Let's try a new way of discussing immigration..

[Lister]

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by kakie

Seems there are strong feelings on both sides.  But I do believe in all polls the majority of Americans do not what illegals invading our country.  If you have found a legitimate poll that says otherwise I'd be interested in seeing it.

For all those in the minority on this issue, does the rule of law not matter here?  If so then we have anarchy if illegals can just invade our country.

Thankz, your 100% correct. The American people in poles do not want illegal aliens here by something like 80%. The pro-illegal alien and open border crowd just wants everyone to come in here take our jobs and get supported with our tax dollars. A nation without borders and the rule of law will soon not be a nation. This is a very clear cut issue. We have laws against just anyone coming here, there are legal ways to come here. Open borders mean we have no idea and no control on who comes here and who they are from MS13 gang members to terrorists smuggling in suitcase nukes to anchor babies to abuse our socal services and live off the taxpayers and I'm sick of that. I pay enough in taxes.No one will change anyones mind on this issue it seems. I want sealed borders and illegals deported. It's that simple.[B)]

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by kakie

Seems there are strong feelings on both sides.  But I do believe in all polls the majority of Americans do not what illegals invading our country.  If you have found a legitimate poll that says otherwise I'd be interested in seeing it.

For all those in the minority on this issue, does the rule of law not matter here?  If so then we have anarchy if illegals can just invade our country.

Thankz, your 100% correct. The American people in poles do not want illegal aliens here by something like 80%. The pro-illegal alien and open border crowd just wants everyone to come in here take our jobs.... blah, blah, blah....[B)]

Please find the poll that proves your assertions... because the polls I see here  indicate the public is largely split...

http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Lister

[kakie]

USrufnex:  Since you won't be getting on this thread anymore as it makes you sick I wanted to say bye bye.  Good move on your part.  

But I wanted to thank you for the link to the polling report.

[dbacks fan]

Print Article Email Article Most Popular Change Type Size     After deportation, shooter was caught, freed again
Judi Villa, Michael Kiefer, Carol Sowers and Michael Clancy
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 20, 2007 12:00 AM

Erik Jovani Martinez should have been in prison and not jaywalking the day he gunned down Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle.

But despite a lengthy criminal history and a deportation, Martinez remained free, even after he was arrested again in the Valley just two months after he had been forced to leave the country in 2006.

Scottsdale police say they didn't know Martinez, 22, was an illegal immigrant or that he had been deported when they arrested him in May 2006 for grabbing his girlfriend's arm twice during a quarrel.
 




Martinez was deported in March 2006 after a felony conviction for theft.

Had Scottsdale police known, Martinez should have been jailed and should have faced federal charges for returning to the country illegally. A conviction would have earned him up to 20 years in prison.

Instead, he posted $300 bail and was released.

On Wednesday, one day after Martinez gunned down Erfle on a central Phoenix street, the officer's death reignited the ongoing immigration debate.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called on Washington officials to "secure the border and secure it now" before another officer pays the ultimate price.

"This individual that took our officer's life is a perfect example, a poster child, of our failed Washington policy for securing our borders," Gordon said.

But others say Martinez shouldn't necessarily be a flashpoint in the acrimonious debate over where immigration policy and law enforcement should intersect.

Martinez was brought to the United States as an infant and lived his whole life here. Clearly, he also was a career criminal, racking up a dozen arrests before he turned 18 and continuing to have brushes with the law afterward.

Even law-enforcement officials said they were hesitant to say Erfle's murder could be blamed on immigration issues.

"It's a big, complex issue," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been in the national forefront when it comes to pursuing undocumented immigrants.

Still, Arpaio admitted, "You can't catch 'em all. We have a lot of violence out there, whether you're legal or illegal."


A troubled youth
Martinez has an extensive juvenile record that includes assaults and auto thefts. He was a documented gang member who admitted in court papers that he drank and smoked marijuana and crack cocaine. His first arrest, in July 1999, came after his parents reported him as incorrigible.

Martinez spent most of his teens on probation. Arrests for truancy led to more serious things: underage drinking, several threats and assault and stealing a vehicle. Martinez was serving time in juvenile detention for auto theft when he turned 18 and had to be released, according to court records.

