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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: loco on April 27, 2010, 08:08:57 AM
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"Most high school students in the USA probably don't know that tens of thousands of Mexican-Americans — many of them legal residents or even U.S. citizens — were forcibly sent to Mexico during the depths of the Depression. That's because few history books even mention it."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-04-04-history-books_x.htm
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U.S. urged to apologize for 1930s deportations
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
His father and oldest sister were farming sugar beets in the fields of Hamilton, Mont., and his mother was cooking tortillas when 6-year-old Ignacio Piña saw plainclothes authorities burst into his home.
"They came in with guns and told us to get out," recalls Piña, 81, a retired railroad worker in Bakersfield, Calif., of the 1931 raid. "They didn't let us take anything," not even a trunk that held birth certificates proving that he and his five siblings were U.S.-born citizens.
The family was thrown into a jail for 10 days before being sent by train to Mexico. Piña says he spent 16 years of "pure hell" there before acquiring papers of his Utah birth and returning to the USA.
The deportation of Piña's family tells an almost-forgotten story of a 1930s anti-immigrant campaign. Tens of thousands, and possibly more than 400,000, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were pressured — through raids and job denials — to leave the USA during the Depression, according to a USA TODAY review of documents and interviews with historians and deportees. Many, mostly children, were U.S. citizens.
Related story: Some stories hard to get in history books
If their tales seem incredible, a newspaper analysis of the history textbooks used most in U.S. middle and high schools may explain why: Little has been written about the exodus, often called "the repatriation."
That may soon change. As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on bills that would either help illegal workers become legal residents or boost enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, an effort to address deportations that happened 70 years ago has gained traction:
• On Thursday, Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., plans to introduce a bill in the U.S. House that calls for a commission to study the "deportation and coerced emigration" of U.S. citizens and legal residents. The panel would also recommend remedies that could include reparations. "An apology should be made," she says.
Co-sponsor Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., says history may repeat itself. He says a new House bill that makes being an illegal immigrant a felony could prompt a "massive deportation of U.S. citizens," many of them U.S.-born children leaving with their parents.
"We have safeguards to ensure people aren't deported who shouldn't be," says Jeff Lungren, GOP spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, adding the new House bill retains those safeguards.
• In January, California became the first state to enact a bill that apologizes to Latino families for the 1930s civil rights violations. It declined to approve the sort of reparations the U.S. Congress provided in 1988 for Japanese-Americans interned during World War II.
Democratic state Sen. Joe Dunn, a self-described "Irish white guy from Minnesota" who sponsored the state bill, is now pushing a measure to require students be taught about the 1930s emigration. He says as many as 2 million people of Mexican ancestry were coerced into leaving, 60% of them U.S. citizens.
• In October, a group of deportees and their relatives, known as los repatriados, will host a conference in Detroit on the topic. Organizer Helen Herrada, whose father was deported, has conducted 100 oral histories and produced a documentary. She says many sent to Mexico felt "humiliated" and didn't want to talk about it. "They just don't want it to happen again."
No precise figures exist on how many of those deported in the 1930s were illegal immigrants. Since many of those harassed left on their own, and their journeys were not officially recorded, there are also no exact figures on the total number who departed.
At least 345,839 people went to Mexico from 1930 to 1935, with 1931 as the peak year, says a 1936 dispatch from the U.S. Consulate General in Mexico City.
"It was a racial removal program," says Mae Ngai, an immigration history expert at the University of Chicago, adding people of Mexican ancestry were targeted.
However, Americans in the 1930s were "really hurting," says Otis Graham, history professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. One in four workers were unemployed and many families hungry. Deporting illegal residents was not an "outrageous idea," Graham says. "Don't lose the context."
A pressure campaign
In the early 1900s, Mexicans poured into the USA, welcomed by U.S. factory and farm owners who needed their labor. Until entry rules tightened in 1924, they simply paid a nickel to cross the border and get visas for legal residency.
"The vast majority were here legally, because it was so easy to enter legally," says Kevin Johnson, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.
They spread out across the nation. They sharecropped in California, Texas and Louisiana, harvested sugar beets in Montana and Minnesota, laid railroad tracks in Kansas, mined coal in Utah and Oklahoma, packed meat in Chicago and assembled cars in Detroit.
By 1930, the U.S. Census counted 1.42 million people of Mexican ancestry, and 805,535 of them were U.S. born, up from 700,541 in 1920.
Change came in 1929, as the stock market and U.S. economy crashed. That year, U.S. officials tightened visa rules, reducing legal immigration from Mexico to a trickle. They also discussed what to do with those already in the USA.
"The government undertook a program that coerced people to leave," says Layla Razavi, policy analyst for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). "It was really a hostile environment." She says federal officials in the Hoover administration, like local-level officials, made no distinction between people of Mexican ancestry who were in the USA legally and those who weren't.
"The document trail is shocking," says Dunn, whose staff spent two years researching the topic after he read the 1995 book Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, by Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez.
USA TODAY reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, some provided by Dunn and MALDEF and others found at the National Archives. They cite officials saying the deportations lawfully focused on illegal immigrants while the exodus of legal residents was voluntary. Yet they suggest people of Mexican ancestry faced varying forms of harassment and intimidation:
• Raids. Officials staged well-publicized raids in public places. On Feb. 26, 1931, immigration officials suddenly closed off La Placita, a square in Los Angeles, and questioned the roughly 400 people there about their legal status.
The raids "created a climate of fear and anxiety" and prompted many Mexicans to leave voluntarily, says Balderrama, professor of Chicano studies and history at California State University, Los Angeles.
In a June 1931 memo to superiors, Walter Carr, Los Angeles district director of immigration, said "thousands upon thousands of Mexican aliens" have been "literally scared out of Southern California."
Some of them came from hospitals and needed medical care en route to Mexico, immigrant inspector Harry Yeager wrote in a November 1932 letter.
