News Beat 4-29-10-Arizona Immigration Law

...again Ziggy,you're assuming illegal immigrants are responsible for murders and increased crime...the majority of illegal immigrants does not work for drug cartels, I think it's so dangerous when a certain group of people is made to look like the enemy to the rest of the population...be it people from the middle east, hispanics,whatever,....it just really reminds me of the disgusting sad history in my country ....

claudicici wrote:...again Ziggy,you're assuming illegal immigrants are responsible for murders and increased crime...the majority of illegal immigrants does not work for drug cartels, I think it's so dangerous when a certain group of people is made to look like the enemy to the rest of the population...be it people from the middle east, hispanics,whatever,....it just really reminds me of the disgusting sad history in my country ....

ziggy wrote:Statistical informational decisions. I ain't buying into racial profiling anymore. That whole phrase is just a way to try and acuse people of being racist when some issues no matter how the other side wants to spin it are not racist. It's kicking sand in the face of the people who need this to restore some order to their state. This is not new law: they are simply writing into a state statute what has been in the law of our country but not enforced. Now that they have decided to enforce it to try and cut down on murders and increased crime everyone is up in arms. I seriously don't get it.
70% of the people are in AZ support it; in a state like AZ some of that support comes from Mexican Americans and other latinos no?

70% of those who vote or take part in a poll would mean its mostly old white retired folks, they make up most of the state of Arizona's voting population. I doubt very few hispanics support this at all, in fact there are riots with tens of thousands of hispanics in every AZ city as we speak, because of this law.

I just think its bad law and it wont stop illegal immigration or even put a dent in it. The only way to do that would be to invest in Mexico and gee, I wonder why the US wont do that.

claudicici wrote:...again Ziggy,you're assuming illegal immigrants are responsible for murders and increased crime...the majority of illegal immigrants does not work for drug cartels, I think it's so dangerous when a certain group of people is made to look like the enemy to the rest of the population...be it people from the middle east, hispanics,whatever,....it just really reminds me of the disgusting sad history in my country ....

All Jews have big noses.

i think we are

Matt York/Associated Press


The American flag along the international border in Nogales, Ariz., in April.


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By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD


Published: May 25, 2010



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LOS ANGELES — President Obama will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek increased spending on law enforcement there to combat drug smuggling after demands from Republican and Democratic lawmakers that border security be tightened.
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  Times Topic: Immigration and Emigration
  

