Arizona thread

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Starting this off with their newest idea they want to turn into a law.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100612/us_time/08599199606400
"Anchor babies" isn't a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation's toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots - the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. - for their next move.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona - and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution - to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists - things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB 1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential "anchor baby" bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the "anchor" and leave.

The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that "all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government's control over citizenship.

But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been "hijacked" by illegal immigrants. "They use it as a wedge," Pearce says. "This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we've created." Pearce says he is aware of the constitutional issues involved with the bill and vows to introduce it nevertheless. "We will write it right." He and other Republicans in the red state Arizona point to popular sympathy: 58% of Americans polled by Rasmussen think illegal immigrants whose children are born here should not receive citizenship; support for that stance is 76% among Republicans.

Those who oppose the bill say it would lead to more discrimination and divide the community. Among them is Phoenix resident Susan Vie, who is leading a citizen group that's behind an opposing ballot initiative. She moved to the U.S. 30 years ago from Argentina, became a naturalized citizen and now works as a client-relations representative for a vaccine company. "I see a lot of hate and racism behind it," Vie says. "Consequently, I believe it will create - and it's creating it now - a separation in our society." She adds, "When people look at me, they will think, 'Is she legal or illegal?' I can already feel it right now." Vie's citizen initiative would prohibit SB 1070 from taking affect, place a three-year moratorium on all related laws - including the anchor baby bill - to buy more time for federal immigration reform. Her group is racing to collect 153,365 signatures by July 1 to qualify for the Nov. 2 general election.

Both sides expect the anchor baby bill to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court before it is enacted. "I think it would be struck down as facially unconstitutional. I can't imagine a federal judge saying this would be OK," says Dan Barr, a longtime Phoenix lawyer and constitutional litigator. Potentially joining the anchor baby bill at the Supreme Court may be SB 1070, which Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed into law in April. It is set to take effect July 29, but at least five courtroom challenges have been filed against it. Pearce says he will win them all.

What is appalling is the amount of time it's taking to try the legality [should be instantly thrown out of court for being unconstitutional] of this shit law in court. So far, in Arizona, police can challenge someone's citizenship because you had reasonable suspicion (dark brown skin and accent) they are illegal, it's illegal to now teach any class that promotes one particular ethnic group (Black History, Latin American History), any class that portrays the US in a negative light (Western Civilization, Native American History) and you face being fired from any teaching position for having a heavy accent (excluding southern drawls of course).

Besides the moral ramifications to all of this, Arizona is going to start seeing it's largest labor force disappear over time along with the children whom they are paying teachers to teach.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-06-08-immigration_N.htm
Arizona's tough new immigration enforcement law is fueling an exodus of Hispanics from the state seven weeks before it goes into effect, according to officials and residents in the state.

Though no one has precise figures, reports from school officials, businesses and individuals indicate worried Hispanics — both legal and illegal — are leaving the state in anticipation of the law, which will go into effect July 29.

Schools in Hispanic areas report unusual drops in enrollment. The Balsz Elementary School District is 75% Hispanic, and within a month of the law's passage, the parents of 70 students pulled them out of school, said District Superintendent Jeffrey Smith. The district lost seven students over the same one-month period last year, and parents tell Smith the Arizona law is the reason for leaving.
...
Businesses serving the Hispanic community say business is down, signaling that illegal immigrants are holding on to cash in anticipation of a move from the state, said David Castillo, co-founder of the Latin Association of Arizona, a chamber of commerce for nearly 400 first-generation Hispanic business owners.

Politically this is also going to have an impact on how Hispanics in Arizona (& presumably the rest of the nation) will end up voting.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/06/big-jump-in-latino-registration-for-democrats-unlikely-to-turn-the-state-red/1
The number of Latinos registering to vote as Democrats in Arizona has jumped from 100 a week to 500 in the seven weeks since a tough new immigration law was adopted, The Arizona Republic reports.