The Wickersham Commission, an 11-member panel created by President Hoover, said in a May 1931 report that immigration inspectors made "checkups" of boarding houses, restaurants and pool rooms without "warrants of any kind." Labor Secretary William Doak responded that the "checkups" occurred very rarely.
• Jobs withheld. Prodded by labor unions, states and private companies barred non-citizens from some jobs, Balderrama says.
"We need their jobs for needy citizens," C.P. Visel of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee for Coordination of Unemployment Relief wrote in a 1931 telegram. In a March 1931 letter to Doak, Visel applauded U.S. officials for the "exodus of aliens deportable and otherwise who have been scared out of the community."
Emilia Castenada, 79, recalls coming home from school in 1935 in Los Angeles and hearing her father say he was being deported because "there was no work for Mexicans." She says her father, a stonemason, was a legal resident who owned property. A U.S. citizen who spoke little Spanish, she left the USA with her brother and father, who was never allowed back.
"The jobs were given to the white Americans, not the Mexicans," says Carlos DeAnda Guerra, 77, a retired furniture upholsterer in Carpinteria, Calif. He says his parents entered the USA legally in 1917 but were denied jobs. He, his mother and five U.S.-born siblings were deported in 1931, while his father, who then went into hiding, stayed to pick oranges.
"The slogan has gone out over the city (Los Angeles) and is being adhered to — 'Employ no Mexican while a white man is unemployed,' " wrote George Clements, manager of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce's agriculture department, in a memo to his boss Arthur Arnoll. He said the Mexicans' legal status was not a factor: "It is a question of pigment, not a question of citizenship or right."
• Public aid threatened. County welfare offices threatened to withhold the public aid of many Mexican-Americans, Ngai says. Memos show they also offered to pay for trips to Mexico but sometimes failed to provide adequate food. An immigration inspector reported in a November 1932 memo that no provisions were made for 78 children on a train. Their only sustenance: a few ounces of milk daily.
Most of those leaving were told they could return to the USA whenever they wanted, wrote Clements in an August 1931 letter. "This is a grave mistake, because it is not the truth." He reported each was given a card that made their return impossible, because it showed they were "county charities." Even those born in the USA, he wrote, wouldn't be able to return unless they had a birth certificate or similar proof.
• Forced departures. Some of the deportees who were moved by train or car had guards to ensure they left the USA and others were sent south on a "closed-body school bus" or "Mexican gun boat," memos show.
"Those who tried to say 'no' ended up in the physical deportation category," Dunn says, adding they were taken in squad cars to train stations.
Mexican-Americans recall other pressure tactics. Arthur Herrada, 81, a retired Ford engineer in Huron, Ohio, says his father, who was a legal U.S. resident, was threatened with deportation if he didn't join the U.S. Army. His father enlisted.
'We weren't welcome'
"It was an injustice that shouldn't have happened," says Jose Lopez, 79, a retired Ford worker in Detroit. He says his father came to the USA legally but couldn't find his papers in 1931 and was deported. To keep the family together, his mother took her six U.S.-born children to Mexico, where they often survived on one meal a day. Lopez welcomes a U.S. apology.
So does Guerra, the retired upholsterer, whose voice still cracks with emotion when he talks about how deportation tore his family apart. "I'm very resentful. I don't trust the government at all," says Guerra, who later served in the U.S. military.
Piña says his entire family got typhoid fever in Mexico and his father, who had worked in Utah coal mines, died of black lung disease in 1935. "My mother was left destitute, with six of us, in a country we knew nothing about," he says. They lived in the slums of Mexico City, where his formal education ended in sixth grade. "We were misfits there. We weren't welcome."
"The Depression was very bad here. You can imagine how hard it was in Mexico," says Piña, who proudly notes the advanced college degrees of each of his four U.S.-raised sons. "You can't put 16 years of pure hell out of your mind."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-04-1930s-deportees-cover_x.htm
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We should enact a similar program right now for the illegals. 10-15 million people who broke the law being penalized for once, billions of dollars in services that would go back to the states, less crime and more legal Americans with jobs. Seems like a pretty good idea.
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We should enact a similar program right now for the illegals. 10-15 million people who broke the law being penalized for once, billions of dollars in services that would go back to the states, less crime and more legal Americans with jobs. Seems like a pretty good idea.
You don't care that many of those people who were deported during the Great Depression where American citizens and legal residents? You don't care if this happens again?
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No, I don't care about something that happened 80 years ago. And no, that wont happen again here to legal immigrants and other Mexicans that are allowed to be in this country.
I also don't care about slavery which happened more than 130 years ago and what happened to the Japanese 70 years ago. Neither of those things will ever happen again either.
Enough with these meaningless half baked apologies several decades after the fact. It's over and done with. Just don't do it again.
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No, I don't care about something that happened 80 years ago. And no, that wont happen again here to legal immigrants and other Mexicans that are allowed to be in this country.
I also don't care about slavery which happened more than 130 years ago and what happened to the Japanese 70 years ago. Neither of those things will ever happen again either.
Enough with these meaningless half baked apologies several decades after the fact. It's over and done with. Just don't do it again.
How can you be so sure? It could happen to white people next for all we know... :-\
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I'll tell you this much, if we legalize 20 million illegal Mexicans you may be right. The colored folk may have the numbers it needs to revolt and put whitey in bondage. ;D
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I'll tell you this much, if we legalize 20 million illegal Mexicans you may be right. The colored folk may have the numbers it needs to revolt and put whitey in bondage. ;D
haha ;D
Maybe I'm just a paranoid person... :-\
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How can you be so sure? It could happen to white people next for all we know... :-\
I agree with EBC people dont change
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I agree with EBC people dont change
Exactly, that's why I always get annoyed when people say the Constitution is out dated. The founding fathers took human nature into account when they wrote it, and human nature takes thousands or millions of years to change. :-\
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Exactly, that's why I always get annoyed when people say the Constitution is out dated. The founding fathers took human nature into account when they wrote it, and human nature takes thousands or millions of years to change. :-\
"History repeats itself, if you want to see the future look into the past"
Is as true now as ever before.