The decision was disclosed by a Democratic lawmaker and confirmed by administration officials after Mr. Obama met on Tuesday with Republican senators, several of whom have demanded that troops be placed at the border. The lawmakers learned of the plan after the meeting.
But the move also reflected political pressure in the president’s own party with midterm election campaigns under way and with what is expected to be a tumultuous debate on overhauling immigration law coming up on Capitol Hill.
The issue has pushed Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, into something of a corner. As governor of Arizona, she demanded that Guard troops be put on the border. But since joining the Obama administration, she has remained noncommittal about the idea, saying as recently as a month ago that other efforts by Mr. Obama had made the border “as secure now as it has ever been.”
The troops will be stationed in the four border states for a year, White House officials said. It is not certain when they will arrive, the officials said.
The troops will join a few hundred members of the Guard already assigned there to help the police hunt for drug smugglers. The additional troops will provide support to law enforcement officers by helping observe and monitor traffic between official border crossings. They will also help analyze trafficking patterns in the hope of intercepting illegal drug shipments.
Initial word of the deployment came not in a formal announcement from the White House — indeed, it was left to administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to fill in some details — but from a Democratic member of the House from southern Arizona who is running in what is expected to be a competitive race for re-election.
“The White House is doing the right thing,” the congresswoman, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, said in a statement announcing the decision. “Arizonans know that more boots on the ground means a safer and more secure border. Washington heard our message.”
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican whose opponent in a coming primary has relentlessly criticized him on immigration, said Tuesday that he welcomed Mr. Obama’s move but that it was “simply not enough.”
Mr. McCain called for the introduction of 6,000 National Guard troops to police the Southwestern border, with 3,000 for Arizona alone. In a letter to Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, two Obama administration officials said that the proposal infringed on his role as commander in chief and overlooked gains in border security.
Calls for sending the Guard to the border grew after the shooting death of an Arizona rancher in March that the police suspect was carried out by someone involved in smuggling. Advocates of the controversial Arizona state law giving the police a greater role in immigration enforcement played up what they described as a failure to secure the border as a reason to pass the law.
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican who is running for a full term, has requested Guard troops at the border but decided not to use her authority to do it herself, citing the state’s tattered finances. The governors of New Mexico and Texas also pleaded for troops.
From 2006 to 2008, President George W. Bush made a larger deployment of Guard troops under a program called Operation Jump Start. At its peak, 6,000 Guard troops at the border helped build roads and fences in addition to backing up law enforcement officers.
Those Guard troops contributed to the arrest of more than 162,000 illegal immigrants, the rescue of 100 people stranded in the desert and the seizure of $69,000 in cash and 305,000 pounds of illicit drugs.
The soldiers will not directly make arrests of border crossers and smugglers, something they are not trained to do.
Rick Nelson, a senior fellow who studies domestic security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the additional spending could improve security over the long term but that the National Guard deployment was not sufficient for “an overwhelming change that will change the dynamics on the border.”
“This is a symbolic gesture,” he said. “At the end of the day, the face of border security is still going to be Customs and Border Protection, the law enforcement community. It’s not going to be the National Guard.”
Democrats and Republicans who agreed with the move rushed to take credit for it, including Ms. Brewer, who said her signing of the new Arizona law had pushed the administration.
“I am pleased that President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal immigration without other preconditions, such as passage of ‘comprehensive immigration reform,’ ” she said.
Terry Goddard, the Arizona attorney general and a Democrat running for governor, released a statement with the headline “Goddard Secures Administration Commitment for $500 million for National Guard, Border Security.” In an interview, Mr. Goddard said, “I think it is a good indication that the administration is taking us seriously.”
But some Democrats were skeptical.
Representative Harry E. Mitchell of Arizona, a Democrat facing re-election in a Republican-leaning district, said it was “going to take much more to secure the border.” He proposed a minimum of 3,000 troops.
Some Republicans said the deployment of the troops should not overshadow the need for a comprehensive approach to the illegal immigration problem.
“Arizona and other border states are grateful for the additional resources at the border,” said Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona. “But I hope that this is merely the first step in a process that culminates in Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform.”
Obama administration officials had resisted sending Guard troops to the border but had never ruled it out. They pointed to a variety of improvements at the border, including a record seizure of drug-related cash and guns, falling or flat rates of violent crime in border towns, and record lows in the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. Analysts give the dismal economy much of the credit for that.
In his meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said improving border security alone would not reduce illegal immigration and reiterated that a reworking of the immigration system could not be achieved without more Republican support.
Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.




A version of this article appeared in print on May 26, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

National guard troops on the southern border.
Is this a good idea?

Yes!

And it's the same law that's been on the books for our Nation to protect our borders - it's not a new law that you are claiming to be a bad law.

Overall you could say that the illegals are not responsible for crime going up but in ARIZONA I would beg to differ. Arizonans, regardless if they are old, young, white, black - if they are the legal U.S. citizens, then they have a right to say that they would like to enforce the U.S. law. I simply don't get the beef with this.

Oddly enough...... I don't have a problem with this latest development. Using troops to provide surveilance and support along the border because they have the reasources to do it seems appropriate.
In my mind this is different than law enforcement asking people who appear hispanic for their papers. And YES I know the law specifically prohibits racial profiling. I think Sean Hannity has that specific phrase on a continuous loop recording that MUST be played no less than every 3 mins on his show. I still contend that as a practical matter of enforcement the basis for suspecting someone of being illegal is racial. I suspect that I could wander all over Arizona, encounter law enforcement in a whole variety of situations, and never be asked to prove my citizenship.
I can listen to Hannity in small doses. I think that most of his show follow the model though of a few min monologue of republican talking points followed by a complex multi part question followed by a DEMAND that his guest answer with only a yes or no response. Then go to commercial. Then repeat.

I'm a conservative and I can only take Hannity in small doses, LOL.

