If legislators really wanted to reduce illegal immigration they would also go after the demand, implementing tougher penalties against those who hire illegal immigrants^^ or outsource to companies that do. Of course, this will never happen as the walmarts, mcdonalds, big tech corps^, etc will never allow it because surely their costs would go up and so would their prices.
Edit: ^ work at a big tech company? A decent percentage of the janitors and cooks are illegal (and, for the record, are not just Hispanic)
But then, of course, in a global economy, cutting the influx of illegal immigrants (and immigration in general) would lead to more jobs shipped north/south/overseas.
So in the end, many of these legislators are really just pandering and contributing to the fear-mongering here and everywhere as people are, in many cases, naturally xenophobic.
What are employers supposed to do to avoid hiring illegals? As far as i'm aware, anything beyond "hey, this looks like a crude forgery brown guy" is a discrimination lawsuit in the making.
I have one idea how to get employers to help - offer them amnesty against both penalties and racial discrimination lawsuits if they turn in their illegal workers. We can even reduce disruption to the business by replacing the illegal workers with (currently) unemployed Americans.
I.e., to replace an illegal, select an American currently receiving unemployment. Tell the American that a job has been found for him and terminate his unemployment benefits. We kill two birds with one stone this way.
And in fact, companies that hire illegal immigrants benefit greatly from stricter immigration enforcement; the more pressure from the state that's applied to immigrants, the
easier it is for employers to lower their pay, subject them to dangerous and harsh conditions, and occasionally even refuse to compensate them altogether. If they refuse, ICE will deport their families.
If we cared about human rights, we should flip the situation on its head and impose heavy (in the 6 or 7 figure range) fines for hiring undocumented workers. If any of the workers are mistreated they should be able to turn in their employer.
That will give the workers an upper hand and would prevent them from being taken advantage of. Now the employer can live in fear of being exposed.
Yes, and we all end up paying the indirect costs of this cheap labor because, as is well-publicized, most of these people won't have health insurance so premiums, medical costs, Medicaid costs, etc go up.
This strikes me as ridiculous fear mongering. The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement" - the idea being that illegal immigrants will leave Arizona if they see that the state is serious about enforcing immigration law. Are we to suppose that people will continue to live in Arizona illegally, given the knowledge that there are now real penalties? The article also uses scare language like "The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before" to make it sound like there's some grand plan to hunt down and lock up every illegal immigrant, so that the prison companies can charge the state for their upkeep. And yet the bill only provides for a maximum of 20 days in jail for a first offender, and 30 days in jail for subsequent offenses.
"But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.
It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.
It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.
It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.
"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"
This isn't just about illegal immigrants, this is about corporations that get legislation passed for their own financial gain. Granted this happens all the time, but this is so blatantly targeted towards people who have little or no defense. The potential for abuse is obvious. We've already had a U.S. judge busted for receiving kick-backs for sending juveniles to a youth facility. The US already has one of the largest prison populations in the world. This is a crime against humanity in the making.
>>The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement"
It is much more than that.
If you're a US citizen and you're not carrying proof of citizenship, you could get thrown in jail for not having your "papers".
Now, I'm sure many citizens feel that their accent or their skin color or some other attribute protects them from sent to jail and that they don't need to carry their papers with them. However, if a cop thinks that you might be a Canadian, they could throw you in jail for not proving otherwise. .
Do you have a reference for citizens being able to be sent to jail for not carrying papers? I was under the impression that there was nothing in the bill about putting people in jail. I haven't read the link yet, though, so perhaps it has more details.
Even before this law was passed, I can give you citations for American citizens who have actually been deported. I can't see how this law will make deportation any less likely. Here are some of the first few results:
You may notice a common trend among those wrongly deported: they're most often mentally disabled and non-white. It makes the news if and when their family discovers what happened to them. You don't have a right to an attorney if accused of immigration violations (even if you are a US citizen).