Human nature will always be an X factor
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"History repeats itself, if you want to see the future look into the past"
Is as true now as ever before.
Human nature will always be an X factor
Scary :(
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Yeah I believe it *could* happen again- not deportation but definitely large group detainment. Lord knows how many arabs were locked up for how long after 911 (even tho a plane in bin laden himself's name was allowed to fly out of the USA with his whole family on board).
All it takes is for a few idiot militant white guys to pull some nonsense, and look out... all the white boys pumping their fists for the "show us your papers" act may change their positions as ACORN with rifles demands to see their papers lol....
i'll say it again. If this identical bill came from obama, you'd have many current supporters hating it. They'd be carrying a copy of the 4th amendment INSTEAD of their drivers licence, just to defy the law.
Hell, the fact tancredo thinks its too invasive - he's as conservative as they come.
Also I have to ask - has baby girl Palin gave her opinion yet? She tweets nonstop on every issue that is anti-obama... and she's gagged on this one? What gives... I was looking fwd to her input!
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240 is having this years' Palins' Baby moment over this.
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If it happens, it will be because the idiots running the government don't enforce the laws and award millions of criminals with a citizenship.
There are already mexican organizations in the US that have a message of "taking back what is rightfully ours". That they are just repopulating the land that once belonged to them.
I don't mind immigrants, legal ones that is. It's those that don't care about the laws of this nation that are the problem.
Funny how the Mexican government don't have a problem with rounding up Guatemalans and shipping them off, but it bothers them that Arizona would want to the same with Mexicans, Guatemalans, Colombians and what ever other criminal crossing the border.
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Just remember this pic.
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hey well I got an idea for all of yall opposed to this...seeing as any and all immigration laws could lead to the violation of civil rights of citizens(ANY LAW PERIOD CAN DO THIS ::)) lets just invite them all in and sing kumbuya!!!
i mean we can cook tamales and play the ochardian together? sound good to you?
you think those POFS give one rats ass about our civil rights?
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hey well I got an idea for all of yall opposed to this...seeing as any and all immigration laws could lead to the violation of civil rights of citizens(ANY LAW PERIOD CAN DO THIS ::)) lets just invite them all in and sing kumbuya!!!
i mean we can cook tamales and play the ochardian together? sound good to you?
you think those POFS give one rats ass about our civil rights?
tonymctones,
How would you feel if as an American citizen, you were treated like an illegal immigrant, all because cops had "resonance suspicion" that you are an illegal immigrant?
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tonymctones,
How would you feel if as an American citizen, you were treated like an illegal immigrant, all because cops had "resonance suspicion" that you are an illegal immigrant?
I would be ok with it as long as it got cleared up...
LMAO basically what youre saying is you want a fool proof way of finding illegals....ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
basically any law on the books could be used to violate our civil rights...wouldnt you agree?
so basically we cant make any law targeting illegal immigrants without you crying about our civil rights being POSIBBLY violated...
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We need to end all the incentives these people have coming here and make life impossible for them so that going home is a better option than staying here.
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I would be ok with it as long as it got cleared up...
Even after being arrested? How about being sent to Mexico? It has happened before.
LMAO basically what youre saying is you want a fool proof way of finding illegals....ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, but the Arizona state government seems to think they have one. My argument is they don't and American citizens will suffer for it.
basically any law on the books could be used to violate our civil rights...wouldnt you agree?
so basically we cant make any law targeting illegal immigrants without you crying about our civil rights being POSIBBLY violated...
And that makes it okay to pass more laws that can and will be used against innocent American citizens?
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I really don't understand.
So what if you are inconvenienced. Like tonymctones said and has said it best. There is no fool proof way to go about this. SO WHAT IF A COP ASKS YOU FOR YOUR DOCUMENTS/ID. If you are legal, then you don't have nothing to fear.
As they say in Spanish: EL QUE NO LA DEBE, NO LA TEME!
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The streets near me are FILLED with these people in the morning. The cops instead harass normal people (i.e. suckers) going to work for bogus traffic nonsense since they are not allowed to do anything on this front.
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I really don't understand.
So what if you are inconvenienced. Like tonymctones said and has said it best. There is no fool proof way to go about this. SO WHAT IF A COP ASKS YOU FOR YOUR DOCUMENTS/ID. If you are legal, then you don't have nothing to fear.
As they say in Spanish: EL QUE NO LA DEBE, NO LA TEME!
How do you prove to the cop that you are legal?
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Based on that we should never be able to deport anyone no?
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Even after being arrested? How about being sent to Mexico? It has happened before.
and weve convicted innocent ppl and thrown them in jail before as well, maybe we should just not enforce any laws then? ::) there are ALWAYS...ALWAYS going to be problems with any law put in place...this will be no different...
show me where someone has been sent to mexico accidentally under this law...
No, but the Arizona state government seems to think they have one. My argument is they don't and American citizens will suffer for it.
no they dont they understand the potential flaws in this law and are taking steps to minimize them...if you really believe what you just typed you havent been following this bill!!!!!!
And that makes it okay to pass more laws that can and will be used against innocent American citizens?
again any law can and will be used at one time or another in a way that it wasnt meant to be...by your logic we shouldnt pass any laws!!!!!!!!
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As far as I know... You are only legally required to identify yourself to a cop.
You are not required under any circumstance to talk to them or answer any questions.
To those who don't care about what happened in the past.