But listen, really, COME ON, Arizona is on the border with Mexico; so of course most illegals are going to be Mexican so is it really racial profiling?

Racial profiling is when you have a far greater diversity and then single out only one race based on a stereotype.
This is statistical - not racial.

I guarantee others are on the list too, but they are also South Americans and brown skinned. At some point. we just have to admit that the drum beating on racial profiling is the only defense there is to this law and it is a poor one at this point.

It's a given that if we had a HUGE problem with Canadians, we'd be "statistical profiling" on that border and those people stopped for other legitimate reasons who say "ey" would be asked to show citizenship. Let's all calm down a bit and stop using the fricking Nazi Germany anaologies that are frankly just OLD and ABUSIVE to the Jews who really went through something horrible. It needs a serious rest.

Let's all calm down a bit and stop using the fricking Nazi Germany anaologies that are frankly just OLD and ABUSIVE to the Jews who really went through something horrible. It needs a serious rest.
I do see a parallel there. The Nazi party did not run on the platform of lets round up all Jews and put them in camps. They ran on an ultra nationalist platfrom during a recession and blamed the Jews collectively for a bunch of problems that they did not create.
I did a project in college on this very thing. We took the original Nazi platform, tweaked it a bit to make it apply to 1990's era USA rather than 1930's era Germany and presented it to a class as a new political party. We sought out support, made a little propaganda and in a little over an hour had the majority of the class supporting the party.
Then we told them what we had done and people we mad, people said we tricked them, people said they would never have voted for it knowning what they know now.
Of course they would not. And... if you could have shown a German in 1930 what the world was going to look like in 1950 would they have backed Hitler? Of course not.
2010 in the USA we are in a recession. There are elements in the media and politics that are trying to sell the American people on the idea that Mexican immigrants are at least partially to blame for our recession. The level to which they contribute to the economic problems we have now is minimal at best. If we need a collective enemy there is a short list of CEOs that have done far more damage than all of the migrant farm workers combined.

I agree with you that the CEOs are to blame but I put our stupid government officials who have left our border wide open and not enforced the laws and not punished the companies who have hired illegals at the top of the list to blame - and I mean all of them regardless of their party affiliation. Add to that the failure to create a work program for the migrant workers that allows our country to track them and then deport them if they are involved in criminal activity or have a loathesome disease.

I disagree that we are going to round up Mexicans someday and gas them. I think a big distinguishing factor is that we have a place to send our problem illegals. We should send them back to their country of origin until they can complete the legal process of becoming citizens. THAT WAY if our economy is in great need of their services, the lazy asses in the government will come up with a program no doubt spearheaded by industry.

We just can't leave it the way it is. Somebody has to start mopping up the mess.

I think that the companies at the top of the list to blame are in the financial sector. They irresponsibly lent money based upon the false notion that the real estate market would continue to rise so fast that it did not matter if anyone defaulted. A no doc stated income loan works if the value of the collateral goes up 15% a year. They then created complex mortgage derivitives, repackaged and resold home loans over and over again as a commidity, and cried about their CEO bonues as the house of cards tumbled. Private business created the mess. Goverment regulators were asleep at the wheel.
AND.. we are fighting a costly war on two fronts.
Since WWII one question for the military has been do we have the capability to fight a war on two fronts. Answer is yes. No one asks part two of the question though. Can we sustain it indefinitely? Not a chance.
IMO those two things drug us down into a recession. Neither has anything to do with immigration.

Cost of Iraq War as of Feb 2010 $704 billion. Who knows if the figure is accurate or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
It's a good thing we did not spend that on literacy, improving our educational system, creating a health care system that benefited patients more than insurance companies, sustainable energy, or updating infrastructure.
[that was sarcasm in case my tone was not clear]

I think my point is Mexican immigration is a diversion. Illegal immigrants are NOT responsible for our current economic problems.

I think for Arizona it is about the resources they are spending on the daily kidnappings and murders and the government programs that are caring for the needs of illegals as a drain on the economy in Arizona. It's hard to argue that the state does not have this problem being a border state.

CA has a similar problem, trumped mainly by our state employees and unions who demand pay raises when the private sector is suffering pay cuts. I would love to see those organized criminals harrassed before any illegals - but again, we do not yet have the kidnapping/murder problem that Phoenix does.

