What is Going On in Arizona?

[nathanm]

Cool down dude.  No matter what the media wants you to think there is nothing alarming in this legislation.  No new laws or criminal penalties.  It's just giving local police the power to recognize federal law, and refer criminals to federal authority.
...
Strictly speaking Arizona drivers licenses are not proof of citizenship. They have nothing to do with citizenship, and no where in Arizona law does it state that they are.

Perhaps you should read the bill before deciding what it is that it does. (it does actually extend the criminal offense of trespassing to any illegal immigrant that is on any public or private land in the state of Arizona, it also creates new penalties for those who "harbor" illegal immigrants)

And yes, under this new law, an Arizona driver's license is indeed accepted as proof of legal presence in the US:

A person is presumed to not be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States if the person provides to the law enforcement officer or agency any of the following:

1.  A valid Arizona driver license.

2.  A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.

3.  A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.

4.  If the entity requires proof of legal presence in the United States before issuance, any valid United States federal, state or local government issued identification.

I'm wondering how exactly your usual officer on the street will verify #4.

The bill alarms me, but that may be because my SO and her family are immigrants and I don't want to see this sort of junk spread across the nation like the cancer that it is.

[custosnox]

I like your obsequiousness. For someone who claims government tyranny, you sure seem not to mind it.

Would you also be proud to be carrying your green card with you and get your wallet stolen. What would you do if you ended up having an encounter with a police officer prior to getting it replaced? (which, by the way, is a very long and arduous process that often takes months)

I don't think you'd enjoy sitting in jail while they figured out whether or not you were legally present. Heck, you might end up like one of those citizens who spent months or years waiting to be deported because ICE didn't believe them when they claimed they were citizens. (this happens pretty regularly)

custosnox, I could go through that "FB" thing and debunk it almost to a point, but I think you can do your own research and find out that illegal immigrants do pay taxes, do pay for social security they never get to use, and only rarely get any sort of welfare or subsidy. (aside from visits to the ER and their children, who are often citizens, getting to go to public school like everyone else) It helps to keep in mind that the vast majority of illegal immigrants didn't actually cross the border illegally. Most of them came in on a temporary visa and never left. One part of legally immigrating is that you can't go on the public dole without getting deported.

Ironically, a lot of the things in that list that the author is complaining about are caused directly by us making it impossible for illegal immigrants to do. We make it impossible to get licensed, so auto insurance is priced out of reach of the vast majority. We make it impossible to get the necessary numbers to pay taxes, so they either don't pay them at all or (more commonly) make up a SSN. Then they end up both overpaying in income tax every year because they don't get a refund, yet we complain about them not paying taxes.

Moreover, a bunch of that list is just racist in general. It assumes that all people who don't speak english well are illegal immigrants. Nevermind that it's nearly impossible for someone over the age of 40 to learn another language well enough to speak it without a thick accent, making it sound to a lot of people like they don't speak it well.

There is a reason that I said it was over the top, and that it had a few valid points.  My personal opinion on the matter is that if you want to be here, you should do so in a legal manner.  Counter-point to that though is that we should have a better immigration system so that those that want to come here to work, attend school and have a better chance at a better life can do so without going through every trick in a three ring circus to do so.

[nathanm]

Counter-point to that though is that we should have a better immigration system so that those that want to come here to work, attend school and have a better chance at a better life can do so without going through every trick in a three ring circus to do so.

That is exactly what I'm trying, very poorly, to communicate. The Arizona law just makes it worse, IMO. Allowing more people to come here legally would reduce the number of illegal crossings, freeing up manpower and making it easier to police the border against those who choose to cross illegally. If we redirect all the people who aren't human traffickers and drug smugglers through the official checkpoints, those that choose to cross illegally will likely be made up almost entirely of the sort of people we have a strong interest in keeping out.

I've come to realize that "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is a reasonably appropriate stance to take regarding some of the things we have declared illegal that we still can't seem to get a handle on despite ever-increasing enforcement efforts. At some point we have to realize that what we're doing isn't working and try something different. After all, it has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

[we vs us]

If I were a legal immigrant who worked hard to go through the proper channels to get my work papers or citizenship, I would be proud to display that information to an officer if asked.  I would also be quite angry at those who choose to sully the reputation of an entire culture of hard working people by breaking the law.

I hear this quite a bit and I think it's a fallacy; I think it's an imposition of conservative values on an issue that doesn't necessarily support it.  I say that because it's fairly self evident that Hispanic communities in cities across America readily accept both legal and illegal immigrants.  There's no organized Hispanic movement to self-purge the ones who've done it right from the ones who haven't.  I think this is because Hispanic communities are still built around extended families, and many families have members living in either country.   (You hear about the dollars that the undocumented folks take back to their families in Mexico?  That's exactly the point.)  There are generations of families that straddle the border, and some members of some families have made careers out of going back and forth.

