(Reuters) – A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that Alabama and Georgia could enforce key aspects of their laws against illegal immigration that allow police to check the status of criminal suspects.
The decisions were in line with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a similar Arizona law, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta continued to block other parts of the two Southern states’ laws, which have been challenged by the federal government and civil rights groups.
There were a number of provisions of each state’s laws which the courts threw out however they did allow police to check the immigration status of criminal suspects. I good move in the right direction. Other states are enacting similar laws and should be joining these three.
I know we’ve gone back and forth over this with little movement off people’s stances on the subject. The biggest complaint I hear is this will cause racial profiling but I have deeper question to understand your motivation. If racial profiling could be completely avoided, would you still be against the law? I guess what I want to know is… Are you just ok with 12 million illegal aliens being in the US? Because if that’s the case, we can stop discussing things like this since your arguments are all red herrings and you simply don’t see these people being here illegally a problem.
I want them out and I don’t care how we get it done. I want our immigration program to be updated to significantly increase the numbers of people coming here through proper channels and procedures. I want a more robust migrant worker visa program. I want green cards offered to every graduate from a US school with an advanced degree. I want companies who hire illegals to be prosecuted. I want our laws changed so that countries (like Vietnam) who won’t take back someone we want to deport… have to take them back or suffer diplomatic consequences otherwise we release them into the US general public.
But you better follow the law when it comes to spending $300K on voter registration mailings to those on public assistance.
I’d rather expedite their path to legality than kick them out and only kick them out if they are a threat to public health or safety. I want legal immigration to be reformed such that nobody will find it necessary to come illegally. As for profiling, the way to avoid it is to require that everyone who is stopped, even the whitest-skinned of people, be checked. It shouldn’t take much with today’s technology to check such things.
Dan, your comment suggests an inconsistency where in fact it is very consistent philosophically. As an American and a Christian I believe in the broadest possible concept of inclusion as a birthright. Inclusion means embracing opportunity for all people, specifically allowing them to stay in the country AND making sure they have a right to choose their destiny through the franchise.
I don’t want to live in an America where everyone has to carry proof of citizenship. The “show me your papers” meme has always been a sign of tyranny, used by those in power to oppress those without power.
My father told me, during the Cuban missile crisis (when I was 11) that the three worst things “the communists” want to impose on America were:
1. You have to tell the government whenever you moved
2. You have to carry a national ID card and show it on demand
3. You have to worry about what you say about the government, even to friends and family.
While my late father and I disagreed on most things political, I think these are three things that every American should reject.
In my view, “show me your papers” is an unreasonable search and seizure, and should be prohibited under the Fourth Amendment. I wish the right wing was as eager to enforce the other nine amendments that comprise the bill of rights as they are the Second Amendment.
I think our borders should be open, rather than closed. I think the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants that are here work hard doing jobs that Americans won’t do. I think the brouhaha about “illegal immigrants” is pure scapegoating, whipped up by the right-wing for their political and economic purposes.
I think a green-card should be approximately as hard to obtain as a library card.
with uncontrolled borders and liberalism running wild.
Not surprisingly, this comment is utter rubbish.
Presuming that danfromwaltham is referring to the fiscal crisis in California, it is in fact caused by a long history of voter-driven tax-slashing initiatives. Let’s not forget that our own “Proposition 2 1/2” was inspired by California’s “Proposition 13”.
Reasonable people HAVE studied this, of course. For example, there’s “Institutional Causes of California’s Budget Problem“, from the Stanford Institute For Economic Policy Research (emphasis mine):
Funny — these economists suggest that the fiscal crisis is the result of DECADES of irresponsible tax slashing, and has nothing to do with “uncontrolled borders” or “liberalism running wild”.
If anything, the facts suggest that California is a case study in the effects of conservatism “running wild”.
I love it!!! Your post made me laugh so loud, my wife thought I was watching Benny Hill or something. I have read some whoppers in my day, but this takes the cake.
You’ve never been one to let facts interfere with your pleasure.
Ideologues and political parties ruined California.
Republicans prevent any revenue increases, while forever spending more and more government money on things they like.
Democrats are okay with the tax policy, so long as the government spends more and more on things THEY like.
I don’t think it can be denied that immigration, both legal and illegal, puts downward pressure on wages for the existing working poor. It may be, and likely is, that the economic benefits of immigration outweigh these costs.
But I find it at least counterproductive to simultaneously decry “income inequality” while so steadfastly supporting polices that exacerbate and accelerate that inequality.
