time again that the rights conferred by the Constitution do not only apply to citizens…”
    - grimc
      
      Where’s the part in the Constitution that says, “…and by ‘perfect’, we mean ‘political’…”?
- Steaming Pile
  
  THIS. I can go to Canada any time I want, as long as I’m carrying my passport. Once across the border, nobody from the OPP or the RCMP or anybody else is going to ask me for my passport, what I’m doing in Canada, or anything else UNLESS I do something wrong. As long as I’m not working illegally, they couldn’t care less, and I could be white, black, brown, yellow, or bright lime green, and it just wouldn’t matter.
  
  I would like to think we’re at least as good as our neighbors to the north, but I can’t say that anymore. Hiring illegals is already against the law in the USA, as it is in Canada, and if you want the illegals to go home, STOP HIRING THEM!!!!!!!! You don’t need to harass people for being brown; all you have to do is STOP HIRING ILLEGALS!!!!!!!! They could do this in Arizona, but that would involve throwing employers in jail, and they don’t want to do that. They’d rather blame the people the aforementioned employers hire. It’s their fault, not the guy who runs the carpet plant the redneck sheriff won’t raid because they’re fishing buddies or whatever.
  - an0nymous
    
    I would support legislation criminally penalizing Employers who employ illegal immigrants and credit offering institutions (including home or apartment rentals) that do not verify the legal residency status of applicants.
    I think this would ultimately be more effective and less discriminatory in alleviating the issue.
    I do however, fully support, legal action against those who have been deported and reentered the country illegally, offer false documents (identity theft in particular) in attempt to disguise their employment status.
    Problem solved.
  - abstract_reg
    
    I’m from Canada. If you were bright lime green I think that you would probably be questioned. For sake of ensuring public health and all that. Otherwise, sure, you are free to come visit our country.
  - The Chemist
    
    Under normal circumstances, I’d rescind your exclamation mark privileges. However, since people still don’t fucking GET it! I’ll let you off with a warning.
- Felix Mitchell
  
  “…this is the first type of hate-crime vandalism we’ve seen…”
  
  LOL. Calling this a hate crime means you either don’t know what that phrase means, or you’re a Nazi sympathiser. Can Arizona News clarify which it is for us?
  
  @absurdsequitur
  
  In Britain we’ve had unlimited immigration from other EU countries for some years now. While this has had benefits, it has put a huge strain on our infastructure. I think it’s fairly obvious that whatever contributions are made by immigrants, those contributions accumulate over time, whereas their use of services starts the instant they arrive in the country.
  
  Unfettered immigration increases the load on our services too fast for investment to keep up. That’s why all three major political parties are pledging ways to cut immigration after the next election (in a couple of weeks). And this is only after immigration from within the EU.
  
  How does your idealistic idea, that no-one should be called illegal based on where they were born, allow us to keep our schools and hospitals running?
  
  I’m all for embracing the benefits of immigration. But for things to keep running we need limits.
Crashproof

One question: Is it the enforcement of current immigration laws to which you guys object? Or is it the mechanics of this particular law?

Maybe 10% current laws, 90% this one in particular. This law has a few problems:

– it cannot help but lead to racial profiling, regardless of any statements to the contrary. If a cop sees an old dusty beat-up pickup truck full of poor-looking pale-skinned blonde guys heading toward a farm, he’s not going to pull them over on suspicion of being illegal aliens.

– it cannot help but lead to the harrassment of legal immigrants, natural-born US citizens, and even some who are not Hispanic at all. After about the fourth time a cop pulls you over and demands proof of citizenship, it’s going to get very tiresome. Meanwhile, that cop is not doing useful cop-things.

– it’s probably unconstitutional. The federal government reserves the right to pass laws regarding immigration. This probably skirts very close to the Fourth Amendment as well (though there’s some precedent re: immigration checkpoints)

Ambiguity

I don’t see why everyone is in such an uproar — this will all be resoled soon!

Soon, everyone (white, brown, or other) will have to start carrying proof of identity/citizenship. And being a rule of general applicability, SCOTUS probably won’t have an issue with that.

Really, it’s for our best. Otherwise, terrorists and illegal aliens will destroy out country!