Just months later, he was in trouble again, arrested for auto theft. He served time in a Maricopa County jail, then violated his probation and eventually wound up in prison in January 2006. Two months later, Martinez was deported. Typically, illegal immigrants convicted of a felony must serve all or part of their sentence before being deported.


Sneaking back
Martinez apparently sneaked back across the border almost immediately. Scottsdale police arrested him on May 15, 2006, after an officer saw him quarreling with his girlfriend. Scottsdale police spokeswoman Shawn Sanders couldn't say whether officers had contacted immigration officials after the arrest. She would say only that information about Martinez's deportation was "not available to us at that time."

A spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he didn't believe Scottsdale police had contacted the agency, but he couldn't say that unequivocally.

A judge ordered Martinez into a domestic-violence counseling program, but he "didn't comply" and an arrest warrant was issued, Sanders said.

By the time Erfle was killed, Phoenix police were trying to find Martinez for hitting his girlfriend and threatening her with a shotgun in June 2006. Phoenix police obtained a warrant for his arrest in January and were trying to locate him.

The link between undocumented immigrants and crime is difficult to quantify. On Wednesday, about 18 percent of the 10,108 inmates in Maricopa County jails had immigration holds, sheriff's Capt. Paul Chagolla said. An estimated 10 percent of Arizona's population is Mexican nationals.

It's difficult to say whether that's a reflection of illegal immigrants committing a disproportionate amount of crimes or if it reflects Arpaio's crackdown on those who enter the United States illegally. The percentage of the jail population with immigration holds has doubled since Arpaio began his crackdown.

Still, crime certainly has morphed into a hot-button issue in the immigration debate.

Phoenix police were reluctant to address the issue before Erfle is laid to rest, but officials acknowledged that they could not draw a link between immigration policy and the officer's murder. "It's random," Lt. Benny Piña said. "I don't think there's a correlation there."

Before Erfle, the last Phoenix police officer killed by an undocumented immigrant was Marc Atkinson, who was ambushed and shot to death in 1999. Since then, five Phoenix police officers, including Erfle, have been shot to death in the line of duty.

"I think the officers are committed to doing their job regardless of whether the person's in the country illegally or not," Police Chief Jack Harris said.

Police Sgt. Andy Hill recalled that when Phoenix police Officer George Cortez Jr. was shot to death in July while answering a call about a bad check, the questions revolved around whether officers should travel alone or in pairs. Cortez did not have a partner.

"It's the job," Hill said. "It's you putting human beings in circumstances, and that human being is subject to all the dangers that are out there.

"We arrest people like that every single day who don't say they're going to kill a police officer."



When first contacted by the police Martinez gave a false name that happened to be a person also wanted on outstanding warrants. While being taken into custody, Martinez pulled a gun and shot the officer four times at point blank range.

[sauerkraut]

dbacksfan- It's a mess. The stories posted above are scary indeed..The powers that be just seem to want open borders. However it's not a complex issue at all. It's very simple. FOLLOW THE CURRENT LAWS ALREADY ON THE BOOKZ, we don't need more immigration laws. Seal the border tight as a drum, have the army partol it and use the border area as a military base for training excersises, Clamp down on people who hire illegal aliens to shut off the job draw and magnet drawing illegals up here. Then allow local cops to enforce immigration laws, they can enforce any other federal law -why not immigration laws? Deport every illegal that they come across within 24 hours. This is not rocket science. Seal the border and deport...geeesh.. Some people make a mountain out of this and say things like "what can we do with the 20 million illegals we can't ship them back and we need "guest" workers and we can't seal the border it's too long" We ship back the illegals a little at a time, If 20 million illegals can come here- 20 million can go back home. A trip of 1,000 miles starts with a single foot step. The deportation of 20 million illegals starts with the deportation of the first one..[xx(]

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut
A trip of 1,000 miles starts with a single foot step.

So does falling off a ladder.

