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howeirdWhile everyone is whining about how Arizona's new anti-illegals law will cause "profiling", I'm more concerned that the opposite will happen. The law basically give the Arizona police gestapo-like authority to ID anyone at all, for no reason at all. Ironically, this makes the law (IMHO) Constitutional because it treats everyone equally.
There is nothing in the law to say which country the illegals have to be from, and I'll bet there are probably some folks in Sun City who have overstayed their visas and look about as Hispanic as Pamela Anderson. Speaking of which, has anyone checked her visa lately? How many Canadians are here illegally? Oh wait, she has dual citizenship. Tommy Lee, OTOH, was born in Greece of Greek parents, and I don't see anything online about his citizenship status having changed. Hmmmmm. I know some people from India and China who were caught in the dot.com bust, lost their H1 status, and can't afford to go home, but somehow have not been deported yet. Them and their entire extended families. Not that I want them to be: After all, they did come here legally and had a reasonable expectation of continued employment while they applied for citizenship.
And can we please stop whining about the Arizona law requiring all legal alien residents to carry their papers with them at all times? It's just a little wallet card, folks, and/or a passport. When I'm in a foreign country I carry my passport with me all the time, it's just common sense. And I carry my passport card in my wallet just in case the bug bites me to drive to Vancouver B.C. or fly to San Diego and walk across the border to Tijuana. Or take a cruise. :-)
Having said all that, I'm all in favor of the INS being beefed up, to help identify and process illegal aliens from whatever country they may have come. Add to that a vastly expanded dedicated immigration court system to handle the number of cases which this will result in. I'm for deporting anyone here illegally, with due process. I'm also all for making smuggling illegals into the country a subset of kidnapping, with the appropriate major federal jail time and fines.
But more importantly, we need to make it easier to come to the US of A legally, and add some appeals process to that - I currently have acquaintances in Fiji, Thailand and the UK who have been refused visas (after paying a $100 non-refundable application fee) just because the consulate interviewer said no. There is no appeal to this arbitrary decision.
There is nothing in the law to say which country the illegals have to be from, and I'll bet there are probably some folks in Sun City who have overstayed their visas and look about as Hispanic as Pamela Anderson. Speaking of which, has anyone checked her visa lately? How many Canadians are here illegally? Oh wait, she has dual citizenship. Tommy Lee, OTOH, was born in Greece of Greek parents, and I don't see anything online about his citizenship status having changed. Hmmmmm. I know some people from India and China who were caught in the dot.com bust, lost their H1 status, and can't afford to go home, but somehow have not been deported yet. Them and their entire extended families. Not that I want them to be: After all, they did come here legally and had a reasonable expectation of continued employment while they applied for citizenship.
And can we please stop whining about the Arizona law requiring all legal alien residents to carry their papers with them at all times? It's just a little wallet card, folks, and/or a passport. When I'm in a foreign country I carry my passport with me all the time, it's just common sense. And I carry my passport card in my wallet just in case the bug bites me to drive to Vancouver B.C. or fly to San Diego and walk across the border to Tijuana. Or take a cruise. :-)
Having said all that, I'm all in favor of the INS being beefed up, to help identify and process illegal aliens from whatever country they may have come. Add to that a vastly expanded dedicated immigration court system to handle the number of cases which this will result in. I'm for deporting anyone here illegally, with due process. I'm also all for making smuggling illegals into the country a subset of kidnapping, with the appropriate major federal jail time and fines.
But more importantly, we need to make it easier to come to the US of A legally, and add some appeals process to that - I currently have acquaintances in Fiji, Thailand and the UK who have been refused visas (after paying a $100 non-refundable application fee) just because the consulate interviewer said no. There is no appeal to this arbitrary decision.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-28 10:49 pm (UTC)I certainly agree, we need to come up with an easier form of legal immegration that can handle much larger numbers than it does today. I've got family who have had all sorts of trouble with INS over the years, especially since several of my family members have no confirmable birth records.
Have no plans to go to Arizona, and I'm glad.
Chris
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 05:34 am (UTC)Right you are. Looking at the Arizona law, here's a whole section about that.