Foxxie

Picture from Towleroad

http://towleroad.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c730253ef0133ecf7c49a970b-pi

paulehoffman

Xeni, please. “gestapo”?!? The law requires normal police officers to do something reprehensible. Why demonize the people who are required to enforce the law, or otherwise to lose their jobs? That does not turn the police officers into a gestapo officers: it shows the legistlators and governor to be the xenophobes that they are.

middleclass

I agree that the gestapo comparison is not very deep, but I think it justifiably refers to the “papers please” cliche that people associate with police in authoritarian states. But your comments are absurd.

“Why demonize the people who are required to enforce the law, or otherwise to lose their jobs? That does not turn the police officers into a gestapo officers”

By that logic, actual Gestapo agents were blameless for any law they enforced, no matter how unjust, as they were simply trying to keep their jobs. I thought that a repudiation of the whole “just following orders” excuse was one of the major outcomes of the Nuremberg Trials, but it is apparently still lost on some people.
Anonymous

“That does not turn the police officers into a gestapo officers”

Of course not Paul, “they were just following orders” isn’t that right?

funkyderek

I’m not sure what’s so Nazi-like about this. Isn’t it already illegal to enter a country illegally and try to work there illegally? Now you can certainly make a case for completely unrestricted immigration, but unless you’re doing so, doesn’t it make perfect sense to actually require that illegal immigrants be treated as such?

MamaxBatty

We will ALL be illegal one day when China take all our jobs. Then we will be the ones doing the protests…Grow up people. Stop filling your head with nonsense…this includes biblical nonsense too. Religion has tainted everyone’s way of thinking. (rolls eyes)
Anonymous

I think the problem arises from the racial profiling that is bound to result. How do you tell an illegal immigrant from a legal immigrant? Are you okay with the police stopping and questioning anyone who doesn’t look like a U.S. Citizen? For that matter, what does a U.S. Citizen look like?
- Anonymous
  
  I think that’s the point. You cannot tell who is legal or illegal just by looking at them. SO, in the event that an officer is stopping/citing someone on something already (traffic stop, public disturbance, etc) he is now expected to verify that the person is actually a US citizen or is legally in the country.
  
  Here’s the thing: The federal government already requires visitors and legal non-citizens to keep their papers on them. That’s part of the bargain pretty much in any country. Arizona is just saying that they will also make it a state crime to not have those papers as well and as such is requiring Arizona state law enforcement to verify those papers. I live in Minnesota where illegal immigration is ridiculously rampant (and not from Canadians) and the State and City law enforcement are not allowed to even inquire about someone’s immigration status. As such, the illegal immigrants have the run of the place and operate with relative impunity.
  I understand the fear of abuses, but you have danger of that whenever you introduce an authority of one body over another.
  
  Here’s something to consider…if you drive a car, you are supposed to have a license. In a sense, this is like objecting to police officers requesting to see your drivers license when they pull you over for speeding, stating that they are unfairly profiling people who drive cars.
  
  In essence, they should remove the whole “reasonable suspicion” part and just make it mandatory for EVERYONE. White, brown, yellow, black, pink and green.
Steaming Pile

But they’re not going to ask you for your papers if you don’t look Mexican, the defining characteristic of whom will vary depending on who’s pulling you over. Same goes for your clothing, or your car – you’d better not be driving something a Mexican might drive, or you’re just asking for it.

Now, I don’t know about using the Gestapo as an example, apt as it might be. Redneck sheriff from the Jim Crow South might do nicely. Sad thing is, we have our own shameful history from which to draw comparisons; we don’t need to import any from Germany.
millrick

this from Fox news

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/20/arizona-immigration-enforcement-stirs-national-debate/

“it would create a new state misdemeanor crime for failing to carry alien registration documents; allow officers to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving their legal residence”

this new law makes it an offence to NOT carry your proper papers with you at all times. the law places even those who have the right to work in Arizona in jeopardy. to use your terminology, even if you’re legal you can still be illegal
Anonymous

It’s called racial profiling and is completely unacceptable on any level. Reason: because when you start treating people of one race differently in any way you justify those who would have you believe that race is the issue and you embolden racists by normalizing this attitude.

kosmonautbruce

“Arbeit macht Frijoles”?

arkizzle / Moderator

http://www.rawstory.com/images/new/arizonarefriedbeanswastika.jpg

Splitsies on the kingdom?