I know there's a temptation to be hardcore about it, to say it's a flat out law and order issue and you're either legal or illegal, full stop. And in one sense, that's correct.  According to the law, unless you fulfill a certain number of criteria, you are illegal. Ok, got it.  At the same time, we're obviously dealing with a societal phenomenon too, a crime that is bigger and more interconnected than murder or robbery (for instance).  It's a complicated crime, as much as we wish it weren't, and reducing it simply to A & B keeps us from dealing with the cause(s) of it. 

[dbacks fan]

I hear this quite a bit and I think it's a fallacy; I think it's an imposition of conservative values on an issue that doesn't necessarily support it.  I say that because it's fairly self evident that Hispanic communities in cities across America readily accept both legal and illegal immigrants.  There's no organized Hispanic movement to self-purge the ones who've done it right from the ones who haven't.  I think this is because Hispanic communities are still built around extended families, and many families have members living in either country.   (You hear about the dollars that the undocumented folks take back to their families in Mexico?  That's exactly the point.)  There are generations of families that straddle the border, and some members of some families have made careers out of going back and forth.

From someone who lives in Phoenix, and my wife was called to jury duty at the Federal court house, and she sat on a jury for a deprotation of an illegal, I can tell you that it is not a fallacy. The trial she was on concerned a man who was 25 years old and worked as a massage therapist (legal massage). He was brought to the US as a child at age four or five. Was educated in the local school system, given grant money, and scholarship money to attend ASU in the field of sports medicine. Graduated high school in the top 20% of his class and after being deported twice graduated ASU in the top 30% of his class. His reason for continuing to cross illegaly into the US was he wanted to go home. He tried going through the legal process, but gave up because of the difficulty. He was sentenced to 3 years in Federal custody and is to be scheduled for deportation this year.

And yes there is collusion between some of the legals and the illegals, they sell them cars to people with no insurance or drivers licsense, help them obtain forged or stolen identities, (I have been a victim of that)

Are all of the legals bad? No. Are all of the illegals bad? Yes. What part of illegal to be here do people not get? Another thing, and this is a more personal issue, my wife contracted meningitis a couple of years ago, at a time that this illeness was starting to increase here. At the time that this happended she was running her own pet sitting/dog walking business. She would stop at convienence stores for something to drink or something to eat. Several of her clients who are MD's related the fact that there has been a spike in this and other illnesses related to undocumented/illegal aliens coming into the US, especially with the undocumented being in the hospital with the same illness.

And for those that think that the illegals are all Hispanic, you are wrong. In the Tucson and Yuma sectors, they are picking up an increaseing number of Asian and Eastern Europeans.

[azbadpuppy]

Lawfull Contact means that the officer cannot just stop someone unless their is a lawfull reason to do so.

Are you sure about that? Does 'lawful contact' really mean something like a traffic stop, or does it simply mean when an officer makes contact with someone it isn't an abuse of power? Where in Arizona statues is 'lawful contact' defined?

Vagueness is but one of the big problems with this bill.

[nathanm]

Are all of the legals bad? No. Are all of the illegals bad? Yes. What part of illegal to be here do people not get?

What part of "mere presence in the country is not in and of itself criminal" don't you get? It's illegal to cross the border, it is not illegal to be here.

Now, in Arizona, once this bill takes effect, they will be trespassing.

Either way, these are people who just want to do what you do: Go to work and make some money. They don't have insurance not because they want to be uninsured (in general, there is a subset of society that doesn't want to buy auto insurance for whatever reason), but because they can't get it. If Arizona law instead butted out of the immigration issue entirely and allowed anyone who applies with proof of identity (and can pass the written and operator's exams), they would get licenses and be insured.

The hard line stance is only making things worse. I don't understand what's so difficult to grasp about that, unless you're the sort to class people into "good" and "evil" based on nothing more than whatever laws we happen to have at the moment and class these folks as "evil" simply because they crossed the border without permission.

I think that there are a number of people we ought to attempt to keep out. Human traffickers, drug smugglers, and the like. Unless we stem the flow of the benign immigrants by making it easier to immigrate legally, it simply won't be possible to police the border against people and things that actually threaten us.

[dbacks fan]

Are you sure about that? Does 'lawful contact' really mean something like a traffic stop, or does it simply mean when an officer makes contact with someone it isn't an abuse of power? Where in Arizona statues is 'lawful contact' defined?

Vagueness is but one of the big problems with this bill.

According to the press conference that Gov. Brewer had after signing the bill, it is a tool to be used after an initial contact with a person. In other words if you are contacted for something else, a traffic stop for a tail light, head light, or any infraction of the the law. If you are hanging out on a corner that is known for drug, prostitution, or other issues the police may come into contact with you. If you are involved (and this has happened to me) if you do not have a drivers licsence and no insureance you can be detained because you cannot prove that you are legal to drive in the us. In my case the people in the car told the DPS officer that none of them had a drivers licsence, and that their mother did, and she would come to the scene to prove that they could drive her car. The end result was that I was not at fault in the accident, but because the driver had no insureance or licsence, and the person that owned the car had not given permission for the driver to operate the car, it was my responsibilty to pay for the damage. So I was not at fault, but I had to pay for the repairs, and have my premiums increase, anf the person responsible walked away without any penalty.