George Santayana d.1952 said" Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." in The Life of Reason Vol.1, Reason in common sense 1905-06
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and weve convicted innocent ppl and thrown them in jail before as well, maybe we should just not enforce any laws then? ::) there are ALWAYS...ALWAYS going to be problems with any law put in place...this will be no different...
show me where someone has been sent to mexico accidentally under this law...
no they dont they understand the potential flaws in this law and are taking steps to minimize them...if you really believe what you just typed you havent been following this bill!!!!!!
again any law can and will be used at one time or another in a way that it wasnt meant to be...by your logic we shouldnt pass any laws!!!!!!!!
This a new law. Why do you ask me to show you where an American citizen has been deported under this law? Is it because I said it has happened before? Well, let's look first at the Mexican Repatriation program. Too long ago? Okay. Let's look here then:
Group says U.S. citizen wrongly deported to Mexico
Mon, Jun 11 2007
By Kemp Powers
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government on Monday over what the rights group said was the wrongful deportation of a developmentally disabled U.S. citizen who is now missing in Mexico.
ACLU spokesman Michael Soller said 29-year-old Pedro Guzman was serving a 120-day sentence in a Los Angeles jail for trespassing when he was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, on May 10 or May 11 for an alleged immigration violation.
The group's suit filed in U.S. District Court seeks to have the deportation order suspended and for the U.S. government to help locate Guzman.
Guzman, who was born in Los Angeles and lived about 70 miles north in Lancaster with his mother, could barely read and write, Soller said. He did not know his phone number and kept his brother's telephone number on a piece of paper.
But the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in a written statement denied Guzman's deportation, which followed immigration checks at the jail, was improper.
"ICE only processes persons for removal when all available credible evidence suggests the person is an alien," ICE officials said. "That process was followed here and ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman."
The ACLU said Guzman told booking officers that he was born in California.
"This is a recurring nightmare for every person of color of immigrant roots," Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director of the ACLU in southern California, said in a statement.
The only telephone call Guzman made came shortly after his deportation, on May 11 and was received by his sister in law, Soller said.
"The last thing she heard him do was ask someone nearby 'Where am I?' and then the line went dead," Soller said. Guzman has not been heard from since and is assumed lost in Mexico.
Members of Guzman's family, including his mother, brother and sister in law, have traveled to Tijuana and searched shelters, jails and hospitals trying to find him.
"We're asking the U.S. government to take responsibility for finding him," Soller said. "The family just wants him back."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1118919320070611
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Another unfortunate part of our history. :-\
Loco most Americans carry a driver's license or state ID card. That's one pretty easy way to show proof of citizenship (assuming states do their job when issuing licenses). In fact, whenever a person is pulled over during a traffic stop, the first thing the cop asks for is the DL.
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How do you prove to the cop that you are legal?
Provide the documents they request. What ever that maybe.
You keep spouting that any illegal can have a valid driver license. What ever that state may be, they need to follow the NJ model. In NJ, you need to provide 6 points of identification. Birth certificate, VALID SSI# (I know illegals carrying false SSI#, those are looked into by the NJ DMV), proof of residency, BANK ACCOUNT STATEMENT (in NJ is impossible for an illegal to obtain one). It is very hard for an illegal to get a valid driver license in NJ since 09/11. That is why so many don't dare to drive. And those that do have no license, they have no insurance and a vehicle illegally registered in PA. The problem is that when they get caught they run off to another town, state or back home.
So what ever the law requires, PROVIDE IT. If you are legal it will be proven. If you are illegal, you will get caught. If you are not legal and don't get caught, oh well, not every criminal is going to get caught. It happens today with every other law in the books.
Like tony said, you are seeking a 100% fool proof way. There is no such law. But, at least this law is a step in the right direction. I hope it goes national.
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"I would be ok with it as long as it got cleared up..."
This is what it all comes down to. Tony, who is in his late 20s and lives in TX, is a single guy with half-foreign0looking blood who knows there is a small chance he'll ever be accosted by police, but if he does, he says he won't mind getting cuffed and having his papers run.
That's cool. If I lived in a place like AZ or NY or TX where illegals are seen every day, I would probably feel the same way. However, we do need to recognize that Tony is saying he is willing to part with some of his liberties in the name of security. Ben Franklin.
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U.S. Government Detaining, Deporting U.S. Citizens
Tuesday June 10, 2008
Peter Guzman was scheduled to be the best man at his brother's wedding in July 2007, but he never made it. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had deported Guzman, a U.S. citizen and second-generation Mexican-American immigrant, as an "illegal alien."
Bettina Casares, a U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran, faced similar treatment in 2003 as she was assaulted and detained by Border Patrol agents while trying to return to the United States after visiting her family in Mexico over the Easter holiday. (Casares later filed suit, winning an undisclosed settlement.)
Guzman and Casares are among the thousands of U.S. citizens of Latino ancestry detained or deported annually by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As Jacqueline Stevens writes in The Nation:
... California Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren calls Guzman the "poster child" for an epidemic of detaining and deporting US citizens by ICE. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), agrees with Lofgren. Last year Hartzler's staff of six attorneys provided presentations and occasionally individual advice to more than 8,000 detainees in southern Arizona ... Hartzler testified, "The deportation of US citizens is not happening monthly, or weekly, but every day."
ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half ...
I called fifteen private immigration attorneys whose names appear on a Justice Department list of pro bono attorneys in Los Angeles and left messages asking whether they had clients in the past three years who were US citizens held in ICE detention for at least one month. Seven of them called back, each describing one to four clients who meet these criteria ...
Since the state does not guarantee legal representation in civil cases, 90 to 95 percent of detainees lack attorneys.
Nor is the federal government the only offender. Local ordinances are frequently written in manner that encourages local officials and private citizens to indiscriminately target Latino residents, regardless of immigration status. The Hazleton Ordinance, for example, used a definition of illegal status so broad that it actually includes some U.S. citizens and legal residents. The Pahrump Ordinance targeted any celebration of Latin American heritage that permits participants to fly the flag of another nation. The proposed Bogota Ordinance would have prohibited the use of Spanish in advertisements and certain other printed materials. I could go on.