To the point about "our" current economic problem as in "national" no, they are not entirely but they are a part of it. Nothing is ever that black and white - they are in the gray area with other variables.

Scott wrote:I think that the companies at the top of the list to blame are in the financial sector. They irresponsibly lent money based upon the false notion that the real estate market would continue to rise so fast that it did not matter if anyone defaulted. A no doc stated income loan works if the value of the collateral goes up 15% a year. They then created complex mortgage derivitives, repackaged and resold home loans over and over again as a commidity, and cried about their CEO bonues as the house of cards tumbled. Private business created the mess. Goverment regulators were asleep at the wheel.
AND.. we are fighting a costly war on two fronts.
Since WWII one question for the military has been do we have the capability to fight a war on two fronts. Answer is yes. No one asks part two of the question though. Can we sustain it indefinitely? Not a chance.
IMO those two things drug us down into a recession. Neither has anything to do with immigration.

Asleep at the wheel? I disagree they were directly "advising" to put it nicely and ORDERING to be realistic institutions to make those loans. cough..Barney Frank.

Hello? The big government - democrin or republicrat are in bed with this mess big time. Big companies are not the only evil out there. Do I think CEOs should have made millions on this - no way? But I also don't think it's capitalism in general's fault. The checks and balances were gone. When that happens greed runs amok.

Government officials were arm twisting to get people into homes they could not afford. The institutions went, "ahh what the hell and pretty much, we have to". Cough Acorn.

I'm not saying Republicans did not contribute but the dems "feel-good-make-loans help-the-underprivileged" plan was not very sound.

One of my classmates lost his home in foreclosure and he said he was thinking, "what the fuck are they thinking loaning me money for a house when I make $10 an hour?"...but he took it. He blames himself equally but they were like freaking drug pushers man.

Well let's see...would I be evil in suggesting that we take the oil (that we were supposed to be in a war over and have not taken) from Iraq and sell it and use that money to rebuild Iraq and finance the effort to stay there and to stay in Afghanistan and develop better intel for infiltrating radical muslim organizations?

Unless we get "in" we are never going to have good intel on this front. It's a tough nut to crack. I think we have to be there and we have to build trust in some of those people who will be willing to put their lives on the line for the effort. It's a bigger picture for me I guess.

Why is that a bad idea?

In many ways Barney Frank was the captain of the Titanic.
Yes there is a lot of intermixing of big business and government. You described it perfectly as greed run amuck. I question how much arm twisting went on. I think acorn is highly suspect. I also think that big business does not get compelled to do much of anything that does not make money for them. Big lenders embraced the opportunity to make bad loans.
Preemptive war was NOT the way to get intel.
I am all for one the ground intel and infiltrating radical organizations that have bad intentions towards us. It is what our three letter agencies do. They do not used thousands of troops to do it. Iraq posed no immediate threat to the USA. It is a giant hole that we continue to pour reasources into. There is no easy exit strategy at this point. Iraq is no longer a check on Iran.

It occurred to me this morning that the conversation started about immigration and Arizona SB 1070 and drifted into something else. Maybe there is a point in just that. On the scale of national problems, illegal immigration is not one of the big ones. It is debated as though it is and perhaps for some people living in certain regions it ranks higher on the scale of importance but overall we as a nation have much larger issues to address.
If everyone that slipped over illegally from Mexico registered or left tomorrow it would not fix our economy. I think that law enforcement already had the legal tools to combat criminal activity. Drug smuggling, murder, kidnapping etc etc are already illegal. Law enforcement may lack the reasources to stop all the violent crime that they want to but more laws and speading fear of hispanics does not fix that.

I disagree: I think illegal immigration is a big problem and it' not just an economic one but it also bleeds over into national security and health. It effects our national security because we don't have any control over who is coming across the borders - both North and South have huge holes, but the Southern border with Mexico is way worse.