I don't believe that a native-born US citizen can be stripped of their citizenship via any means. However, there are ways for naturalized citizens (those born elsewhere who successfully apply for US citizenship) to be stripped of that citizenship after the fact. This usually happens if they lie on their application (and that is the reason they ask questions like "Are you a terrorist?" on that application). There's a discussion of how that works here:
That's definitely a problem (I knew a few people that I've spent time helping out who would probably run the risk of what those links describe), but according to all of those links, the agency in the wrong is ICE, not any particular state - as far as I know (even with the Arizona law), actual deportation and citizenship issues are still handled at the Federal level.
While I don't think that the analysis and worries of "papers please" regarding the Arizona law is wrong (I'm a firm believer in sunlight), I'm not seeing, 6 months in, where the doom and gloom is still coming from. They've revised the laws to remove some of the ambiguities, and I still haven't seen evidence of citizens being throw in jail, nor any onerous requirements on immigrants besides what is defined in Title 9 of the Federal laws.
The big argument today, which the Feds are suing for, seems to be that the state law preempts something which is clearly defined at the Federal level (the aforementioned Title 9). I can understand that particular argument, even if I think it's relatively ridiculous to make (the Feds have had a hard time enforcing the law there, especially in border states where the drug war is bringing more and more criminal elements into the area).
Well, of course we're not likely to see "doom and gloom." Those of us who are reasonably intelligent are in remarkably little danger of deportation.
What it will do is overwork ICE, an agency that tries to focus its few resources in deporting dangerous criminals (rather than people who overstayed a visa). Given that ICE is nothing but a cost center as far as politicians are concerned, we can already see what is happening when things are done in a cut-rate manner. This will only continue.
Coupled with that is that Arizona's largest county has right now a publicly-elected sheriff (an election I'm inclined to believe should be removed), who for the last decade or so has conducted immigration raids that grabbed headlines during election season. Said sheriff is also currently under federal investigation (he was under investigation long before Obama came to power, incidentally). This is not a good mix.
While I can sympathize with those who want ICE to do a better job, or who want our immigration laws enforced, I think that comprehensive reform is needed before those laws will be enforceable.
It means that we have to focus on the things that really matter (e.g. drug smuggling aliens) and make ICE more efficient so that coming through immigrations isn't a farce that takes a decade and $50k and so that they have the manpower to go after the people out there committing crimes.
That said, I sincerely wish you'd remove the word "amnesty" from your vocabulary. It's a stop word, just like "Republican", "Democrat" and "terrorist." People see those words and they stop thinking and start getting upset.
It so happens that I'm none of those things, if that helps you any.
I'm 110% with you on reforming the whole immigration and naturalization process. If we could make it really easy for legitimate immigrants to become citizens, enforcement would be a much less unpleasant matter. I'm also with you on pulling the politics out of the equation.
Unfortunately, until we can get some actual leadership who cares about real immigration issues, rather than the politicized "opportunities" that the two-party system we have right now sees it as, the border states (and even states farther north of the border, such as my home state of WA) are still hurting. What is their option right now other than trying to deal with the problem themselves?
Please note - I'm not referring to the people themselves as the problem, but rather the burden that a massive influx of non-tax-paying individuals put on public infrastructure, and the unfortunate criminal element that has also come across a s a combined result of non-enforcement and the drug war.
> If you're a US citizen and you're not carrying proof of citizenship, you could get thrown in jail for not having your "papers".
...if you are lawfully stopped, detained, or arrested, you may be held until your immigration status is verified. I don't see why this is a big deal. There is no grand scheme to sweep the countryside and round up everyone with brown skin or a Canadian accent.
Well, the story is about what was in the bill as allegedly drafted by the the prison company, not about the watered-down version that ended up passing. As first submitted to the legislature, it would have allowed for much longer sentences.
The frightening thing is not this particular application, but the broader concepts of (1) extension of an already draconian police power (2) almost entirely brought about by a private profit motive. Capitalism is an evolutionary process and as such is almost beyond the control of human intentions, so seeing it move against individual liberty is highly alarming.