[USRufnex]

[sauerkraut]

The law is the law, without it everything breaks down. We can't run a "free-for-all" nation, with no borders, no enforcement of immigration law, and anyone and everyone from around the globe who wants to come here can just hop across the border and take a job and live here care free. What's the point in  even being a U.S. citizen if it means nothing? The illegals can come and have full rights. I guess our constitution now applies to the whole world. We have falling wages, we have teens who can't get restaurant jobs because the illegals are working at the restaurants. Yep, let all the poor people of the world all 3 billion of them come to the USA we will gave them everything. After all, they just want to make better lives for their families and they are hard workers.[xx(]

[USRufnex]

MODS, can this thread be moved to Politics since it no longer has any connection to the thread's initial premise...?



http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/31/navarrette/?iref=mpstoryview

Commentary: Illegal immigration is a self-inflicted wound

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN
   
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- We already knew we had broken borders. And when Congress chickened out on immigration reform and showed that it's not equipped to tackle anything more challenging than pork or pay raises, we knew we had a broken branch. Now it's clear that we have a broken dialogue.

We like to think of ourselves, and our communities, as innocent victims of sinister forces that are beyond our control. Concerned that there are too many illegal immigrants in the United States, that our culture is getting too spicy, and that the country is becoming too Hispanic, we blame Mexico or mega-corporations or what one commentator ominously labeled "socio-ethnic centric groups" such as the National Council of La Raza.

You see, illegal immigration is always someone else's fault. At least that's what we tell ourselves. It's easier that way.

And, when we do engage the topic, we get distracted by arguments over whether, for instance, a town such as Hazleton, Pennsylvania, has the right to dabble in do-it-yourself immigration enforcement or whether the Founding Fathers were on the right track in prohibiting that sort of thing by conceiving of the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that a state or locality cannot pass laws that interfere with federal law.

It seems that question has been answered now that U.S. District Judge James M. Munley of the central Pennsylvania district has struck down a poorly conceived ordinance dubbed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which sought to punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. More than 100 towns and communities have passed similar ordinances.

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who has ridden the issue to some degree of national notoriety, has vowed to appeal the decision. But Barletta is whistling by the graveyard. Higher courts are likely to see this issue pretty much as the district court did. It's what attorneys call black letter law.

What we should be talking about instead is just how disingenuous these types of localities are being. Illegal immigration is a self-inflicted wound.  And it's not just employers and landlords that benefit. It's also, yep, the same communities and towns that are doing all the complaining. There is only thing that lured illegal immigrants to Hazleton. It wasn't the scenery, the schools, or the local sports teams. It was jobs -- jobs willingly provided by individuals and businesses that, in turn, forked over tax dollars and filled town coffers. When businesses do well, the town does well. And when the town does well, the people who live there feel as if they're doing well.

I've never been to Hazleton. But I imagine that the place is lovely and has its share of restaurants, hotels and construction firms. It probably also has plenty of working mothers who rely on maids and nannies and plenty of working dads who come home to nicely manicured lawns maintained by gardeners and landscapers, all courtesy of our broken borders. And for years, it's been this way, and no one said a thing about it. Because everyone prospered.

Towns like Hazleton seem to think that they deserve some relief and some sympathy. But one thing they don't deserve is a free pass.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

[shadows]

One wonders if that fellow that is going to donate a 100 M to the river project was perhaps an German immigrant as we were preparing to enter into W.W.ll with Germany.   Being of German descent Homeland Security could have prevented us from doing the river trails.

Isn't on which side of the fence one is looking over determines justification?

[Porky]

quote:Originally posted by shadows

One wonders if that fellow that is going to donate a 100 M to the river project was perhaps an German immigrant as we were preparing to enter into W.W.ll with Germany.   Being of German descent Homeland Security could have prevented us from doing the river trails.

Isn't on which side of the fence one is looking over determines justification

There's a huge difference between Immigrant and Illegal Immigrant. Any comparison is only an insult to those that did it properly.

[shadows]

Porky observes
There's a huge difference between Immigrant and Illegal Immigrant. Any comparison is only an insult to those that did it properly.
___________________________________________

Why don't you look it up when we were preparing to enter into the war with Germany.   Look at the legal Japanese immigrants camps.

No flame just facts.

[Lister]

quote:Originally posted by shadows

Porky observes
There's a huge difference between Immigrant and Illegal Immigrant. Any comparison is only an insult to those that did it properly.
___________________________________________

Why don't you look it up when we were preparing to enter into the war with Germany.   Look at the legal Japanese immigrants camps.

No flame just facts.

No substance that correlates to Porky's "observation" either. There is a huge difference between illegal immigrant and legal immigrant. Please stop trying to obfuscate the issue.