There has been a big rise in TB which was virtually wiped out in the U.S. until someone from a third world country brought it back and it spread. Sure, there are tourists, but the illegals come from impoverished countries with substandard care - so they come here and more importantly, they stay and spread diseases and then need our tax dollars and our health care system to care for them. They also infect health care workers who miss work and cost the "system" even more money. I mean, if you are the "underclass" in Mexico and you come here, chances are you need health care.

Then there are the anchor babies.

Doesn't anyone remember the large number of California hospitals that had to close their doors? They went out of business - California is a large HMO for illegals and it will break us.

Illegal immigrants who are hard workers and who you alledge pay taxes still do not put their money back into America; they send it "home". What do Americans do with their after tax dollars? Most of us invest it back into our local economy - we buy stuff, we do stuff HERE. It's an unsustainable system to have so many people using jobs in American to finance another country. It's insane actually that anyone thinks this is a good idea. Mexico's economy DEPENDS on illegals sending money back. Don't you think Mexico needs to take some responsibility for their sucky country?

Now why in the world would we trust the President of Mexico, give him a big expensive State Dinner complete with crystal Monarch Butterfly decorations when he is a complete ass wipe of a hypocrite? From his Wolf Blitzer interview:

BLITZER: So in other words, if somebody sneaks in from Nicaragua or some other country in Central America, through the southern border of Mexico, they wind up in Mexico, they can go get a job?-

CALDERON No, no.

BLITZER: They can work?

CALDERON: If -- if somebody do that without permission, we send back -- we send back them.

I disagree Scott - keeping the Mexican drug and human traffickers out of Arizona WILL result in a decrease in the kidnappings, murder and violence and allow the police the time and resources they need to protect the community properly.



The National Guard is being sent to battle drug cartels. Seriously? We should not even be in the position of having to battle Mexican drug cartels in our own country. The government has not enforced the immigration laws. The national government has not controlled the border. After 911 we all thought this was a priority but again we have been failed. I consider them all traitors.



I'm all for LEGAL IMMIGRATION. Some control over who comes into the country must be maintained...it's like an eco-system and out of balance it will implode. Best to start now.

Oh oh oh - and I love the phrase, "they will take the jobs Americans don't want"
Ever notice how that is phrased? Well I think America needs to be a more tough love parent. Put people on welfare or who are able to work but just don't want to in those jobs...they don't want them? Give me a break. We need to raise a nation of self sufficient people and we are raising a nation of dependents (and my conspiracy theorist personality think this is intentional). That is why it is important, almost THE most important thing for us to do in this country ~ everything else, Scott, falls apart without the personal responsiblity and the American "idea" uplifted.

This country is easily distiguished because it was founded on ideas...and the more that come here and are raised up in our educational systems that do not uphold our ideals will just turn this country into another boring socialist country rife with poverty and oppression.

And another thing...(somebody drag me off this soapbox)

If it weren't for the illegals, the companies who employ them and our piss poor government, the hispanic Americans in this country would not even be suspect. They bitch about being targeted because of their skin color. Don't they realize that their illegal counter-parts have made them look suspect? I mean it is the border with Mexico...if you are in Arizona and suspecting illegals you are not going to think it a high likelihood that you'll be looking for white guys with heavy Irish accents. I wish we could get some common sense back.

Socialist countries rife with poverty and oppression?? Like where? England, France, Italy, Canada, have their own share of problems like anywhere but I would not describe them as rife with povery and oppression. Government services do not make a poor contry. A lack of a middle class with hugh impoverished populations contrasted against an elite few makes a country rife with poverty and oppression. What helps raise the standard of living for some raises it for all.
Government services the improve the quality of life for all increase security for all. My father worked extensively in South America and in some areas had armed guards escort him around. That was not necessary beucase the tax rate was too high. It was necessary becuase there were so many people living in poverty that had literally nothing to lose.
I agree there has to be balance. For any society to work most people have to have a stake in it.
I may have gotten off track here. Lots to read and respond to. I like you on your soap box.

And before anyone gets excited I don't want the USA to be England, France, Italy, or Canada. I would like the USA to be a better USA. I think that as a "melting pot" [I heard that a lot in school, your experience may be different] we can take ideas from other places and do things better. The rest of the industrialized world can provide a minimum level of health care for their citizens at a fraction of the cost. Why is this so elusive to us?