And the hostility towards "illegal immigrants" has also encouraged vigilantism against Latinos by white nationalists. As the Southern Poverty Law Center reports:
The number of hate groups operating in the United States has grown to 888 — a staggering 48 percent increase since 2000, driven largely by anti-immigrant hysteria. And since the spring of 2005, some 300 new immigration restriction groups, including border vigilantes like the Minutemen and organizations that exist simply to harass Latino immigrants, have sprung up across the country. Of that number, 144 are listed as "nativist extremist" groups — organizations that do not merely seek to change immigration policy, but actively confront or harass individuals who they believe are undocumented.
Even anti-immigrant groups that don't necessarily identify as white nationalist organizations tend to make common cause with groups that do. In 2006, for example, the director of Border Guardians recruited neo-Nazis to rob, beat, harass, and otherwise intimidate Latinos. (One suggestion pulled from the email: "Discourage Spanish-speaking children from going to school. Be creative.")
This hostility--from federal and local governments, from hate groups, and from private citizens--is having a noticeable impact on the lives of Americans of Latino ancestry. As I wrote back in December:
According to a new study by the Pew Hispanic Center, 64 percent of U.S. Latinos say that their lives have been made harder by the immigration debate. (About 75 percent of Latinos are in this country legally; undocumented immigrants make up only 12 million of the 47-million-strong Latino population.) And over the past year, the percentage of Latinos who say that they, their families, or their close friends have been victimized by discrimination has increased from 31 percent to 41 percent.
These statistics are corroborated by FBI data indicating that hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 35 percent over the past four years.
These abuses underscore the need for calm, humane immigration reform that rejects policies of mass deportation. Even if the deportation of 12 million people could be justified on the basis of paperwork violations, it's almost certain that, given the abuses inherent in the limited anti-immigration statutes we already have, a more ambitious policy would have an even more drastic, and harmful, effect on American Latinos.
http://civilliberty.about.com/b/2008/06/10/us-government-detaining-deporting-us-citizens.htm
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True... They do that because driving is a privilege... Walking down the street is not.
Cops ask for your drivers license because you have to take a test and be approved to drive... It's not about being "ID'd"
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"Loco most Americans carry a driver's license or state ID card. That's one pretty easy way to show proof of citizenship"
Beach Bum, can you please tell the millions of birthers out there, that President Obama has a drivers licence, and has therefore already shown proof of his citizenship? :)
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Cops are not going to do that. They have said time and time again what the most likely scenario for this is, which i agree with.
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"I would be ok with it as long as it got cleared up..."
This is what it all comes down to. Tony, who is in his late 20s and lives in TX, is a single guy with half-foreign0looking blood who knows there is a small chance he'll ever be accosted by police, but if he does, he says he won't mind getting cuffed and having his papers run.
That's cool. If I lived in a place like AZ or NY or TX where illegals are seen every day, I would probably feel the same way. However, we do need to recognize that Tony is saying he is willing to part with some of his liberties in the name of security. Ben Franklin.
so are you you hypocritical fuk!!!!!!
youre ok with the police checking to see if your sober or not...thats parting with your liberties isnt it?
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"Cops are not going to do that. They have said time and time again what the most likely scenario for this is, which i agree with. '
You can tell me that no cop in america is going to abuse this law? HAHAHAHA
I come from a family with 7 cops in it. I am well aware of the liberties they take, the stretches they make... LOL... "Cops are not going to do that..."
HAHAHA come on dude... you're a cop who can't stand the legal citizen kid on the corner selling dope, you don't use this as a chance to shake him down? haha
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U.S. citizen's near-deportation not a rarity
A zeal to nab illegal immigrants ensnares many innocent people, including a Minnesota native.
By MARISA TAYLOR, McClatchy News Service
Last update: January 26, 2008 - 8:09 PM
FLORENCE, ARIZ. - Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.
On Thursday, Warziniack finally became a free man. Immigration officials released him after his family, who learned about his predicament from a reporter, produced a birth certificate and after a U.S. senator demanded his release.
"The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack said in an earlier phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped the ball."
Not an isolated case
The story of how immigration officials decided that a small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes deports American citizens.
U.S. citizens who are mistakenly jailed by immigration authorities can get caught up in a nightmarish bureaucratic tangle in which they're simply not believed.
An unpublished study by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit organization, in 2006 identified 125 people in immigration detention centers across the nation who immigration lawyers believed had valid U.S. citizenship claims.
Nina Siulc, the lead researcher, said she thinks that many more American citizens probably are being erroneously detained or deported every year because her assessment looked at only a small number of those in custody. Each year, about 280,000 people are held on immigration violations at 15 federal detention centers and more than 400 state and local contract facilities nationwide.
Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves.
"It becomes your word against the government's, even when you know and insist that you're a U.S. citizen," Siulc said. "Your word doesn't always count, and the government doesn't always investigate fully."
Officials with ICE, the federal agency that oversees deportations, maintain that such cases are isolated because agents are required to obtain sufficient evidence that someone is an illegal immigrant before making an arrest. However, they don't track the number of U.S. citizens who are detained or deported.
"We don't want to detain or deport U.S. citizens," said Ernestine Fobbs, an ICE spokeswoman. "It's just not something we do."
While immigration advocates agree that the agents generally release detainees before deportation in clear-cut cases, they said that ICE sometimes ignores valid assertions of citizenship in the rush to ship out more illegal immigrants.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/14456137.html?page=1&c=y
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Well personally I think DUI checkpoints are fascist and should be illegal.
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"youre ok with the police checking to see if your sober or not...thats parting with your liberties isnt it?"
actually tony, someone else just made this point-
When you drive erratically and are given a sobriety test, it is based upon video evidence of the police car cam on your ass driving - easy to fight in court if abused.