It creates an industry of private businesses that have but one motive: a profit motive.
They are therefor motivated to do everything they can to increase incarceration rates to create demand for their services of imprisonment. This article illustrates that pretty clearly. It also creates situations like the corrupt judge/private prison kickback scheme in Pennsylvania recently.(1)
We don't need profit-driven companies who profit from increased rates of incarceration, they have no reason to really rehabilitate people - they want them back in the system ASAP.
This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates.
In fact, organizations like prison guard unions have stronger motives than multiple private prison corporations. A non-monopolistic prison corporation could easily let their competitors waste money on lobbying and reap the benefits, so any prison corp with small market share has no motive to lobby. The prison guard union reaps all the benefits since they have 100% market share.
> This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates.
I happen to think that you're both right. I'd rather not see union-owned or for-profit private prisons due and I'm not convinced that we really have to choose one or the other.
I love how the Hacker News community can spend most of its time obsessed with starting businesses and yet still find time to decry the profit motive as evil.
The profit motive is a powerful incentive, but it is amoral. It can lead to both good and evil effects.
I see nothing unreasonable about wanting to make sure that the profit motive is aligned with out best interests. Conveniently, HN has an article that addresses that very subject:
> We don't need profit-driven companies who profit from increased rates of incarceration, ...
Agreed. But perhaps the problem is not with the privitization generally, but the contract the company operates under. It appears to provide the wrong incentives.
> ... they have no reason to really rehabilitate people - they want them back in the system ASAP.
I suppose so. But then has any prison system, anywhere, had significant success with rehabilitation? Is it even possible, for all but a small fraction of prisoners? (Not rhetorical questions.)
Right. Change the incentives so they get money if the prisoners are healthy on discharge, and also so that they get money for non-recividism (e.g. each prisoner not rearrested gives the prison some bonus).
I guess one question is whether the bulk of the illegal immigrants in Arizona at any one time are using it as a residence or just passing through. This would definitely make it less attractive as a residence, but its advantages for transit are considerable.
The prison business has had some curious effects elsewhere a judge went to jail up around Scranton for abusing his power to send kids to jail for offenses that ordinarily might've rated probation before judgment; he was compensated by the company that ran juvenile prisons up there.
Unchecked undocumented immigration is a problem. There are a lot of people that want to come here for the right reasons and some that want to come here for the wrong reasons. The goal of any immigration reform should be to parse those two groups. Make it easier to be here legitimately to avoid the ongoing exploitation of the people that are here to work. Then focus enforcement on those that are not here legitimately because they are now not hiding among the crowds of people that just want to feed their families. This is what most people in AZ want, but the only lever they have is enforcement, it's not like Arizona can decide to unilaterally grant amnesty.
The idea of "papers please" is reprehensible, but where is the anger at the federal border patrol checkpoints between AZ and CA? An AZ cop asking for a drivers license during a traffic stop is supposedly "draconian fascist evil", but stopping people for no reason driving between two states is considered ok?
Imagine that after 9/11 the rest of the country said "good luck dealing with that terrorism problem NY. We're going to put checkpoints up to make sure those problems stay in your state and not ours."
Edit: ^ work at a big tech company? A decent percentage of the janitors and cooks are illegal (and, for the record, are not just Hispanic)
Edit2: ^^Including themselves--because they do.
edit3: (sorry I was on my smartphone before). If the supply of jobs for illegal immigrants goes down, so does their influx. It's true in the US--and it's true in Europe and it's true in Asia: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247156221.99/ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93137/recession-enforc...
But then, of course, in a global economy, cutting the influx of illegal immigrants (and immigration in general) would lead to more jobs shipped north/south/overseas.
So in the end, many of these legislators are really just pandering and contributing to the fear-mongering here and everywhere as people are, in many cases, naturally xenophobic.