New Arizona Immigration Law Poll

[DaWoad]

There are some signs of a person who is not legal in your country. The biggest one is the inability to speak English as if someone was educated or worked in the US it is very likely some English is required. As long as the request is simple such as one piece of ID like a drivers licence then I think it is alright. There needs to be some way of identifying people who are illegally in the country and if someone appears to be an illegal person then a few questions need to be asked.
When I travel I always know where my passport is. I could easily show that to the police with the correct visa stamp in the US. It is not hard and does not need to take much time at all. The only worry would be fake ID's. But the cops could catch onto them when a fake ID is known and if suspicious just take one minute more to look in the data base.
If there are local police it would be even easier to identify illegal migrants and the same legal individuals would not be asked all the time.

So first generation immigrants that don't yet know the language are completely impossible, as are political refugees?

I almost always have my ID on me, except for a few notable exceptions. I was at a concert last week and only brought my ticket and cash, coincidentally, there was an altercation outside the venue where the police nearly got involved. If they did, and I had lived in AZ, who's to say they couldn't have just randomly asked us all for our IDs to find out if we were illegals? It shouldn't be a requirement for us to carry around identification. Is it convenient? Yes. Necessary, hell no.

Then you should be able to show them, they will put your name on a list and the next time it happens they can just ring your name up through the cops computer in car and he will let you go.

How would you be able to show them???? Who carries immigration papers with them at all times?

[Farnhamia]

There are some signs of a person who is not legal in your country. The biggest one is the inability to speak English as if someone was educated or worked in the US it is very likely some English is required. As long as the request is simple such as one piece of ID like a drivers licence then I think it is alright. There needs to be some way of identifying people who are illegally in the country and if someone appears to be an illegal person then a few questions need to be asked.
When I travel I always know where my passport is. I could easily show that to the police with the correct visa stamp in the US. It is not hard and does not need to take much time at all. The only worry would be fake ID's. But the cops could catch onto them when a fake ID is known and if suspicious just take one minute more to look in the data base.
If there are local police it would be even easier to identify illegal migrants and the same legal individuals would not be asked all the time.

So first generation immigrants that don't yet know the language are completely impossible, as are political refugees?

I almost always have my ID on me, except for a few notable exceptions. I was at a concert last week and only brought my ticket and cash, coincidentally, there was an altercation outside the venue where the police nearly got involved. If they did, and I had lived in AZ, who's to say they couldn't have just randomly asked us all for our IDs to find out if we were illegals? It shouldn't be a requirement for us to carry around identification. Is it convenient? Yes. Necessary, hell no.

Then you should be able to show them, they will put your name on a list and the next time it happens they can just ring your name up through the cops computer in car and he will let you go.

How would you be able to show them???? Who carries immigration papers with them at all times?

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens? What the heck, we can start bar-coding people, it'll save the cops having to spell your name, they can just scan you.

[Cybach]

Whine more. God. Here in Germany, maybe in many more places in Europe, anyone age 16+ is required to have a personal ID card on them at all times. Not their drivers license, but an ID with holofoil and all that fancy schmancy stuff. Do the foreigners here complain about it? No. Do the natives here complain about it? No.

What happens when the police want to ID you and you don't have it along? Easy. They ask you where you live and then you all depending on the situation take a merry drive over to your place so you can show them your ID. Or you get escorted to the precinct where you wait until a relative brings it by to properly ID you.

[MisanthropicPopulism]

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens?

I'm not sure what you think a social security number is. Or what they do with all your private information for a driver's license or passport.

[Muravyets]

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens?

I'm not sure what you think a social security number is. Or what they do with all your private information for a driver's license or passport.

I'm not sure what you think they are, either, because it seems every illegal immigrant in the US has a valid driver's license and a seemingly valid (but bogus) SSN, yet those very seldom seem to raise any flags in official business. So I'm frankly mystified by this seemingly widespread notion that our licenses and SSNs are some kind of instant password to our life histories which will reveal the full and totally reliable truth about the legal status of any given individual to the sagacious eyes of the average police officer making a traffic stop for a busted tail light or missed stop sign.

[Farnhamia]

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens?

I'm not sure what you think a social security number is. Or what they do with all your private information for a driver's license or passport.

Yeah, okay, knee-jerk reaction. It's Monday. Still, the whole idea of having to prove that you're a citizen or here legally whenever the authorities care to ask annoys me. We do have an obligation to cooperate with the police when they're doing their duty, it just seems that this law is aimed at making those checks a primary part of their duty.

[Muravyets]

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens?

