Driving while Hispanic in AZ

[ivor]

Oh yeah, the fence and the stupid new law are just things that crony capitalist neo-cons are doing to avoid responsibility.  It should be against the law to hire an illegal but the wealthy are crying about it, like they don't actually know.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I have relatives in AZ, but it's officially off my travel list until this travesty is corrected. Let's see whether Ditat Deus  this White Christianist initiative...

Ditto.

Oh yeah, the fence and the stupid new law are just things that crony capitalist neo-cons are doing to avoid responsibility.  It should be against the law to hire an illegal but the wealthy are crying about it, like they don't actually know.

It is against the law. The authorities are just lackadaisical about enforcing it. Here, it's because they're useful in the fields (we produce ~20% of American food) or because the police would rather shoot them (the cops are notorious for shooting brown people first and asking questions later).

...help Mexico to get its stuff together. Of course we know that is the last things the GOP leadership would want. It would anger donors and kill a successful perennial campaign theme.

I disagree. It's not the last thing they'd want, so much as it would require A) too much work and B) too much money. And so far as the majority of the GOP is concerned, they're smudgy brown people, so why bother? And when it starts to creep over the border, shut it down tight. Or try.

[ivor]

Yeah, you're right Scrib.  They don't enforce it at all so it's kinda like it's legal.

[Swatopluk]

I limited my opinion to the leadership. They know that the status quo favors them in several ways.
1) It provides cheap labour for their rich clientele by people that can't fght back against mistreatment and exploitation
2) It gives them something to rally their ignorant racist base
3) It serves as a pretense for trampling the Bill of Rights 'for your own protection'

They also know (at least since the Bush/Son-of-Cain plan enraged the base) that changing the status quo
1) takes effort
2) angers the base with the anger directed at them, not the Dems
3) angers the exploiters and would possibly dry up the fountain of donations
4) would likely drive the prices for vegetables etc. up thus angering even more people

There main problem is to keep the base from noticing their duplicity.
I think few in the actual GOP leadership are genuine racists (with some pathological exceptions) but still would not abandon their most successful tool (i.e. appealing to the real racism of significant parts of the base).  As long as it is perceived to work, it will be used. I'd not be suprised, if right now some operative was sifting through the collected laws and ordinances of the 3rd Reich in order to find some new ideas (replacing 'Jew' with 'Muslim', 'non-citizen' 'illegals' etc.). I often enough get the impression that RWers plagiarize speeches of Nazi leaders, sometimes verbatim.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

.... I often enough get the impression that RWers plagiarize speeches of Nazi leaders, sometimes verbatim.

Or?

It could be that the sorts of things Nazi's thought of for their speeches are just the sort of thing anyone, in a similar situation would think of and utilize.

In other words, a negative twist on an old saying:

'Evil minds think alike'

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Yeah, you're right Scrib.  They don't enforce it at all so it's kinda like it's legal.

I was checking some numbers, according to wiki, ICE enforced 310K deportations last year (down from 2008 by ~40K), and on the border there is an estimated 500K illegals crossing every year but I haven't seen exact numbers which could be significantly different considering the economy.

So they might be capable of doing more but they aren't exactly idle.

[ivor]

I know what you're saying.  I've spent a lot of time out there and immigrant labor is right out in the open.  They stand in line on the side of the road in "designated" spots and wait for some one to pick them up for a job.  I think the usual reimbursement is $100, probably under the table.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Those are day workers (which BTW frequently get paid less than agreed or not at all at the end of the day). They frequently hang out in front of Home Depot or places like such.

Let me be the devil's advocate for a second and say that that may be one reason for the law as written, ie, local enforcement knows where likely illegals are but is prevented by federal law to act. Another such case would be if they decide to patrol the border. The problem is that the net used in this case is so large that not only amounts to discrimination (I want to see the first white person asked for papers) but that it will most likely "catch" more legal residents/citizens than illegals (who now will be forced into darker shadows).

Now I wonder if is it illegal for local enforcement to give punters to ICE, because that is the logical solution. Then we go to the point of how much personnel ICE has for enforcement, and the efficiency of sending a few patrols for two or three guys that may or not be there for the time the agents arrive.

The other side of the coin is that I do know of people denounced to "La Migra", (as it's colloquially called) and caught. To my knowledge there is no restriction for any citizen to give a tip, which takes me to the other problem with this whole ordeal, if you know where they are, you are perfectly entitled to call ICE and tell them, and most likely they will show up (eventually) and pick whomever they deem as illegals. But that has a little problem, you personally might dislike immigration policies, laws, enforcement etc, but knowing that you personally ratted out someone that likely hasn't done anything to you might be uncomfortable, in more layman terms, "I want them out (but I don't want to be a son of a b**** and feel like a b@$tard while going to sleep)", hence the solution by proxy.
---
One thing I've learned over the years is that racism, while more preponderant than anyone would like to admit, is usually a passive affair, lots of people have racist feelings but much rather not act upon those, and these kinds of movements allow closet racists to express those feelings that otherwise they would deem impolite. Obviously the hardcore racists don't have problems denouncing, shooting or even killing, but those are generally a small minority.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I limited my opinion to the leadership. They know that the status quo favors them in several ways.
1) It provides cheap labour for their rich clientele by people that can't fght back against mistreatment and exploitation
2) It gives them something to rally their ignorant racist base
3) It serves as a pretense for trampling the Bill of Rights 'for your own protection'