The newspaper says many of those registering are young Latino citizens whose parents may be undocumented.

From the looks of this it's only going to go from bad to worse before this gets better, and this law is only going to hurt people that are completely innocent to this whole mess (legal immigrants and US Citizens). Oddly enough, this is going to end up hurting the people that wanted to pass this bill just as much, their economy will slowly begin to turn into (more) shit, due to illegals going to other states, and the children of immigrants growing up to become yellow dog democrats.
 
X

Xem

Guest
Leaving out bits of history to ease someone's mind makes me want to vomit. I recently acquired A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and it's nothing but amazing at how little people realize of what happened even in just the past 100 years or so.

And what's that about children born in the US not being citizens? That would be laughable if it wasn't actually happening.

This is why people need to vote, and not just at presidential elections. I'm one of the most apathetic people you'd ever meet and even I realize this. There are all sorts of organized crazy people constantly working to pass under-the-radar rules and regulations to fit their paranoid world views.
 

Th3Branded0ne

I'll be back.
I live in Phoenix, so I have seen all the protesters and marches going on around since SB1070 was signed by the governor. I"m still in the process to be a resident alien, but still it's very discouraging. Sheriff Joe Arpaio does his crime sweeps every now and then, and just stops anybody for the littlest excuse and then asks them about their legal status, there have been cases that they have taken U.S. citizens of Mexican descent to the border and have been sued. This is only creating animosity between people, and the police are also worried that people may not report crimes because they think they will be asked about their legal status.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Th3Branded0ne said:
there have been cases that they have taken U.S. citizens of Mexican descent to the border and have been sued.

Seriously... I hope whoever does that systematically loses his or her job. You'd think cops would have more productive stuff to do.
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
This is a sticky situation and makes me feel that the country is going to turn into one big Orwellian novel.

I seriously have no problem with immigrants who come here legally and try to obtain a legal citizenship. It's the ones who hop across the border and somehow think they're entitled to the rights of every other natural citizen that piss me off. If they find illegals, then send them home.
 

Okin

The Ultimate Battle Creature
Johnstantine said:
This is a sticky situation and makes me feel that the country is going to turn into one big Orwellian novel.

I seriously have no problem with immigrants who come here legally and try to obtain a legal citizenship. It's the ones who hop across the border and somehow think they're entitled to the rights of every other natural citizen that piss me off. If they find illegals, then send them home.

United States citizens are born with an inherent sense of justice and moral character that makes them better members of society than everyone else on the planet. When you label someone as illegal it automatically makes them more harmful than any criminal, drug addict, or hate monger who is still given basic privileges because they've always lived on a particular patch of dirt. It's just a fuckin' witch hunt.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Okin said:
United States citizens are born with an inherent sense of justice and moral character that makes them better members of society than everyone else on the planet.

:ganishka: Do you realize how terribly arrogant and utterly ridiculous this sounds? And to be honest, looking at local news in the USA does not corroborate that sentiment, quite the contrary in fact.
 
Aazealh said:
:ganishka: Do you realize how terribly arrogant and utterly ridiculous this sounds? And to be honest, looking at local news in the USA does not corroborate that sentiment, quite the contrary in fact.

Well, I do believe he was saying that in a negative sense, but he's right. There are many people, especially in the lower income republican camp who do indeed believe that sentiment to be true (I'm sure there are liberals who believe this too, but you usually don't hear them spouting off about it). I've actually seen it spoken directly out of more than one person's mouth that Americans hold the moral high ground.