In my view, eliminating the stigma of “illegal” immigrants will make it far easier to bring their employers into the light. Too many employers take advantage of their illegal status to avoid obeying existing laws.
In my view, the market forces that exacerbate and accelerate inequality are significantly strengthened by the inability of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid to fight their exploitation. Making those workers legal would, in my view, help level the playing field.
OPen borders. While many here love to slam the US, saying our education system sucks, our healthcare sucks… but the fact is iuf we opened our border hundreds of millions of people would come here. And because of people like you we would provide our sucky education, sucky healthcare, food, public housing, public services and every other FREE handout you liberals could think of. Can you imagine the incredible debt our nation would endure with these free loaders flooding our country! The diseases they would bring in, the criminal element, the terror threat… and if you are a US laborer, you might as well move to another country since your job just got filled by a cheap alternative.
Truly a stupid idea (not calling you stupid)! And luckily the rest of the country would NEVER agree to anything like what you are proposing, NEVER!!!!!
Freeloaders? Diseases? Criminal element? Terror threat? Sounds pretty … um … racist to me.
They’re people, John. People who, I suspect, work harder than you or me. All that junk about “diseases”, “criminal element”, “terror threat” — and especially “freeloaders” is unadulterated racist bullshit.
I am quite serious.
With 12 million illegals now in spite of all the border security, airport security, trains, boat security and threats of deportation and having to hide… yes I think the countries of the world that really suck to live in (most of Africa, South America, Mexico, Central America, India…) would flock to free education, healthcare, food stamps (EBT), public housing…
Freeloaders… where would the 100 million who come here work? We can’t even employ our current population with unemployment at 8.5% but real unemployment at 15-18%.
Diseases… Try to give blood if you have been to a long list of countries. Our CDC does a great job of controlling the battle of the germs vs the people in the US, but many other countries have epidemics of various diseases, which would come here with them.
Criminal element… Mexico has 49 kidnappings a day, border cities in Texas have war like gun battles.
Terror… Al-qaeda wants to blow up American and America, do you agree? How would they like it if we had open borders?
They are people but they not our people. Don’t you understand how bad off we are. How the hell are we going to pay off our National Debt? Entitlements to support our existing population is already killing our budget with projections of it exploding much higher. You want to add to that?
I am also quite serious. Your suggestion is DOA and thank God it is.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current US population is 312.8M. You wrote “hundreds of millions” (emphasis on the plural). You really think that we’ll see a thirty percent, sixty percent, or ONE HUNDRED percent increase in population if we open our borders? You’re in right-wing la-la-land, John.
I get that you are scared. The right wing (where you immerse yourself) works very hard to get and keep you that way. Your attempt to couple “freeloaders”, “diseases”, “criminal element”, and “terror” to “illegals” (your phrasing, a less insulting phrase is “illegal immigrants”) is plain prejudice.
The key giveaway is this phrase from you: “They are people but they not our people.” This kind of tribal us-or-them mentality (again, a staple of right-wing mob hysteria) is what I mean when I use phrases like “racist”, “bigoted”, and “xenophobic”.
I’ll stick by my predictions. Hundreds of millions would come here. Bringing all the bad things it would bring. I am not scared since I know it will never happen, luckily you are in a tiny minority of our population. I won’t come up with any cutesy name like right-wing la la land…
Go ahead and call me more names because I have a nationalistic feeling of who I am and who my fellow countrymen are. Once again, since someone is not agreeing with your views, you resort to name calling. If you are calling anyone who believes in a country having borders as “racist”, “bigoted”, and “xenophobic” then you may have just insulted a lot of your fellow BMGers. What say you BMG… open borders????? Or are you too a xenophobe as Tom says I am?
I certainly hope that most participants here will not agree with the following words from you: “They are people but they not our people.”
Sorry, John, but that is, in my view, a xenophobic motivation for not opening the border. You wrote it, not me.
I am not responsible for the world. I certainly help where I can and support efforts to help, but I value my countrymen far more than other countries’.
I think this is fairly common both here and in the real world. Otherwise, people like you would be helping the people in African countries with basic needs like food, shelter and safety instead of blogging on BMG. Someone once asked me if I cared about starving people in Africa and I answered of course I did. Then they asked what I was doing about it and I said nothing and they replied, “then you don’t care”.
If you truly feel that way about these other countries, why aren’t you doing something about it.
I don’t want open borders and I would guess BMG would agree. But I haven’t heard from them yet. David, Kbusch, Lynne, Centralmassdad… do you want the US to have open borders? Imagine our economy with that?
