[Arizona] Immigration

What Immigrant Crisis? - The Daily Beast

Demonstrators protest a new immigration law outside the Arizona State Capitol building on April 23, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. (John Moore / Getty Images) Arizona’s governor says she had to sign a harsh anti-migrant bill to combat a state of siege. But immigrants are leaving the place in droves. Bryan Curtis on what’s really threatening the state.

To listen to politicians in Arizona, which just passed a draconian anti-immigrant bill, you’d think they were surrounded by a fresh wave of illegal immigrants. Gov. Jan Brewer said she signed Senate Bill 1070 because of the “crisis caused by illegal immigration and Arizona’s porous border.”

This is, to be kind, highly misleading. While Arizona has more than its share of thorny problems, something very interesting has been happening with illegal immigrants that got obscured in the debate. They’ve been leaving.

“You’ve got a situation where the perception of people in Arizona, quite reasonably, is that the border isn’t secure,” says Edward Alden. “And yet by all the measurements we’ve put in place, it’s more secure than it has ever been.”

Mexican immigrants aren’t invading America. They’re packing up and going home, thanks largely to the recession. The latest numbers from the Department of Homeland Security, released in February, show the illegal immigrant population in America dropped from 11.6 million in January 2008 to 10.8 million in January 2009. That’s a loss of nearly 7 percent. The last time the illegal population dipped was in the late 1980s, when a federal law transformed a few million undocumented immigrants into American citizens overnight. So to the extent that we are in a historic moment for illegal immigration, it’s historic because immigrants are abandoning America in droves.

As supporters of the bill point out, Arizona was a special case among states. Thanks to tough security measures put in place in California and Texas during the 1990s, the Arizona-Mexico border became the favored highway into America. But here, too, the Homeland Security data are remarkable. In 2000, 725,000 people were apprehended illegally crossing the border in Arizona. By 2006, the number of apprehensions had fallen to 510,000. By 2009, it had plummeted to 249,000.
That number still isn’t close to zero. But the notion that border apprehensions are down nearly two-thirds in the last decade complicates the notion of a “crisis.”

Another oft-stated rationale for the Arizona law was that the state was stepping in because the federal government had failed. Gov. Brewer said the “federal government has refused to fix the crisis.” This also ignores recent history. Since the last two years of George W. Bush’s administration, America’s federal immigration policy has become almost completely oriented toward “enforcement”—that is, deporting immigrants and keeping them out. Bush, who pushed immigration reform in his second term, was so stung by its failure that he ratcheted up workplace raids, resulting in the arrest and deportation of thousands. As I wrote in December, Barack Obama hasn’t really reversed Bush’s policies. He has largely continued them, if slightly more humanely. And both Bush and Obama presided over the building of the 700-mile U.S.-Mexican border fence, a massive and expensive commitment to border security.

Given that all arrows are pointing out, why would anyone think that we’re in the grip of an immigration crisis? Well, there’s terrifying stuff going on along the Arizona border. Drug gangs have turned Mexican border towns into a Grand Guignol of murder and beheadings. Some of that violence and criminal activity has slipped into the United States. In March, a popular Arizona rancher was murdered, allegedly—to hear anti-immigrant forces tell it—by Mexican smugglers, though no one has been formally charged. But it is important to separate the real and escalating problem of border violence from the declining problem of illegal immigration.

“You’ve got a situation where the perception of people in Arizona, quite reasonably, is that the border isn’t secure,” says Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And yet by all the measurements we’ve put in place, it’s more secure than it has ever been.”

This disconnect has spread to Washington. On Tuesday, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who actually favors immigration reform, told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that her old home state was “under siege.”

Napolitano tried to point out that this was misleading. “Every marker, every milepost that has been laid down by the Congress in terms of number of agents, deployment of technology, construction of fencing, and the like has already either been completed or is within a hair's breadth of being completed,” Napolitano said. Then she wondered aloud “whether that goalpost”—the point at which the border is judged to be secure—“is just going to keep moving.”

It will, and this is the paradox we face. Immigrants have left; fences have been built to keep them out; more immigrants are being deported or forced out of their jobs. Yet we’re in the midst of a crisis, a perpetual siege, which can justify passing nearly any law, no matter how egregious.
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ptavv said:
What Immigrant Crisis? - The Daily Beast
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Gov. Jan Brewer said she signed Senate Bill 1070 because of the “crisis caused by illegal immigration and Arizona’s porous border.”

This is, to be kind, highly misleading. While Arizona has more than its share of thorny problems, something very interesting has been happening with illegal immigrants that got obscured in the debate. They’ve been leaving.
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Arizona has a porous border. The fence the feds are putting up is not completed and even when done will not be erected along every mile of the AZ/Mexican border.

Regardless of the MEXICAN illegals (not all immigrants are Mexican or brown for that matter) leaving there is still a crisis that has been on going for years in AZ. This law is simply in response to the feds not doing anything to correct the problem. AZ lawmakers waited long enough to see there wouldn't be any action on the federal level.