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To loco and 240:
please show me one law you agree with that you dont have to sacrifice some form of personal freedom in order for police to enforce it...
and I am quite often mistaken for hispanic 240 I could very well be asked for proof under this law if they stopped me for a legal reason...WHICH IS THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
read the law and tell me where you get they can pull you out of line b/c you look illegal!!! still waiting for you to show that
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"youre ok with the police checking to see if your sober or not...thats parting with your liberties isnt it?"
actually tony, someone else just made this point-
When you drive erratically and are given a sobriety test, it is based upon video evidence of the police car cam on your ass driving - easy to fight in court if abused.
show me where the law says they can pull you over for looking mexican...the way i read it, its in the course of investigating something else and you come across reasons...
and thats not my point brain child the point is you have to give up some freedom for them to be able to enforce that law!!!!!!!!!
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This whole episode is turning into 240's 2010 "Palins' Baby" episode all over again.
Ha ha ha ha.
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Well personally I think DUI checkpoints are fascist and should be illegal.
Why? Are you an alcoholic?
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No... You are being stopped and detained without cause.
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Well personally I think DUI checkpoints are fascist and should be illegal.
im just referencing pulling someone over for suspected dui...apparently to 240 that isnt giving up any civil liberties but having to show your a citizen is... ::)
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"and I am quite often mistaken for hispanic 240 I could very well be asked for proof under this law if they stopped me for a legal reason...WHICH IS THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Watch the news, guys... there's a damn good reason mccain isn't sure it's even legal, Tancredo hates it, and Bill Kristol says legal innocents will have rights violated. We'll see case after case of denied civil rights of legal americans. Oh yeah, we'll see it.
And tony, you're young and surrounded by the illegal animals, I would feel the same way if I were you, so I can't fault you.
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im just referencing pulling someone over for suspected dui...apparently to 240 that isnt giving up any civil liberties but having to show your a citizen is... Roll Eyes
Even I think they abuse that law to pull people over, especially in the middle of the night, but I don't see that as a real problem... if you're swerving or whatever, it just makes sense.
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"and I am quite often mistaken for hispanic 240 I could very well be asked for proof under this law if they stopped me for a legal reason...WHICH IS THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Watch the news, guys... there's a damn good reason mccain isn't sure it's even legal, Tancredo hates it, and Bill Kristol says legal innocents will have rights violated. We'll see case after case of denied civil rights of legal americans. Oh yeah, we'll see it.
And tony, you're young and surrounded by the illegal animals, I would feel the same way if I were you, so I can't fault you.
this law doesnt seem much different than the common law set in place by the SUPREME COURT!!! I could see some of the language needing to be tightened but thats about it...
still didnt answer my questions 240...
what laws that you agree with dont require you do give up freedom in order for them to be enforced?
and please show me where this law says police can stop you for no other reason other than looking mexican...
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To loco and 240:
please show me one law you agree with that you dont have to sacrifice some form of personal freedom in order for police to enforce it...
and I am quite often mistaken for hispanic 240 I could very well be asked for proof under this law if they stopped me for a legal reason...WHICH IS THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
read the law and tell me where you get they can pull you out of line b/c you look illegal!!! still waiting for you to show that
I never said the law will be used to pull over people just because they look or sound Mexican. I said the law will be used to detain and even deport US citizens, after they've been pulled over for other reasons, simply because they look or sound Mexican.
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Even I think they abuse that law to pull people over, especially in the middle of the night, but I don't see that as a real problem... if you're swerving or whatever, it just makes sense.
I agree that at times there is abuse but like Ive said time and time again that is true of any law...if thats the reasoning one uses to invalidate this law then they logically should be against all laws...
I think you create a law the tries to minimize abuse while achieving its goal and penalize the cops that abuse the law, you dont let the criminals run free for the fear of abuse...
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I want 100% clarification that no American will ever be pulled from a street corner, in line, etc (anywhere but driving) and have an officer require them show proof of citizenship.
Link to that in the bill, and I'll accept it. Then I'll need to know why Bill Kristol was wrong, mccain was wrong, tancredo was wrong...
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I never said the law will be used to pull over people just because they look or sound Mexican. I said the law will be used to detain and even deport US citizens, after they've been pulled over for other reasons, simply because they look or sound Mexican.
have you read the process? there seems to be a number of checks and balances in the bill giving the person plenty of opportunities in which to prove their citizenship...
you could say that of any law that we put in place to deport illegals so thats not a good enough reason, you do what you can to limit it...again you seem to want something that will be infallable well simply the fact that humans have a hand in means that it wont be again thats not reason enough to not target illegals for deportation...
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I want 100% clarification that no American will ever be pulled from a street corner, in line, etc (anywhere but driving) and have an officer require them show proof of citizenship.
Link to that in the bill, and I'll accept it. Then I'll need to know why Bill Kristol was wrong, mccain was wrong, tancredo was wrong...
man youre an idiot...loitering is against the law, what if its a domestic disturbance at a house...if in the course of investigating a crime they come across someone who give reasonable suspicion to believe they may not be legal they can request proof!!!!!!!! this isnt just about traffic violations its about lawful violations!!!!
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have you read the process? there seems to be a number of checks and balances in the bill giving the person plenty of opportunities in which to prove their citizenship...
you could say that of any law that we put in place to deport illegals so thats not a good enough reason, you do what you can to limit it...again you seem to want something that will be infallable well simply the fact that humans have a hand in means that it wont be again thats not reason enough to not target illegals for deportation...
That's not what I want. But I'll tell you what I don't want. I wouldn't want myself, or anyone in my family or anyone of my friends who might be American citizens getting arrested in Arizona and later deported simply because they are Hispanic or Latino. That is what I do not want. It has happened before, and this new law just opens the door for this to take place even more.