Anyway, the whole anchor baby thing is sort of funny. I actually wrote a paper last semester detailing the number of parents who are deported every year despite holding LEGAL immigrant status and the psychological effect it holds on the children left behind. The stats are that between 1999 and 2007, around 45,000 legal immigrants with American born children were deported and that an estimated 100,000 children were effected by having a family member deported. The children almost always stay behind because the parents either can't afford to take them with them or think the child will have a better life in America even without them. Here's my main source for that bit: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Human_Rights_report.pdf . What's mostly laughable about this law is that they're trying to bar legal citizens the right to be so despite the fact that these young 'welfare state' children will likely grow up and contribute economically in a legal fashion. Next republicans are going to be saying that we should toss every poor American over the border until we abolish our welfare systems altogether. This is the biggest reason why I can't wrap my brain around the republican south, they're constantly fighting and voting against things that would directly benefit themselves more than anyone else and it seems to be mostly for a sense of identity.

The real story though might be that Arizona is intentionally pushing to the extremes to force the federal government's hand though. It's sort of working if that's the case. It is very true that some forms of illegal immigration are causing a number of problems for Arizonans and I'm sure their legislators are constantly being bombard with demands for action and our federal solutions to immigration went to crap back in the 90's.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
CowTip said:
There are many people, especially in the lower income republican camp who do indeed believe that sentiment to be true (I'm sure there are liberals who believe this too, but you usually don't hear them spouting off about it). I've actually seen it spoken directly out of more than one person's mouth that Americans hold the moral high ground.

Yeah I know that, and that's why I wasn't immediately sure whether Okin meant it sarcastically or not (I might have been sleepy as well :iva:). I've been surprised before.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
Okin said:
United States citizens are born with an inherent sense of justice and moral character that makes them better members of society than everyone else on the planet. When you label someone as illegal it automatically makes them more harmful than any criminal, drug addict, or hate monger who is still given basic privileges because they've always lived on a particular patch of dirt. It's just a fuckin' witch hunt.

This is definitely sarcasm. But unfortunately it's the attitude many Americans have. I personally can't stand it.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Ugh, I hope you're kidding, Okin. All life in this world is equal, no one race/culture/country is better than any other. We're all in this together, (as cliche as that sounds).
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
The problem with Okin's post is that it kind of is what it's lampooning, just from the opposite perspective, but no less righteousnessly indignant... and wrong. Unfortunately, the practical application of immigration law, and reform that would benefit would-be immigrants as well as established citizens, gets lost in the emotion and hysteria of the issue, such as the desperate political ploy going on in Arizona (which I don't even think is constitutional from state vs. federal rights standpoint), or the ugly black & white sentiment Okin expressed, which was more anti-American than pro-immigrant's rights. It's not like this is a problem exclusive to this country, and to the degree it is, it's ironically due to addressing the demand to immigrant with relatively lax enforcement of the law, not some extremist stance.
 
Oh boy, the Arizona law is pretty harsh, I agree. What's also messed up is the fact that 7-8 attorney generals have signed a petition recently backing the law. And the most important thing here is the way the people in the line of duty interpret the law, and behave or execute within it's boundaries. Like (for example) in January this year, there was a change in a certain rule within the USCIS and they got pretty strict with people traveling into the country on work visa's (H-1B/ L1/ etc). So, if you flew into JFK from Europe or Asia, and your primary place of work was in California or Texas or wherever, and you didn't have a direct flight to go there the very same day, they'd deport you. This was plain wrong, and what's worse was the officers at Newark and JFK did not explain to these blokes they were deporting that if the US government paid for their ride back home, it'd mean an instant ban of 5 years. It's a good thing this was caught on 2 days later, and there was a sort of stop to it. The Immigration Officers at the airport clearly misinterpreted the new regulation which wasn't even into effect at that time.
 

Okin

The Ultimate Battle Creature
Yes, I was sarcastic! Wow, do I really come off as that crazy? Yes there are dangerous illegal immigrants and there are dangerous US citizens too, do we consider both a blight on our society that must be permanently removed? Maybe it's because my sense of nationalism is weak, but I don't really feel I have much less in common with my friends who came to the US when they were toddlers than I do with the one's who were born here. Many illegal immigrants are completely functional members of society that have limited opportunities simply because they had the unfortunate luck of being born a few 1000 miles further South than me.
 
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