“You’ve got a situation where the perception of people in Arizona, quite reasonably, is that the border isn’t secure,” says Edward Alden. “And yet by all the measurements we’ve put in place, it’s more secure than it has ever been.”
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A person that weighs 800 pounds could lose 300 and be as thin as they have ever been (since adding all the weight) but they are still fat.


Another oft-stated rationale for the Arizona law was that the state was stepping in because the federal government had failed. Gov. Brewer said the “federal government has refused to fix the crisis.” This also ignores recent history. Since the last two years of George W. Bush’s administration, America’s federal immigration policy has become almost completely oriented toward “enforcement”—that is, deporting immigrants and keeping them out. Bush, who pushed immigration reform in his second term, was so stung by its failure that he ratcheted up workplace raids, resulting in the arrest and deportation of thousands.
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Bush's push towards more enforcement is great, but falls far short of what is needed. This new AZ law falls short of a 100% fix, but it is going to work well if implemented correctly.


As supporters of the bill point out, Arizona was a special case among states. Thanks to tough security measures put in place in California and Texas during the 1990s, the Arizona-Mexico border became the favored highway into America. But here, too, the Homeland Security data are remarkable. In 2000, 725,000 people were apprehended illegally crossing the border in Arizona. By 2006, the number of apprehensions had fallen to 510,000. By 2009, it had plummeted to 249,000.
That number still isn’t close to zero. But the notion that border apprehensions are down nearly two-thirds in the last decade complicates the notion of a “crisis.”
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Apprehensions are the illegal crossings we know about. Illegal immigrants try their best to avoid apprehension. In addition, the number of illegals in Arizona is too high to be sustainable, even if the number is dropping.

Napolitano tried to point out that this was misleading. “Every marker, every milepost that has been laid down by the Congress in terms of number of agents, deployment of technology, construction of fencing, and the like has already either been completed or is within a hair's breadth of being completed,” Napolitano said. Then she wondered aloud “whether that goalpost”—the point at which the border is judged to be secure—“is just going to keep moving.”
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The goal post was never to simply put up a fence along part of the border. The fence will simply make the illegals come over the border where there isn't a fence or use other methods. The goal was enforcing federal laws and securing ALL of the US borders.


It will, and this is the paradox we face. Immigrants have left; fences have been built to keep them out; more immigrants are being deported or forced out of their jobs. Yet we’re in the midst of a crisis, a perpetual siege, which can justify passing nearly any law, no matter how egregious.
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Not all immigrants have left. Not all the necessary fences have been built, not enough immigrants are being deporting and many of them are not being forced out of their jobs. We are still in a crisis.
 
Your apprehensions argument is idiotic. Every immigration study has concluded that apprehensions are proportional to actual illegal crossings.

Plus it's self inconsistent. We have stepped up enforcement efforts but are catching fewer crossers... Either stepping up the enforcement has a paradoxically inverse effect on seizures or there are fewer people to catch, your choice. The former is certainly bad news for your hope that we create a secure border.

What constitutes a crisis? The presence of any illegals whatsoever here? Was there a crisis 10 years ago? How about 15?

What does it take in your eyes to downgrade this from a crisis to merely a problem?
 
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ptavv said:
Your apprehensions argument is idiotic. Every immigration study has concluded that apprehensions are proportional to actual illegal crossings.

Plus it's self inconsistent. We have stepped up enforcement efforts but are catching fewer crossers... Either stepping up the enforcement has a paradoxically inverse effect on seizures or there are fewer people to catch, your choice. The former is certainly bad news for your hope that we create a secure border.

What constitutes a crisis? The presence of any illegals whatsoever here? Was there a crisis 10 years ago? How about 15?

What does it take in your eyes to downgrade this from a crisis to merely a problem?
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The crisis has been around for 15 years and longer than that. The crisis is the almost unfettered illegal immigration through our southern border.

Stepping up enforcement is great, but searching in the desert for illegals crossing has reached diminishing returns. The coyotes are more and more using other methods of smuggling that are faster so there is a quicker turn-around time to get the next group across.
 
So the coyotes are so good that in spite of increasing enforcement drastically in the past few years 1/3 as many illegals are being caught?

If that's the case what is the point of this law? Won't they just come back and the law will serve to enrich the coyotes and further their brutalism?

You conveniently chose not to answer my questions about what goal posts would represent the downgrading of illegal immigration from "crisis" to "problem" -- is this because you feel any illegal immigration is a crisis?
 
ptavv said:
So the coyotes are so good that in spite of increasing enforcement drastically in the past few years 1/3 as many illegals are being caught?

If that's the case what is the point of this law? Won't they just come back and the law will serve to enrich the coyotes and further their brutalism?

You conveniently chose not to answer my questions about what goal posts would represent the downgrading of illegal immigration from "crisis" to "problem" -- is this because you feel any illegal immigration is a crisis?
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I explained what a crisis is. I don't know what a problem would look like since it has always been a crisis. I'll let you know when we just have a problem and not a crisis when that happens.
 