Personally, as a Latino man, I would avoid Arizona like the plague now all because of this new law. I'm sure many American citizens in the US now feel the same way. That can't be good for the state's economy.
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That's not what I want. But I'll tell you what I don't want. I wouldn't want myself, or anyone in my family or anyone of my friends who might be American citizens getting arrested in Arizona and later deported simply because they are Hispanic or Latino. That is what I do not want. It has happened before, and this new law just opens the door for this to take place even more.
Personally, as a Latino man, I would avoid Arizona like the plague now all because of this new law. I'm sure many American citizens in the US now feel the same way. That can't be good for the state's economy.
what law would you be ok with that would be able to decipher between illegals and legals?
basically the requiremnts that you have set forth can only lead to the conclusion i have come to...you may not want what i said you do but thats what you get when you use the logic that youre using...
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what law would you be ok with that would be able to decipher between illegals and legals?
basically the requiremnts that you have set forth can only lead to the conclusion i have come to...you may not want what i said you do but thats what you get when you use the logic that youre using...
None.
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None.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
in your mind no law targeting illegals would be ok... ;)
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None.
And that is why your name on this forum fits you.
Doing nothing would be crazy and would harm this nation.
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EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
in your mind no law targeting illegals would be ok... ;)
Exactly! You can't target illegals without using racial profiling and oppressing innocent American citizens.
Given the history of serial killers, would you be okay with a law that requires all white males residing in the state to report to the nearest police station for interrogation, finger prints and DNA tests any time there is a serial killer on the loose in their state?
What law would you be okay with that would be able to decipher between serial killers and innocent white males?
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Lets be honest here. You don't care about this law "oppressing innocent American citizens". That is just an excuse and a tactic you are using to divert attention from the real issue. You just don't want your family members, friends, your lawnmower man to be sent packing.
I know it must be tough for you to understand but for the good of this nation, I, as a citizen, am perfectly fine with being inconvenienced from time to time if that meant sending illegal immigrants like Pancho, Guadalupe and Julio Cesar back home.
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Lets be honest here. You don't care about this law "oppressing innocent American citizens". That is just an excuse and a tactic you are using to divert attention from the real issue. You just don't want your family members, friends, your lawnmower man to be sent packing.
I know it must be tough for you to understand but for the good of this nation, I, as a citizen, am perfectly fine with being inconvenienced from time to time if that meant sending illegal immigrants like Pancho, Guadalupe and Julio Cesar back home.
LOL
Let's be honest, Dario! I do care very much about this law "oppressing innocent American citizens" because these innocent American citizens could very well be myself, my family and my Latino friends. Let's be honest, you would not want to be arrested and sent to Mexico when you are an American citizen.
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You act as if this law is going to wrongfully arrest and deport thousands of legal citizens. Give me a break.
All the other states should follow AZ. I will be praying to Maria de Guadalupe for this law to go national and all illegal immigrants to be sent home soon.
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You act as if this law is going to wrongfully arrest and deport thousands of legal citizens. Give me a break.
All the other states should follow AZ. I will be praying to Maria de Guadalupe for this law to go national and all illegal immigrants to be sent home soon.
Thousands? So it's okay with you as long as it's "only" 500, 100, 50 American citizens who get arrested and/or sent to Mexico? You would care very much if even if only one American citizen gets arrested and sent to Mexico, if that American citizen happens to be you.
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Exactly! You can't target illegals without using racial profiling and oppressing innocent American citizens.
Given the history of serial killers, would you be okay with a law that requires all white males residing in the state to report to the nearest police station for interrogation, finger prints and DNA tests any time there is a serial killer on the loose in their state?
What law would you be okay with that would be able to decipher between serial killers and innocent white males?
LOL you see the problem is your law targets white ppl...the arizona law targets illegals it just so happens that the majority of illegals are mexican...
this is like saying cops in white neighborhoods target white ppl, its not that they target white ppl its that the majority of ppl in that neighborhood are white...
this law doesnt target mexican ppl it targets illegals, your scenario targets white ppl specifically which is a protected class...this bill actually goes out of its way to specifically say that you cannot use race as a reason to investigate their citizenship...
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LOL you see the problem is your law targets white ppl...the arizona law targets illegals it just so happens that the majority of illegals are mexican...
this is like saying cops in white neighborhoods target white ppl, its not that they target white ppl its that the majority of ppl in that neighborhood are white...
this law doesnt target mexican ppl it targets illegals, your scenario targets white ppl specifically which is a protected class...this bill actually goes out of its way to specifically say that you cannot use race as a reason to investigate their citizenship...
No, it's not my law, just a scenario I gave you. And it does not target white people. It targets serial killers. It just so happens that the majority of serial killers are white males.
So tell me, what gives a cop "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
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No, it's not my law, just a scenario I gave you. And it does not target white people. It targets serial killers. It just so happens that the majority of serial killers are white males.
So tell me, what gives a cop "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
actually the law does target white ppl if they are specifically named in the law like in your scenario...
show me where in this law it specifically targets ppl on the basis of race...this law doesnt target ppl based on skin color, it targets ppl based on legal status it just so happens that the majority of illegals are mexican especially in the border states...
thats the difference loco, your scenario says all white ppl...this law does not mention race not one time other than to say that it cannot be used as reasonable suspicion...your does!!!!!
lol why dont we wait to find out they havent even come up with the guidelines and your already condemning it...
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actually the law does target white ppl if they are specifically named in the law like in your scenario...
show me where in this law it specifically targets ppl on the basis of race...this law doesnt target ppl based on skin color, it targets ppl based on legal status it just so happens that the majority of illegals are mexican especially in the border states...
thats the difference loco, your scenario says all white ppl...this law does not mention race not one time other than to say that it cannot be used as reasonable suspicion...your does!!!!!
lol why dont we wait to find out they havent even come up with the guidelines and your already condemning it...