I’m guessing that the folks you enumerate, even if they aren’t ready to support my vision of open borders, will offer a very different motivation for why.
Let me also repeat that when I write “open borders”, I mean that a Green Card should be about as difficult to get as a library card.
.
Funny, nobody seems to have risen for your bait.
Even here on Illegal alien friendly BMG, people are smart enough to know open borders would be chaotic and ruinous to our country. You, for one, have campaigned for affordable care for everyone which we cannot afford today with our existing population, how would we take care of so many more millions who came here for healthcare for FREE?
You are an island this time, Tom.
…. of what an ‘open border’ would result in. Note that most studies I’ve seen indicate that, in general, a more liberal immigration policy would actually be an economic boost.
With regard to ‘affordable care for everyone’ – we absolutely could afford this, just on under our current system. We choose not to for a variety of reason.
I have no idea what a “liberal” immigration policy would be.
As for healthcare, are you saying we could support caring for everyone who comes here with “open borders”? For free? Or were you saying we could afford to pay for everyone here now… for FREE?
More people. Less restrictions.
With regard to healthcare – I was addressing what we can afford now – not a hypothetical ‘open borders’ situation. Although I’d note that if projections are correct and economic expansion accompanied a labor influx, I’d be willing to bet that basic care could be made affordable – again using a different model.
I’d also echo Tom’s point that the phrase ‘our people’ is ill advised at best unless you specifically define what you mean in a defendable way.
And part of that is “more people” so we agree. Less restrictions would have to be defined before I could say I support it. I would like more people from all over, including Mexico. But I want them to abbey our existing laws and yes, the people here get no extra credit or advantage because they broke the law. Maybe this is a mental issue I have but I f’ing hate people who cut lines, whether it’s on rt 128, the line outside Best Buy or the US Border. We cannot let these law breaking line cutters be rewarded while the good people obey the laws and waited. THAT is unfair!
Sorry to be so callus but I phrased it exactly how I wanted to. Our people means our people. US citizens! Going to the Olympics I supported “our people”. Fighting in wars I support “our people”. Go to many company websites and they have a tab “our people”. Kbusch sometimes talks about the tribalism of our parties on BMG, so maybe I’m being tribal by saying my fellow US citizens (even you guys) are part of my US tribe. Sorry you or Tom may not like the phrase but that’s what I choose to use, OUR PEOPLE.
And as I described above, how much of your day do you dedicate to people outside out borders? I think the overwhelming majority of Americans care about Americans first, by their words and their actions, and I do not believe this makes Americans xenophobic. I’d say it is quite normal.
John, like or not, what you’ve repeated so loudly is xenophobia.
Specifically, the following:
Yes, you are being “tribal”. The dislike of those not of our tribe — specifically because they are not of “our tribe” — is “xenophobia”. That’s what the word means. Perhaps you might remember your these words of yours when you get so bent out of shape after I remind you of your xenophobia.
I also remind you that “normal” and “xenophobic” are not mutually exclusive. I grant you that the GOP and Fox News works very hard to persuade us that most Americans are xenophobic (hence the focus on immigration, voter ID, LGBT issues, and so on).
I hope that this election will help dispel those claims.
I didn’t say it and I don’t think that way. I love so many people in the world but what I said about those who would immigrate here is still true.
I hope this election does a lot of things, many of which you will “dislike”.
… ‘our principals’ rather than ‘our people’. Moreover, there is a problem with your statement in that you don’t want people who aren’t ‘our people’ immigrating but you define ‘our people’ as “US citizens!”. By that definition you don’t support immigration at all. I know that isn’t what you mean – but now you see why the way you sound is problematic – you don’t sound like how you mean. This is what can happen when you elevate the tribe over the principal. In principal you’re not against immigration – but your tribal response broadcasts exactly that anyway. Better to espouse principals than tribalism.
As to your notion that “Americans care about Americans first”. I’d actually say that I don’t. I care about our principals first – and there are certainly non-Americans who better exemplify them than some Americans. I don’t think it was morally right for Germans to espouse ‘my country right or wrong’ during their atrocities after all – tribalism over principal is a tragedy, not a virtue.
I really don’t mind being spanked on BMG when the delivery is well thought out and very specific.. non-insulting.
You may be right in that I may have not said what I really meant or it came out wrong. But I must say that I meant exactly what I said on some issues.
I do not want open borders. I think it would bring an incredibly large amount of people to the US who would starve our social services net, would starve our job market and everything else I said.