IPFREELY

I don’t know if anyone said this yet because I only got about halfway in, but the legislation is scary. With current immigration reform a lot of innocent people are being hurt, I just see this exacerbating the situation.

Rob Cockerham

How can cops actually enforce this without racially profiling? Are they really going to be checking the citizen status of everyone, including white, brown, jewish, asian and black people?

glaborous immolate

Racial profiling is only bad when it has no rational basis.
- Felix Mitchell
  
  “Racial profiling is only bad when it has no rational basis.”
  
  Mmmmmm… tautology. *drool*

danegeld

– when I walked home yesterday there were four mexican guys joking and taking turns to loudly ask each other for “papers please seÃ±or!” on the street.
Hopefully this law is struck down & it stays just a bad joke

hobomike

Arizona is on a roll!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/04/16/20100416arizona-concealed-weapons-bill16-ON.html

Joseph Hertzlinger

Arizona is on a roll?

They passed one law that increases the size and scope of government and another law that decreases the size and scope of government. If they’re rolling, they’re rolling back and forth.

Daniel

Supposedly, this law allows the police to stop people for ‘looking illegal’. In Hitler’s Germany, you might be detained for looking Jewish. See the parallel? You might be a full-blooded citizen but subject to search because your parents are ‘not from around here’.

Did anyone else laugh at the video? They make smearing beans on a window to be some terrible hate crime. Beans? Really? When my church growing up got spray-painted with anti-religious garbage it didn’t even make the *news*.

Beans. BEANS, people.

Suds

When I first heard about this law, I honestly got a little scared. You see, I go and visit family in AZ and was thinking about applying for a job there, but I am brown. I’m also a runner. When I run, I tend to just wear old clothes and NOT carry my passport.

This would mean endless harassment. When stopped by the cops, what would happen if I spoke to them in Spanish? or if I didn’t say anything at all?

What about a former roommate of mine who is Native American? He is not White (or protestant for that fact). I can hear the Lulz now, when they ask him for HIS papers and he asks them for their permit to live on HIS land?

About the Bean-Swastika. I don’t think that vandalism will help convince anyone. What if in protest we all start wearing an arm-band with some kind of ethnic symbol on it? Un Nopal seria apropiado, no? Maybe they will think before passing any more Juan Crow Laws.

Scixual

So, when are we going to sandblast the motto off the Statue of Liberty?

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

an0nymous

I also find the “Nazi” comparisons distasteful.
Folks want the immigration laws enforced and those laws are clearly not. What alternative has been offered?

Anonymous

In Elsmere the (proudly Polish-American) local “working mans hero” politician thinks my (non-Mexican, brown, part Amerind) daughter is a Mexican. He likes to accuse people like her of being illegals and sicc the cops on them.

She hasn’t got any papers, other than her birth certificate, to show she’s American. She’s ten.
Steaming Pile

See my comment on our own shameful history, and the fact that we needn’t bother importing any more from elsewhere.
Nater

Ok, how about racist and militaristic government employees carrying firearms with the power to detain any individual regardless of nationality or probable cause on the basis of race?

Does that offend you less?

These laws are fracked. For Shame, AZ.
- an0nymous
  
  “racist and militaristic government employees carrying firearms” is not a synonym for police.
  You should stop name-calling.
  It seems to me that people are using allegations of racism to avoid addressing a legitimate societal concern.
  - Felix Mitchell
    
    “It seems to me that people are using allegations of racism to avoid addressing a legitimate societal concern.”
    
    In your eyes, an allegation of racism is not valid criticism of this policy? That’s interesting.
    - an0nymous
      
      *steeples fingers, peers over glasses*?
      “interesting?” Kind of passive, there. Say what you think, man.
      
      Yelling “Racism!” should not preclude discussion of enforcing our immigration laws, no.
      
      This particular attempt has flaws, but it is born of frustration.

Bucket

I think this law is wonderful and I am now drafting up plans to move to Arizona.

You see, not only does the law make it so people have to carry proof of citizenship in their own country, it ALSO makes it legal to sue law enforcement agencies if they fail to take action.

So, say you’re driving to work and some asshole cuts you off. Clearly, this means he’s an illegal Canadian. It’s your CIVIC DUTY to call the cops on him. If they bust him, awesome, some dick just got his day ruined. If they don’t, you sue them for failing to stop the terrible blight that illegal Canadians are bringing to our great nation. I mean, there’s a bunch of Canadian thugs in Phoenix that go around beating people with sticks a couple of times a week. I hear they’re going to attack some nice boys from Detroit (itself dangerously near Canada) tomorrow night.

