What Megan McCardle said:
If you think that immigration is a pressing problem, then the place to enforce it is in areas of life that are already regulated pretty intrusively: border crossings, employment, landlord/tenant relations. These are places where enforcement can be stepped up quite dramatically without massive intrusion into the ordinary lives of law-abiding citizens. But quasi-criminalizing looking different . . . well, it’s not just wrong. It’s un-American.
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Shorter Megan and AL: once you sneak in, you’re home free.
Unless you left off the part where you meant to write “and if we determine they’re not legal at any of these points, they get detained and deported†then really it’s “catch and release†without even trying to “catch.â€
Neither of which are actually in the Arizona law.
I don’t understand the idea that because no level of government actually intends to go through with deportation on the scale required… we hence need to give much more power and intrusive authority to state government.
If they aren’t going to bother picking illegals up _in court_ what makes you think they will bother when they pull a guy over for an expired sticker?
The linked article has a lot of semi-polite race baiting, mixed with mixed with horror and offense that people have dared to react against the criminal tide. I can see its appeal to those who like that sort of rhetoric.
The proposed solutions from this point of view will be like the recommendations from the left that George W. Bush invade North Korea instead of Iraq: the point is not to solve a problem but to say “not this!”
The alleged offence of “quasi-criminalizing looking different” is not in the law. Unlike the violent criminality brought by too many of the border-crossers to ignore, it’s a fantasy.
It’s a fantasy that’s intended to overwhelm reality, by painting the motivating force of the law as a pathology, as baseless racism, rather than focusing on the real clashes of interests involved. It’s mystification, spiced up with demonization.
Such is the fashion in post-racial America.
I hesitate to weigh in here but I suppose I must. First off I’m *for* anyone in the world who wants to be an American. But I don’t think that’s a contentless concept either, nor is it necessarily the case that even everyone who wants to be an American (admires our ideals and our civilization and wants to be a part of it in a non-Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky fashion). Be that as it may, it’s something we have to muddle through with.
There is an underlaying problem with the critique of the Arizona law as expressed by Megan McCardle and others, however: Because a disproportionate majority of illegal immigrants “look different*,” *any* measure aimed at enforcing immigration laws will be portrayed as/seen as “targeting” people who “look different.”
We then have two choices: We can declare open borders, accept that what we live in is really just a super-sized “Mall of America” with an open door policy where everyone from all over the world comes to mix and mingle and be: Some for work, some for shopping, some for services, some for whatever, some for hanging out, with no commonality beyond that, *or* we can grow up, escape the mental shackles of PC, and accept the fact that enforcing our imigration laws will have the affect it does (a disparate impact) not because of who we are but because the population of illegal immigrants is what it is (which is: Mostly fine people, but disproportionately “look different”), and we’re not at *fault* for that fact when we enforce the law (which already includes a “papers please” provision: Immigrants and travellers are already mandated by Federal Law to have on their person and be able to produce such documents. The things many people have been impling is really grotesque, and it has mostly – as usual – come from the champion’s of “civil discourse”).
I also really think we should look at our immigration policy in a more clear-eyed fashion, if we’re going to have what we obviously also need, comprehensive immigration reform. Let it be real reform, then: I think we should dust off the Jordan Commission’s report and use it as a baseline. Unless someone wants to suggest Barbara Jordan was a closit racist.
*No perfect term to use here >_<
_Immigrants and travellers are already mandated by Federal Law to have on their person and be able to produce such documents. The things many people have been impling is really grotesque, and it has mostly – as usual – come from the champion’s of “civil discourse”)._
As I said numerous times in our last discussion, I have no problem with sweeping up illegals and dropping them off at the border… as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of Americans in the process. Immigrants by law must have their papers. Citizens, by the 4th amendment, do not.
So you’re going to catch mostly illegals, but some citizens. My strategy is to catch illegals and as few citizens as possible. There are many ways of doing this without improper searches.
If Joe Arpaio were not the sheriff, I would be more inclined to see my argument as a hypothetical exercise. His track record makes me think otherwise. Not only do I think abuse (by his office) is possible, I think it’s inevitable.
I whole-heartedly agree that the federal government is not doing enough. Our two-party system is completely opposed to solving the problem, because it does not benefit them in any way.
However, random arrests based on papers “only” doesn’t solve the problem.
ON a tangent: many academics are up in arms about the Arizona legislature looking for “improper accents”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html in teaching. Many spanish teachers were hired from latin america to teach correct pronunciation…. are now worried they’ll be fired for not using “english as the only classroom language.”
Brilliant.