You don’t know me but you would be surprised at the amount of work I do for my community, the poor, the education system, people down pin their luck, Cancer runs… even simple things like having donated over 4 gallons of blood to the Red Cross. I don’t just talk like Joe Biden, I do things and give money.
I have become a true believer about what someone had asked me saying “if you don’t DO anything about something, then you don’t care about it”. I do not donate money to charitable groups for starving Africans so how can I honestly say I care about them. I didn’t write to my Congressman or Senator about Darfur so how can I honestly say I care about that country’s horrible situation. If Americans cared about Americans second, then there wouldn’t be any houses with more than one TV in them. We would spend our expendable cash on helping other nations come in to the 21st century. Or maybe I’m wrong and you can care… but just not do anything about it. ??????
John offered, and then defended, these words as his motivation for locking down our borders against would-be immigrants:
I wonder if you might share your reaction to this motivation.
I just thought it could come up in the same transaction as when the cop runs your plates when you get pulled over. That said, I’m less concerned than you are about a national ID. One card could be coded to serve as drivers license, passport, work permit, and yes, voter ID, based on which of those you are eligible for. I see it as very convenient all around. For those of us who carry drivers licenses anyway this should be no more government intrusion than is already the case, though I’m not sure how to fix the existing issue of people being profiled.
Even without the immigration factor the minimum wage is too low. If we are going to let people in as I believe we should we must simultaneously raise the minimum wage to keep the gap from growing. Also, those who are inclined to not adhere to minimum wage will no longer have the advantage of assuming that their workers won’t talk for fear that their lack of documents will be used against them.
This is the essence of why you are so misguided. Laws don’t do this. You have those laws on the books already, that’s why you have ILLEGAL workers, get it, everybody is disobeying those laws!
The only thing that counteracts downward pressure on wages is competition for your labor.
rather than new laws, enforce existing laws and stop preventing state’s from doing it since OBAMA won’t. It’s like your neighbor volunteering to cut your ugly long grass and you say not I’ll do it… and then you don’t do it. So he tries to cut it anyone and you prohibit him from cutting it saying that is your job, then you still don’t cut it. WTF?
While we are at it, we should enact laws to counteract the downward pressure of gravity. This would improve fuel efficiency for the nation’s automobiles and thus help solve global warming.
There is one way for wages to rise: it must be difficult to find a new person to do the same job for less.
By this logic, we should eliminate OSHA, worker’s compensation, 40-hour weeks, and the rest of the body of existing employment law — all because some unscrupulous employers seek ways to evade them.
I’m not sure increasing the minimum wage will help, so I’m not necessarily defending that. On the other hand, I think that increasing the likelihood of being fined (or dissolved) for illegally exploiting workers can raise the cost of hiring those workers enough to address many of these issues.
Over and over they tell me about the rules and requirements they followed to be allowed to live and work here. They talk about the time they spent waiting and the paperwork and the classes they took to become citizens. Fairness is so often a topic here at BMG, how is it fair to those who do the work to get here legally to allow others to skirt the system and not follow the sames rule my co-workers have had to follow. Ask LEGAL immigrants about how they feel about these laws being enforced. Would you be surprised by their answer and would you argue with them about what they say? Enforce the laws or repeal them.
Illegal immigration is incredibly stressful for the people who do it. Many die in the attempt to get here. When they do get here, they have a very hard time physically emotionally and mentally.
The political fight boils down to our voters vs not our voters to me. The Dems simply want all these people to become citizens because they are more likely to vote Dem. The Repubs don’t want them here for the same reason and because immigrants bug them (like they do most people).
Neither addresses the problem which is that the home countries of these immigrants are either desperately poor in the case of Africa Asia and Central America or stacked to limit opportunity for the ambitious in the case of Europe and the middle east.
Part of the problem is the range of bad government in these countries. Another part of the problem is the financial system we use which destroys savings and capital in other countries through enforced devaluation of their money.
Democrats are on autopilot in favor of weak currencies. They don’t even know why.
Republicans don’t care about people in other countries, because they are selfish but also because every time they allow concern, the rich class of that country demands debt forgiveness or some other handout.
The international banking sector demands high taxes and balanced budgets in any country on which it can enforce its will.
In combination these factors lead to substandard government in most foreign lands. Here in the USA we have the constitution to fight back a little more.
You have to begin with not forcing these other countries to do the wrong thing. Then you don’t have a ton of poor people coming here to do things they would do better at home, and the immigrants you really want, the innovators etc, there is room for.
This would solve the problem if anybody really wants to solve it.