They also know (at least since the Bush/Son-of-Cain plan enraged the base) that changing the status quo
1) takes effort
2) angers the base with the anger directed at them, not the Dems
3) angers the exploiters and would possibly dry up the fountain of donations
4) would likely drive the prices for vegetables etc. up thus angering even more people

Oh yes, but getting Mexico to get its shit together isn't the last thing they'd want, none the less. If it did on its own, well, then the base has nothing to bitch about, and I don't think they'd sabotage efforts in that direct anyway (why? They've got Middle Easterners to drag through the mud). Or even the rich clientele, because I doubt migrant workers would cease to come. And paying them legally would only add ten cents per pound to the cost. Which would add up, but my inner hippy/progressive thinks that's a small price to pay.

The inability of illegal workers to fight back is disgusting. It's illegal to pay them in produce, but yet it happens. I see a lot of them, selling oranges, strawberries, and flowers on the side of the road.

The other side of the coin is that I do know of people denounced to "La Migra", (as it's colloquially called) and caught. To my knowledge there is no restriction for any citizen to give a tip, which takes me to the other problem with this whole ordeal, if you know where they are, you are perfectly entitled to call ICE and tell them, and most likely they will show up (eventually) and pick whomever they deem as illegals.

Farmers have been known to do this often enough. Technically, they're supposed to get slapped with a fine, but I don't think it happens very much.

[ivor]

What I am really trying to say, and my slight retardation is getting in the way...  Round up the people that hire illegals not the illegals.  The problem of illegal immigration will take care of itself after a while.  My program will be far less expensive.  May even pay for itself in fines. 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That solution is commonsensical therefore we can be sure it will never be implemented... 

This one is an oldy, but...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800613.html

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.

[Swatopluk]

And what's the bet that the employers actually fingered are known Dem sympathizers. A GOP favorite to keep people in line where they are at the controls.

Stepladder of exploitation
1) poor US whites
2) poor latinos in US
3) prison inmates in US
4) prison inmates in Mexico
If the US bordered Burma, North Korea or Nazi Germany then Gulag/KZ inmates would be the logical #5 (There are still the slave camps in the Marianas but that adds transportation costs).

In Germany we have the Polish harvest helpers but it is by no means as extreme as in the US (Eastern European sex slaves is a different matter altogether).
---

True to form the GOPsters in Arizona claim that the law was necessary because 'Washington' does nothing while the GOP in Congress prevents immigration even debated by means of the filibuster.

[ivor]

Yeah, it's ironic that the GOP wanted to get rid of the filibuster when W was in office.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

What I am really trying to say, and my slight retardation is getting in the way...  Round up the people that hire illegals not the illegals.  The problem of illegal immigration will take care of itself after a while.  My program will be far less expensive.  May even pay for itself in fines. 

Agreed:  been saying this for years.  But, the fines must be a significant amount, so as to actually make it hurt.  I know of any number of large companies who routinely hire illegals, and routinely pay fines for hiring them as a matter of routine; it's still cheaper overall for them to do so.

The current fines are token amounts.   And the cost difference between legit workers and off-the-books illegals is too attractive, even factoring in occasional slap-on-the-wrist fines.

One solution suggested:  for anyone caught hiring an illegal, the former employer is responsible for the cost to feed/house and ultimately transport back to their country of origin (often not actually Mexico, but further south...).  That would be both a significant cost, and would be ethical: it would help lower the overall enforcement cost, while humanely providing for the illegal until he is returned to his own country.

[Aggie]

What I am really trying to say, and my slight retardation is getting in the way...  Round up the people that hire illegals not the illegals.  The problem of illegal immigration will take care of itself after a while.  My program will be far less expensive.  May even pay for itself in fines. 

Escalating fines and penalties might help, too.  The ERCB (provincial energy board) can effectively shut down the (in-province) production of entire oil companies here if they rack up too many violations.  First fine can be a slap on the wrist, especially where it's happening at a branch-specific level, but repeated violations suggest either corporate 'policy' at work or lack of a proper management system and need to make the shareholders notice.

Still, shut down legitimate employment and you'll see illegal immigrants pushed into black-market work or crime.  There is currently an uproar in AB about the deaths of 30 Somali men in the last 5 years.  Most of these men were young legal immigrants who came here for high-paying work in the oilpatch from other parts of Canada, failed to find jobs (almost certainly due to discrimination, although nobody is spelling it out - if you're recent-immigrant African without impeccable English skills here, you are pretty much going to be on the bottom of the hiring order) and were recruited into gangs prior to being killed.

What might help is some sort of an amnesty program by which employers caught hiring illegals could (as an alternative to a fine) opt to offer them minimum-term contracts and facilitate them getting work visas for the duration of those contracts, at standard wages, of course.  There needs to be a way to get this group of people, which is contributing to the American economy, legitimized once they are here, where possible and practicable, or make temporary entry-for-work conditions good enough that there's a greater benefit in going through the legitimate channels than border-hopping.  Simply cutting off the work available and deporting more people will take years to stem the influx of migrants from economically disadvantaged neighbours.

Of course, I'm from a country that tends to have mostly polar bears as border-hopping unregistered immigrants, at least until the next time the US brings in conscription.