I'm not sure what you think a social security number is. Or what they do with all your private information for a driver's license or passport.

Yeah, okay, knee-jerk reaction. It's Monday. Still, the whole idea of having to prove that you're a citizen or here legally whenever the authorities care to ask annoys me. We do have an obligation to cooperate with the police when they're doing their duty, it just seems that this law is aimed at making those checks a primary part of their duty.

Actually, we really don't have an obligation to cooperate with the police. We can absolutely refuse to identify ourselves or answer any questions. That is our legal right. Of course, if we choose to go that route, we might find that the cop will take us in to run us through the system so we can be checked out anyway, without our cooperation. Or that might not happen, depending on the situation. But we are not actually required by law to talk to or cooperate with the police, and by extension, we are not obligated to carry our personal ID around with us at all times, or in any other way be always prepared to cooperatively subject ourselves to police questioning at any moment.

Obviously, if we are currently operating a vehicle, then we must also be carrying our license to operate said vehicle. Likewise, if we are crossing a national border, we must be carrying our passport. But if we are not doing those things, we don't have to carry them, and if a cop just decides to make a random stop for no good reason and demand to see our "papers," that cop is in the wrong, not us for not having them on us to show.

[MisanthropicPopulism]

I'm not sure what you think they are, either, because it seems every illegal immigrant in the US has a valid driver's license

Thereby putting them in a very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system.

and a seemingly valid (but bogus) SSN

So you are saying they have a stolen or fake SSN. I'm not sure why you think that counters my point.

So I'm frankly mystified by this seemingly widespread notion that our licenses and SSNs are some kind of instant password to our life histories which will reveal the full and totally reliable truth about the legal status of any given individual to the sagacious eyes of the average police officer making a traffic stop for a busted tail light or missed stop sign.

Which is hardly what I said they were now was it?

[DaWoad]

There are some signs of a person who is not legal in your country. The biggest one is the inability to speak English as if someone was educated or worked in the US it is very likely some English is required. As long as the request is simple such as one piece of ID like a drivers licence then I think it is alright. There needs to be some way of identifying people who are illegally in the country and if someone appears to be an illegal person then a few questions need to be asked.
When I travel I always know where my passport is. I could easily show that to the police with the correct visa stamp in the US. It is not hard and does not need to take much time at all. The only worry would be fake ID's. But the cops could catch onto them when a fake ID is known and if suspicious just take one minute more to look in the data base.
If there are local police it would be even easier to identify illegal migrants and the same legal individuals would not be asked all the time.

So first generation immigrants that don't yet know the language are completely impossible, as are political refugees?

I almost always have my ID on me, except for a few notable exceptions. I was at a concert last week and only brought my ticket and cash, coincidentally, there was an altercation outside the venue where the police nearly got involved. If they did, and I had lived in AZ, who's to say they couldn't have just randomly asked us all for our IDs to find out if we were illegals? It shouldn't be a requirement for us to carry around identification. Is it convenient? Yes. Necessary, hell no.

Then you should be able to show them, they will put your name on a list and the next time it happens they can just ring your name up through the cops computer in car and he will let you go.

How would you be able to show them???? Who carries immigration papers with them at all times?

And now we're going to have a government-maintained database of ctizens? What the heck, we can start bar-coding people, it'll save the cops having to spell your name, they can just scan you.

Pff bar-codes are lo-tech lets get some RFID chip, subdural of course.

[Dyakovo]

Then why do we have this problem in the first place if the existing structure is good enough?

Because while the structure is good enough the implementation has not been. What needs to be done is for the enforcement to be stepped up, not pass racist laws on top of it.

[Dyakovo]

Who exactly?

Well, for one example, the authors of the main body of the AZ law, an organization who call themselves FAIR (click to go to their website) and who have a long history of connections to white supremacists and racial segregationists, including direct statements and connections among their own staff, their current head, and their founder who is still on their board of directors, as was recently revealed on the Rachel Maddow Show in an interview with Dan Stein, the current head of FAIR. He denied the allegations vehemently, but here is the Maddow Show's fact check of the issues raised in the interview, and here is an additional fact check and correction of their original fact check.

Here is more video and related material.

Don't just take the word of these links. Follow the links within the links if you want more.

(I hope all that works. My computer started to act up a bit.)

This law was written by people who want to undo vital parts of the US Constitution, who do not want a society where all are created equal, and who are willing to use strong-arm tactics of intimidation and abuse by government to impose that kind of control over US citizens.

I totaly agree with you on most of that, but that dosn't mean we should let anyone from anywhere on the planet come here without being checked.

