bungalow

first of all, i never claimed this bill did not have any clauses related to employers. i was referring directly to crash_override's stance which seems to favor the criminal treatment, arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants. i am saying that crash's anger should be directed towards these corporations and not individuals who are being exploited. crash's post displays a lot of misplaced contempt for these people.

and secondly, you are sadly mistaken if you believe this law is going to step up enforcement on corporations that routinely hire illegal immigrants. the new enforcement capabilities (supposedly) granted by this law are designed to crack down on the illegal immigrants themselves, everyone knows this. american multinationals are far too powerful to be hindered by a state law such as this one, and if it actually posed any threat to the hiring practices of these corporations it wouldn't have stood a chance at becoming law. at the most these provisions in the law will have the effect of increased enforcement on small and local businesses that hire illegal immigrants, sidestepping the larger problem.

but you are a troll so i'm not sure why i even bother responding to you.

crash_override

You are overlooking the criminal actions of these individuals and pointing the finger at corporations, seemingly, because that's easier for you to have contempt for a large corporation than an individual. But you cannot overlook the crime of one in lieu of the crime of another. The point is that Arizona is not able to stifle the policies of these corporations with their own state laws, therefore they are taking the best possible course of action to eradicate this growing epidemic of crime in their state.

On the other hand, I do agree with you in the fact that there needs to be stricter punishment of companies that do knowingly hire and support illegal immigrants. But seeing the current federal/corporate relationship, I don't see a bill being passed any time soon.

My thoughts on you exactly.

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Ronnie Jane Devo

Just for the record, I do not want to be associated with the above guy in this debate

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Freebase Dali

Is anyone here worried about the possibility of police officers using "suspected illegal immigrant" profiling to unjustly pull over citizens?
As it currently stands in the U.S., a citizen is mostly protected from frivolous stops if that person is doing nothing wrong either on the road or as a pedestrian or otherwise. Profiling citizens based on a suspicion that only has to be justified in the mind of the enacting officer is, to put it mildly, a concern.

I can see this new power spilling over into areas that do not warrant it, and there's not much that can keep that from happening.
But, I'm not sure of all the details... so if someone has any insight into that particular aspect, I'd be interested in hearing it.

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bungalow

i don't think there is actually any consensus over what power exactly this new law gives to police officers because the wording of the law is sort of ambiguous..it's something like "if while making lawful contact, a law enforcement officer has reasonable suspicion to believe a person is not a lawful citizen he may request proof of citizenship" and of course you are subject to arrest if you can't provide the documentation. what's confusing there is the term "lawful contact" because the wording seems to imply that a police officer, while stopping a person for some unrelated reason, has reasonable suspicion to believe that person is an unlawful citizen he can request proof of citizenship. that's kind of what it reads like anyway, but the term lawful contact is just confusing. and it would be easy to see how, even if that is the intended use of the law, it could be abused to racially profile latinos.

and crash_override is just crazy. if you want to cut down on illegal immigration, crack down on huge, american multinational corporations that employ (and actively pursue) illegal mexican workers, who will work for low wages and in poor conditions, so those companies can continue to cheaply provide you the things which make your life convenient. these companies get a pass and instead the police arrest, jail and deport individual workers who are being exploited, and the companies turn around and hire another batch. not to mention the fact that going around and forcing people to produce papers or risk arrest is unconstitutional and gestapo-like. you can't justify possibly violating a lawful citizen's constitutional rights in the name of deporting illegals. there are just too many reasons why your mind is warped on this issue...

Freebase Dali

Ah! Thanks for that. I wasn't aware of that specific wording, however ambiguous it is.
It seems to me that "lawful contact" might be a gray area in situations for pedestrians and police on foot. It's lawful to pass someone by in the street and notice the color of their skin or the language they're speaking and make assumptions about it, so I can only guess that a police officer doing it could use that contact as a means of generating suspicion of illegal status and demand proof of citizenship.
If that's allowed and unquestioned, it stands to reason that there would be a possibility of officers intentionally making false assumptions about legal status as a basis of lawful contact for other intent, such as illegal search and seizure of drugs, weapons, record-checking for warrants, tickets, etc...

I don't think the rights of citizens should even be made available for free violation, much less actually violated. The principle should be looked at from more angles than they're currently viewing.

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boo boo

I agree with this 100%

These corporations have very little accountability on this issue and various other things. Perhaps if the neo cons tackled this instead of big guvment and immigrants, they would be taken more seriously.

But that's never gonna happen.

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duga

Is there anything specific thing that happened that may have prompted this law? Is there a large amount of illegal residents in Arizona? Have they been causing a lot of problems? The article provides a couple numbers, but how much worse is that compared to other states? I want to have an opinion on this law, and my initial instinct is to disagree with it, but I think I need more specifics first.

Either way you cut it, though...having ambiguous language such as that is only going to cause more problems than it solves.

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someonecompletelyrandom

I don't think you can fairly call illegal immigrants "criminals". Sure they are in this country illegally, but perhaps this goes beyond the technicalities of the law. When viewed from a moral perspective, at least in my opinion, you can't blame them for wanting to live here. And we've made it very difficult for people to immigrate here legally. You need money.

Bolded is the reasons I disagree with this law. As I think it was bungalow who brought out, the terms of this law are somewhat ambiguous... but that also opens it to interpretation which can very easily lead to the profiling and racism people have been protesting. It's not just my opinion. You agree too that the law should be changed. I think most reasonable people will agree that, no matter what your view on illegal immigrants and how they should be treated is, policing based on what is essentially somebody's name or looks is wrong - and that's what this law might end up initiating. There are a lot of civil rights activists who oppose the law, and even President Obama is very upset about it being signed.

But about your other point...

The first bolded point: I'm not saying the police need the cooperation and respect of the community they protect. I'm saying it makes things far easier on them and they'll have a greater rate of success. This means less violence, less people having to die or be injured for no reason. Any police officer will tell you this. Police chiefs across the country are upset about this bill. Not to mention it'll be a drain on police resources to turn them all into immigration officers.

The second bolded point: Well of course they wont! But police officers traditionally aren't supposed to deport people. That's the whole point of contention.

crash_override

Just because you feel compassion for a criminal doesn't make them innocent. They call them "Illegal" immigrants for a reason. This is nothing short of a crime wave. A crime wave that starts with the illegal entrance of the U.S., and often continues into our streets and neighborhoods. Does it not scare you that you have people walking in your streets that do not exist in this country on paper? These people are ghosts, ghosts who can wander about and commit crime without proper punishment.

It seems to me that too many people are making a decision on this issue using their hearts, rather than their heads.

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