What? They signed a bill into law, which goes into effect in what, 90 days? And you are telling me that they have yet to come up with the "guidelines" on what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal alien?
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What? They signed a bill into law, which goes into effect in what, 90 days? And you are telling me that they have yet to come up with the "guidelines" on what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal alien?
dude see this is the problem with knee jerk reactions...you know little to nothing about what is actually in this law...
youve heard ppl ranting and raving about things that arent even present in this bill, did you know this is based on a decison(common law) from the Supreme court?
first educate yourself on this issue
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dude see this is the problem with knee jerk reactions...you know little to nothing about what is actually in this law...
youve heard ppl ranting and raving about things that arent even present in this bill, did you know this is based on a decison(common law) from the Supreme court?
first educate yourself on this issue
According to you, you know the law and I don't. Fine! So tell me what gives a cop "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
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According to you, you know the law and I don't. Fine! So tell me what gives a cop "reasonable suspicion" that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
I certainly dont know all the ins and outs of this bill but apparently I know much more about it than you do as every other thing you post against this bill doesnt even apply to it...
from what I understand the govenor has put together a group to determine what constitutes reasonable suspicion...
and no they cannot use race b/c that would violate the law itself...
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I certainly dont know all the ins and outs of this bill but apparently I know much more about it than you do as every other thing you post against this bill doesnt even apply to it...
from what I understand the govenor has put together a group to determine what constitutes reasonable suspicion...
and no they cannot use race b/c that would violate the law itself...
So you are telling me that the governor has signed the bill into law, which goes into effect in 90 days, and then put together a group to determine what constitutes reasonable suspicion that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
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So you are telling me that the governor has signed the bill into law, which goes into effect in 90 days, and then put together a group to determine what constitutes reasonable suspicion that somebody is an illegal immigrant?
do your research...maybe you will be able to understand why some of the problems you have with this law arent valid
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do your research...maybe you will be able to understand why some of the problems you have with this law arent valid
Have you done your research? Why can't you just answer my questions?
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I have explained this a half dozen times in two threads to loco but nothing seems to be sinking in here. Lawful interactions between the public and the police cannot by definition be the result of cops randomly targeting Mexicans/ Mexican looking people and asking them to prove their citizenship. Reasonable Suspicion in American Jurisprudence is defined as: an objectively justifiable suspicion that is based on specific facts or circumstances and that justifies stopping and sometimes searching (as by frisking) a person thought to be involved in criminal activity at the time
Furthermore: A police officer stopping a person must be able to point to specific facts or circumstances even though the level of suspicion need not rise to that of the belief that is supported by probable cause. A reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch.
So a hunch that a mexican looking person is an illegal immigraint is not enough to stop, detain and require that person to prove their citizenship.
As I said 10 times already, RS is not PC. You always need PC to arrest somebody. For RS ( a lawful interaction) something has to be going on that causes the police to suspect the individual that they are observing is committing a crime.
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I have explained this a half dozen times in two threads to loco but nothing seems to be sinking in here. Lawful interactions between the public and the police cannot by definition be the result of cops randomly targeting Mexicans/ Mexican looking people and asking them to prove their citizenship. Reasonable Suspicion in American Jurisprudence is defined as: an objectively justifiable suspicion that is based on specific facts or circumstances and that justifies stopping and sometimes searching (as by frisking) a person thought to be involved in criminal activity at the time
Furthermore: A police officer stopping a person must be able to point to specific facts or circumstances even though the level of suspicion need not rise to that of the belief that is supported by probable cause. A reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch.
So a hunch that a mexican looking person is an illegal immigraint is not enough to stop, detain and require that person to prove their citizenship.
As I said 10 times already, RS is not PC. You always need PC to arrest somebody. For RS ( a lawful interaction) something has to be going on that causes the police to suspect the individual that they are observing is committing a crime.
George Whorewell,
I know you have. And I have explained to you half dozen times in two threads that I never said this law gives cops license to stop somebody just because he looks Mexican.
What I said was that if a cop pulls somebody over for speeding for example, this law give cops license to request proof of legal US residence if the person they pulled over looks Mexican. That's what I said.
More recently I've been saying that if by law, illegal immigrants are trespassing anywhere in the US, a cop can walk up to somebody that they "reasonably suspect" to be trespassing(somebody they reasonably suspect to be an illegal immigrant), then ask for proof of legal US residence.
You might have said this before, but aren't you a cop? What exactly would give you reasonable suspicion that somebody is and illegal immigrant?
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Loco, the problem we are having in communicating is due to the fact that we are talking around each other. Your example about pulling someone over is not a good one because you are not providing enough information about the police encounter. If you are pulled over for speeding, the police can request license, registration and insurance. If the driver can't provide these documents or gives the cop expired or fake documents ( regardless of whether or not the driver is blonde haired, blue eyed and speaks perfect english) the officer now has reasonable suspicion that a crime may have been committed and therefore he is entitled to investigate further by questioning, detaining and searching the driver of the vehicle. Of course, the cop can also casually observe the interior of the car, any passengers, etc. If after a further investigation probable cause has been established that a crime was committed, the cop can arrest the driver.
Now, if the driver has all of the required identification/ documentation that every single American is required to have on them while driving a car, then that officer has not established the requisite reasonable suspicion that is required for him to determine the driver is in the country illegally and therefore he cannot force the driver to prove he is legal. Do you understand what I'm saying here?
Regarding your second point, how can an officer reasonably suspect someone of tresspassing unless the officer observes a suspect breaking into a home or climbing a fence onto private property ( or receives a call from the radio dispatcher saying the individual that they are observing matches a suspects description for tresspassing)? The answer is that he can't. As I have said already, being Mexican or Mexican looking is never enough to justify reasonable suspicion.
I'm not a cop. I passed the NY and NJ bar exams so I know a little law.