I agree with most of that; invading armies that are a physical threat to the safety of the society should not be allowed in, and should be stopped by any means necessary. However, immigrants do not wish to destroy the United States, they simply wish to gain entrance to the United States. Many argue that immigrants just suck up our welfare and take our other over-zealous government-provided services; but that's not the issue. If you want to get rid of these programs, which is fine and which I would 100% agree with you, instead of making a quick-fix and shutting down the borders to save a few dollars, work on getting rid of these programs entirely. Some will then actually argue that if a person is legal, they deserve to get the government services, while if they're illegal, they do not. So apparently, Socialism by the legal citizens is alright in these people's minds; but Socialism by those nasty immigrants is blasphemous, and that they are not entitled to anything.

Many who argue against me who are anti-immigration also stumble around when I bring up to them that many legal immigrants, and even natural born citizens abuse the government services such as welfare, they try to make up excuses that the programs are now good apparently. When I bring up the fact that most 'illegal' immigrants are not here to abuse our government's poorly functioning systems, and simply want to be left alone to their own devices, they bring up a list of about.. 10 cases of illegals abusing the systems. Then I'll bring up the fact that illegal immigrants would pay taxes if they where legal, they generally just ignore point and go back to the previous argument about welfare, and they continue to lose ground in the debate.

Others will try to argue that

Finally, some will then argue that 'illegal' immigrants should either 1) Stay in their in there own countries, 2) Ask for political asymlum in the case of their country being a terrible place to live, or 3) Come here the right way. Even though we can change the laws to whatever we like, and we can change them and need to change them to open up our borders; what's truly ironic about many arguing against 'illegal' immigrants is that these people are the 'small government' people who want to 'get government off your back' and make the country more free. You'd think these same people would have a little consitancy in their arguments, wouldn't you?

So lets say we do open our borders to everyone but noticable invaders, I think I can hear thousands of Islamic radicals waiting to board planes and set up shop here.

You don't have to; they get in with or without the restrictions on immigration, every single one of the suicide bombers in 911 was a legal immigrant. Second, we have radicals in this country; if Al Qaeda wants to really get into the United States, they'll recruit people from our country. Third, and most importantly: Nothing, not even a few thousand terrorists, is worth losing our freedom over. Nothing will dramatically affect them, no matter how much of our freedom we lose, and even if it does, they've won if we lose our freedom. Like Jesse Ventura has said for years: "I'd rather take the chance of not being safe, and still live free." And so would I.

Look, if these Mexican illegals want to strike down this bill, then Mexico should have the same immigration policy as the united states.

..... Because all Mexicans people who don't support the bill are illegals from Mexico.

Fixed

[Dyakovo]

The thing about that bill isn't that its aim is to criminalize illegal immigration. That makes sense.

I makes sense to make something which is already illegal, illegal?

[Kiskaanak]

The thing about that bill isn't that its aim is to criminalize illegal immigration. That makes sense.

I makes sense to make something which is already illegal, illegal?

The Cat-Tribes already dealt with this issue in great detail.

People continue to conflate the political term 'illegal' with criminal behaviour. The two are not in fact linked in the mere being in the US without authorisation.

[Dyakovo]

The thing about that bill isn't that its aim is to criminalize illegal immigration. That makes sense.

I makes sense to make something which is already illegal, illegal?

The Cat-Tribes already dealt with this issue in great detail.

People continue to conflate the political term 'illegal' with criminal behaviour. The two are not in fact linked in the mere being in the US without authorisation.

I know. I was ridiculing Blode, and now you for not getting the point that if something is already illegal it is silly (at best) to make it illegal.

[Farnhamia]

The thing about that bill isn't that its aim is to criminalize illegal immigration. That makes sense.

I makes sense to make something which is already illegal, illegal?

Apparently it wasn't illegal enough. Remember, too, that the Arizona legislature - most of them, anyway - also wanted to have the President show his papers, too. I notice they yanked the "birther" bill last week, once everyone started getting on Arizona's case. Frank Rich had an interesting column on this in Sunday's Times.

[Kiskaanak]

I know. I was ridiculing Blode, and now you for not getting the point that if something is already illegal it is silly (at best) to make it illegal.

You should have made my awesome post to him instead.

[Muravyets]

I'm not sure what you think they are, either, because it seems every illegal immigrant in the US has a valid driver's license

Thereby putting them in a very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system.

and a seemingly valid (but bogus) SSN

So you are saying they have a stolen or fake SSN. I'm not sure why you think that counters my point.