It’s WIN all the way around.

dudemanguy

Mr. Moderator… yoohoo… over here! Hi. Do you think it would be possible for BB to do a special article on “jury nullification”, why it’s important and why its an idea that needs to be revisited? Thanks. :)

Anonymous

Greengestalt, surely a big part of why illegals remain cheaper than other workers is that they have a terrible bargaining position with the bosses. If they ask for a raise, the bosses can just threaten them with deportation (or exposure to the thugs you want to go around beating and killing immigrants safe in the knowledge that no jury will convict them a la the early 20th century south).

middleclass

The most powerful factor making “illegals” less expensive to employ than citizens is not that the former are in such a poor bargaining position due to legal status, but that citizens are in such a poor position due to minimum wage laws.

As Greengestalt hilariously asks, “How can a man bargain his labor when not just one illegal immigrant, but his whole family will do it for half his minimum wage?”

Well, it is difficult for such a man because if his marginal productivity is not greater than the minimum wage then he has been priced out of the labor market.
- greengestalt
  
  Like the smearer, you can only resort to attacks and the race card.
  
  I said “Half HIS minimum Wage”. Depends on what job you do and what you do it for. I’ve heard from some people that made $40 an hour in the construction business not so much in general labor but with specialized parts of it. Earned it, too. They could casually save thousands in costs.
  
  Then they couldn’t find work anywhere. Three illegals with half-arsed skills worked for less than half that asking price, total. They didn’t do a better job, or even a good one. And the contractors still charged the “Housing Boom” prices for their labor, including using the reputation that guy earned.

KWillets

If they could arrest people on suspicion of being trolls, BB would go out of business.

AsteriskCGY

Very funny coincidence reading this just after watching this week’s SNL.

bblackmoor

I don’t know why anyone is surprised by this. Have any of you tried traveling by airplane in the past five years? Or applied for a job? This is just the next logical step.

You used to be able to tell the bad guys in movies because they were the ones that demanded “papers” from people who were minding their own business and doing nothing wrong.

You still can.

AudioTherapist

What absurdsequitur said in spades. But I agree the leap to a form of Godwin’s law rather undermined a good post

proletariat

In the context of errant racial profiling, it is worth noting that two-thirds (1,308,328/1,959,197) of Arizona Latinos are American-born.

Source: US Census Bureau, 2008 American Community Survey (ACS).

Primateforever

This is America! We’re a country of immigrants that rightfully stole this land from it’s indigenous inhabitants by force of arms! We, as genocidal colonists, reserve and defend our so-called right to police which peoples we allow into our appropriated country. Allowing illegal Mexicans in? Initially…I’d say no…but…if you learn fucking english…you know, the language of the country you feel you have the right to occupy??? OK:) Learn English first. Then you’re in…jotos

SamSam

@Primateforever: I have ancestors who came to America from Poland during the war and spoke only Yiddish. Do you think they should have been barred from entering and sent back? Or does the “learn English” line only apply to brown people, as usual?

There’s a reason that there is explicitly *no* official language in the United States, and that’s because not everyone in the government is a racist schmuck.

glaborous immolate

It always seems like people are using our history of racism to trump rational immigration laws.

Would anyone complain if Norway banned Swedes from immigrating, or limited their immigration, and deported those without papers?

I COULD be an open borders person, but then lets argue for open borders on the merits, not on the basis of imputed racism or disparate impacts of necessary laws to restrict immigration.

It would behoove people opposing arresting illegals to tell what laws they think would effectively deter immigration. Or is the need to avoid the hint of racism mean that we MUST have open borders.

oh2

Norwegians are quite welcome here in Sweden, theres just some paperwork to fill out. Same goes for all the EU countries.

Its an interesting idea this law in Arizona. Does it mean that every citizen needs to carry a birth certificate or equivalent then ?

Anonymous

Does anyone know if the law offers any protections at all for the minorities? For example, can someone still sue the local police department for harassment after their 10th time being pulled over for Driving While Brown ?

Arizona's "papers please" law inspires frijoles-swastikas

More at Boing Boing