Automatic Jack said:
How would he lose? What is probable cause to suspect someone of being an illegal immigrant during a normal police stop? It seems vague at best, which is unconstitutional last I checked.
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First, they don't need probable cause. They need reasonable suspicion. There are several hundred different ways that they could have reasonable suspicion. And its far from vague. If you'd get your head out of your ass you would realize that this law isn't the nazi law that you are trying to make it out to be. For the record, this law assumes that an officer is already having legitimate contact with the subject (aka he's already either being detained (which requires reasonable suspicion) for something or its a consensual encounter).

Examples of questions an officer could use to gain reasonable suspicion of immigration violations:
Are you a United States citizen?
Where were you born?
How did you gain your citizenship?
What type of visa do you have?
Where is your visa? (They are required to carry this..OMG NAXI!I!ZIZI!!)
What was the naturalization process like?
Why don't you speak any English? (OMG RACIST! yet still a totally legit question)
How long have you lived here?
What high school did you attend?
 
link_ said:
That entire article is way off base and utter bullshit.


fuck this thread
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I'll translate this for the rest of the readers:
Facts have no place making me feel uncomfortable with my xenophobia. I am going to leave this thread rather than encounter anymore information that is cognitively dissonant to me.
 
ptavv said:
I'll translate this for the rest of the readers:
Facts have no place making me feel uncomfortable with my xenophobia. I am going to leave this thread rather than encounter anymore information that is cognitively dissonant to me.
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the article was bullshit. One glaring piece of evidence of this was when it used the same quote from the same person twice. WTF?
 
link_ said:
First, they don't need probable cause. They need reasonable suspicion. There are several hundred different ways that they could have reasonable suspicion.
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Well here's the constitutional problem. Reasonable suspicion is a much lower burden of proof than probable cause and under this law if the person fails to provide the proof the officer requests under reasonable suspicion, the person is to be arrested.

Which is a clear violation of due process since one cannot be arrested without probable cause. (You can't use failure to meet a request borne of reasonable suspicion as probable cause, or at least the SC has held in the past that you may not... Otherwise declining to let an officer search your car would itself be probable cause that you are hiding something illegal)

The request itself without probable cause, and mere reasonable suspicion, may itself be unconstitutional as an unlawful search.
 
Ezlpo said:
the article was bullshit. One glaring piece of evidence of this was when it used the same quote from the same person twice. WTF?
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Which part of it was "bullshit"?

Also :lol: at your justification. It's just the product of me copy and pasting and not removing the "excerpt quote" which, naturally, was pulled from the article itself.

You are truly going to great lengths to justify this to yourself.

Still waiting on what makes this a crisis. So far all you've intimated is that the presence of any illegal alien on US soil is a crisis. Which would certainly mean you're not moving goal posts, you're just putting them impossibly out of reach.
 
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ptavv said:
Well here's the constitutional problem. Reasonable suspicion is a much lower burden of proof than probable cause and under this law if the person fails to provide the proof the officer requests under reasonable suspicion, the person is to be arrested.

Which is a clear violation of due process since one cannot be arrested without probable cause. (You can't use failure to meet a request borne of reasonable suspicion as probable cause, or at least the SC has held in the past that you may not... Otherwise declining to let an officer search your car would itself be probable cause that you are hiding something illegal)

The request itself without probable cause, and mere reasonable suspicion, may itself be unconstitutional as an unlawful search.
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Well thank you ptavv for your uneducated legal analysis. I think I will let the SCOTUS make the ruling though so you and your opinion can get fucked.
 
Ezlpo said:
Well thank you ptavv for your uneducated legal analysis. I think I will let the SCOTUS make the ruling though so you and your opinion can get fucked.
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Fortunately my analysis is shared by a huge number of legal scholars :sunny:

It's neat to watch someone devolve into angry stone throwing when confronted with dissonant facts though!
 
Those expert legal scholars you think agree with you said the employer sanctions law was unconstitutional as well.

I don't give much credence to their opinion.
 
ptavv said:
I'll translate this for the rest of the readers:
Facts have no place making me feel uncomfortable with my xenophobia. I am going to leave this thread rather than encounter anymore information that is cognitively dissonant to me.
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This is absolutely not the case. It's just incredibly frustrating to watch someone as smart as you be so completely and utterly wrong. That article was completely and utterly wrong and you are using it to defend your position. I really would LOOOOOOOOVE to spend hours in this thread (like you) to explain the situation in full and you have no idea how frustrated I am that I don't have the time or inclination to be able to do that.

But lets face it, you have your heels dug in so far on this and have had such a raging hardon for this bill since its inception that you wouldn't be able to handle any information that doesn't fit into the reality that you created. It's ironic that you bring up cognitive dissonance.

You will try to blow this post off as me being a racist xenophobe (because apparently anyone that disagrees with you fits that description), but I just would love for you to look at this data you are spewing with a critical mind.

Bottom line: This law isn't nearly as controversial (legally) as the media is portraying it. People that are up in arms about it obviously don't understand the law or the immigration problem.
 
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