So I'm frankly mystified by this seemingly widespread notion that our licenses and SSNs are some kind of instant password to our life histories which will reveal the full and totally reliable truth about the legal status of any given individual to the sagacious eyes of the average police officer making a traffic stop for a busted tail light or missed stop sign.

Which is hardly what I said they were now was it?

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false. The argument in the thread that SSNs and licenses could be relied upon by cops to check citizenship/residency status is a fantasy because the information that could be accessed about any person would be spotty at best and would give little or no clue that some of it might be bogus. And your remark that RMVs and the SSA essentially provide databases is both irrelevant and partially inaccurate. They may keep databases, but they are not the kind others have been imagining, and the licensed driver databases are not necessarily nationally accessible anyway.

[MisanthropicPopulism]

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false.

Good think I never said that. What I said is they constitute a government-maintained database of citizens.

[DaWoad]

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false.

Good think I never said that. What I said is they constitute a government-maintained database of citizens.

not . . .really. Oh you can use information there to gain more information for sure but that does not constitute a database. More importantly one does not have to have a drivers liscence or passport.

[Muravyets]

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false.

Good think I never said that. What I said is they constitute a government-maintained database of citizens.

Yeah, and I just finished saying that they don't, and I said why. In at least two posts so far.

[Sdaeriji]

It won't happen, but I'd love to see MLB break Arizona over this.

[MisanthropicPopulism]

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false.

Good think I never said that. What I said is they constitute a government-maintained database of citizens.

Yeah, and I just finished saying that they don't, and I said why. In at least two posts so far.

No, you were pissing and moaning about how they don't constitute a collection of "full information about a person" which does not make it not a government database of citizens. And your counter argument against SSN itself was laughable given in so making it you pointed out that the SSN carried by a non-citizen is likely to either be false or stolen thereby not countering the argument I made at all.

[Muravyets]

It won't happen, but I'd love to see MLB break Arizona over this.

There's a rumor going around the news agencies that they're thinking of it. Nothing confirmed yet, but it seems some phone calls have been made concerning next year's All Stars game in Phoenix. MLB is in a tough spot with this. As an organization, they are not known for their ultra-ethical concern with doing the right thing. On the other hand, being cool with this would look very, very bad, and what would they do if every latino/hispanic star player decided to boycott playing in AZ? Fire them all? I don't think so. The NFL boycotted AZ when that state refused to recognize MLK Day as a national holiday (gosh, a theme?), and the state lost $millions. Right after that, MLK Day was added to their official holiday roster. The courage of their convictions, don't you know.

[Arkinesia]

Whine more. God. Here in Germany, maybe in many more places in Europe, anyone age 16+ is required to have a personal ID card on them at all times. Not their drivers license, but an ID with holofoil and all that fancy schmancy stuff. Do the foreigners here complain about it? No. Do the natives here complain about it? No.

What happens when the police want to ID you and you don't have it along? Easy. They ask you where you live and then you all depending on the situation take a merry drive over to your place so you can show them your ID. Or you get escorted to the precinct where you wait until a relative brings it by to properly ID you.

Problem is the US has this thing called the Constitution, and it provides for people not to be searched without probable cause.

So yes, we can bitch all we want. The law says that it's illegal, so hurr durr to any politicians who think otherwise.

[Muravyets]

It's what everyone else has been saying, which makes it the only reason it is relevant to the present conversation at all. My point is that because this supposed database is a "very bureaucratic, ancient, and poorly organized system" -- and in fact, because it isn't even one database -- the idea that an SSN or a driver's license serves as an effective key to the full information about a person is just false.

Good think I never said that. What I said is they constitute a government-maintained database of citizens.

Yeah, and I just finished saying that they don't, and I said why. In at least two posts so far.

No, you were pissing and moaning about how they don't constitute a collection of "full information about a person" which does not make it not a government database of citizens. And your counter argument against SSN itself was laughable given in so making it you pointed out that the SSN carried by a non-citizen is likely to either be false or stolen thereby not countering the argument I made at all.

You didn't make a point, for crying out loud. You just floated an irrelevant and pointless observation that is not really accurate and wasn't responsive to the post you addressed it to. Yes, I can see that you think it was brilliant and relevant and totally settles some matter or other, but you're wrong for the reasons I stated. Individual, limited databases that aren't even reliably accurate themselves and that don't overlap with all the other databases that are out there, do not constitute A Database of Citizens such as was described in the thread.

You know... the thread? The thing the people here are discussing? The thing that gives context to your remarks. You know...context? That's what shows us that your remarks are not relevant.