[nathanm]

So I was not at fault, but I had to pay for the repairs, and have my premiums increase, anf the person responsible walked away without any penalty.

Unless Arizona law is utterly stupid, it requires insurance to operate a vehicle. Absent that insurance, the other driver received at least tickets for driving without insurance and driving without a license. Moreover, you or your insurance company could have sued the other driver. (Your insurance company most likely did..whether they were able to collect is another matter entirely)

Edited to add: You might want to rely on reading the law, rather than what politicians say about it, by the way. In most states, "lawful contact" basically means "an officer sees you and speaks to you." There is no bar of apparent criminal behavior required. Usually, police have better things to do than chatting with random passerby, however.

[dbacks fan]

Unless Arizona law is utterly stupid, it requires insurance to operate a vehicle. Absent that insurance, the other driver received at least tickets for driving without insurance and driving without a license. Moreover, you or your insurance company could have sued the other driver. (Your insurance company most likely did..whether they were able to collect is another matter entirely)

Edited to add: You might want to rely on reading the law, rather than what politicians say about it, by the way. In most states, "lawful contact" basically means "an officer sees you and speaks to you." There is no bar of apparent criminal behavior required. Usually, police have better things to do than chatting with random passerby, however.

Yes your insureance company can sue the other driver, but if they are here illegaly, they will and do not show for court it's left to you to take care of the damage. You have no recourse to recover anything wether it is property damage, injury or loss of life.

[dbacks fan]

Unless Arizona law is utterly stupid, it requires insurance to operate a vehicle. Absent that insurance, the other driver received at least tickets for driving without insurance and driving without a license. Moreover, you or your insurance company could have sued the other driver. (Your insurance company most likely did..whether they were able to collect is another matter entirely)

Edited to add: You might want to rely on reading the law, rather than what politicians say about it, by the way. In most states, "lawful contact" basically means "an officer sees you and speaks to you." There is no bar of apparent criminal behavior required. Usually, police have better things to do than chatting with random passerby, however.

If you lose your life in an accident, and the person at fault is here illegaly,(and they actually capture and arrest, try and convict that person) becuse the fact that they were in the US illegaly will take years to prove becuse they are given a pass, while a family member or loved one is dead. It's the same as if you go to Mexico and are seriously injured there, you may die before you get back to the US. I live in a border state, and not through some govt or web based fear do I concern myself with going across the border. Unless you have lived in an area like AZ, or parts of TX, NM, or played the Tom Cruise roll in "Loosing It" in Tijuana, I don't think that you know what's going on here. It's not don't cross, it's open warfare.

[nathanm]

Yes your insureance company can sue the other driver, but if they are here illegaly, they will and do not show for court it's left to you to take care of the damage. You have no recourse to recover anything wether it is property damage, injury or loss of life.

Failure to appear is not a crime confined to illegal immigrants by any means.

I fail to see how escalation of already failed policies will solve Arizona's problems.

[Gaspar]

Are you sure about that? Does 'lawful contact' really mean something like a traffic stop, or does it simply mean when an officer makes contact with someone it isn't an abuse of power? Where in Arizona statues is 'lawful contact' defined?

Vagueness is but one of the big problems with this bill.

If an officer walks up to you today and asks for your identification, that is lawful contact.  If he asks during an investigation that too is lawful contact.  There is no change to the law in this part of the bill.  A police officer can walk up to you today in Oklahoma and ask for your identification and you are required to provide it.  Citizen or not.

[Red Arrow]

Unless Arizona law is utterly stupid, it requires insurance to operate a vehicle. Absent that insurance, the other driver received at least tickets for driving without insurance and driving without a license. Moreover, you or your insurance company could have sued the other driver. (Your insurance company most likely did..whether they were able to collect is another matter entirely)

Requiring insurance doesn't even work in Oklahoma.  A friend (no, not really me) was hit in his car by an uninsured US and Oklahoma legal citizen.  The person who crashed into my friend didn't have much.  So, even though the other driver was at fault but didn't have insurance, he was not arrested or suffer any consequence other than the damage to his own car.  My friend tried to get a lawyer, the police, anyone with authority to help but none were interested.  My friend had to fix his own car.   I don't think making the casual illegal immigrant into a legal guest worker (or whatever) will fix the uninsured driver problem, here or Arizona.

[rwarn17588]

Requiring insurance doesn't even work in Oklahoma.  A friend (no, not really me) was hit in his car by an uninsured US and Oklahoma legal citizen.  The person who crashed into my friend didn't have much.  So, even though the other driver was at fault but didn't have insurance, he was not arrested or suffer any consequence other than the damage to his own car.  My friend tried to get a lawyer, the police, anyone with authority to help but none were interested.  My friend had to fix his own car.   I don't think making the casual illegal immigrant into a legal guest worker (or whatever) will fix the uninsured driver problem, here or Arizona.

Same damned thing happened to me three years ago. And, yes, the uninsured person was a native Okie. As far as I know, he's still driving.