Jun 11 2007
This Is Enforcring The Laws?
Bill O’Reilly once claimed sending the National Guard to our border would help stem the tide of illegals. Others have claimed strengthening the border is all we need to do to fix our problems. I guess this story pretty much destroys those naive fantasies:
Three National Guardsmen assigned to help authorities stop illegal immigration along the Texas-Mexico border were arraigned Monday on charges that they ran an immigrant smuggling ring, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Corruption exists everywhere. The government is no more corrupt – at a criminal level – than any other areas. Welcome to the species Homo Sapien Sapien. Imperfect beings who can sin and be saints. Sadly I must continue to present the seamly side of what the Immigration Bill Opponents left us when they entombed the status quo. Recall that deportation because of violent criminal acts was one aspect of this bill that was killed. The current laws are under seige and are either now impotent (as was the FISA statutes were to modern warfare before Bush beefed those up) or unenforceable.
The problem of unenforced laws is not due to immigration – it is due to a screwed up Judiciary. You can find article after article of judges letting repeat violent offenders free to prey on the public – most of them US citizens. Take this for example where both immigrants and citizens literally get by with attempted murder. Yes, we have to enforce laws, but laws can be circumvented by corrupt people and misguided judges. That is why we need reform. And we need a better system to check and track immigrants. But none of this is getting through to the immigration hypochondriacs. I wish we saw more of these stories, but it is the exception – not the rule.
Up until people called the far right on this, they claimed this is not really happening, we can get the repeat defenders. But it is happening and they pointed it out to everyone:
Criminal aliens set free on the streets of America — instead of being deported after serving their time — are being rearrested as many as six more times by U.S. authorities, according to a government audit released yesterday. But the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General said it did not know how many of 262,105 illegals in the audit, who had been charged with a crime and then released, had been rearrested.
The naysayers claim THIS is preferrable to closing loopholes, adding resources and expiditing deportations. Yeah, this is MUCH better than fixing the problems.
Kind of like the Abu Graib incident? A few colors the many?
You jumped the shark AJ.
I think you would really enjoy listening to Richard Esposito on this live interactice chat show at http://www.paltalk.com/newstalk/resposito_archive.shtml. He’s a reporter that has done stories on the CIA. He has also earned awards for his reporting on crime and criminal justice, national security, and investigations of abuses of official authority. You can have an open discussion with him on Tuesday June 12th at 5pm EST! Hope you find the time cause I think it should be really good.
I have refrained from jumping into this conversation, but our host’s constant abusing of those of us opposed to this immigration bill is wearing.
Fundamentally, I oppose this bill because I don’t trust the administration or the Congress to enforce the restrictions designed to stop illegal immigration.
I have no major objection to amnesty nor do I oppose even more immigration. I simply oppose illegal immigration and do not believe that this bill will do anything except bring us back to this same state in five years. That is exactly what each immigration bill since the one in 1965 has done.
But, the proponents of this bill, including most particularly our host, have descended to mere rants and name calling. It has gotten so bad that Juan Williams, he of the empty suit, went so far as to call Mark Steyn “anti immigrant”. It escaped William’s little mind that Steyn is a legal immigrant.
There are lots of non-seqitor’s in this bill. For example, the requirement that z-visas be approved in 24 hours or automatically granted makes no sense when we just agreed that we cannot process citizens’ requests for passports within 3 months.
If anyone want to have a discussion of what would be acceptable, that would be fine. But, the ad hominem’s of little minds needs to stop before there is a hope of a valid discussion.
Rick
The Judicial problem is real and here is why. The immigration system requires that to be an EOIR judge you are required to have 5 years of immigration law experience.
So guess who gets to be these immigration Judges? Immigration lawyers who are guess what…ALL PRO IMMIGRATION. Otherwise what would be the point of being an immigration lawyer other than to fight the system and upset it. For your illegal clients.
AJ–You really have jumped the shark. I think your loosing readers like the RNC’s loosing donations.
When I said you’re the rights version of Andrew Sullivan I was drawing an analogy that no longer applies.
Now your approaching democratic underground (DU) territory. What’s gotten into you? Are you going threw a mid-life crisis or something?
Your Pal,
hypochondriac
He jumped the shark last week. I am only reading him these days just to see how truly absurd his claims can get. He just keeps outdoing himself.
I wonder how many hits he is getting from people just like me?
A.J. please ignore the silly and pretentious outrage over you daring to call the far right on its hypocrisy, fear mongering and extreme resistance to any compromise or willingness to consider even slight differences of opinion.
After nearly two years of unrelenting hysteria, name calling, and bizarre propaganda & conspiracy theories circulating 24/7 via radio & TV airwaves and the blogosphere… well, it is beyond ironic that these folks are now calling you (and me) the over-reactors. Whatever.
Have you seen Linda Chavez today? I think she’s written a very important article. Also very long. Over at Lucianne.com the mob seems focused only on Linda’s first two paragraphs wherein she apologizes for some broad brushes in two of her recent columns. But the mob seems terrified that the rest of the article might be read by mainstream citizens who have no idea about some of the noxious and despicable elements operating in Right Wingdom. She criticizes and challenges several writers in the NR crowd by name. And I must say, NR deserves credit for publishing it.
Linda also gets deeply into the whole John Tanton machine which is devastating. That’s the last section — look for sub-title “What is FAIR?”
See:
The Company You Keep
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2UxNmQ0NDBjYmU3MjkzYzc1ODAzMzFhYmY3ZjFlNTc=
I don’t think AJ jumped the shark, he is simply pointing out that in a system like this it is easy to circumvent the law. Now, if we would reform the process and make it harder for these people to disappear once they get here smuggling might not be so lucrative.
Terrye,
I am not surprised you don’t think AJ jumped the shark. This is a personal opinion of mine and just by reaffirming what you think AJ is trying to point out doesn’t change my personal opinion.
You also reaffirm what the ‘far right’ has been saying all along. No one ever intended to implement the enforcement part of this bill. It would just be too hard. Right?
O’Reilly? He bought into the Malkin spin and almost lost this viewer with his ‘guest host’. What gets me about this issue is that people seem to think it just became a problem. People who own land that has been demolished by the foot traffic and live in fear have legit grievances. The law should help them protect themselves and their property. Mexicans were driving cars without insurance, being picked up and turned loose when the rest of us were being crucified and fined by the thousands. They were turned loose because you can’t get blood out of a turnip.
Problems. Real problems that needed fixing long before Bush even became a governor. So what is the Far Right’s solution when they have total power? Nada. Made it impossible to even address the real issues. Nada.
Don’t know about the NG but do know that the going price to a border patrol agent has been about $2,000 for a while. Or so they say. Always a way around. It’s disgusting. Of course, most of the agents are good, clean law enforcement officers but the door has been wide open with cash. We have real problems on the border. Thanks Far Right and all Ship Em Outers. You have accomplished much for the Dims. Their Labor can’t stand them but the only thing they had to do to win this issue was just keep quiet and let the Righters send millions of voters their way.
When I read that Kennedy is gathering up voters for Dims……well that’s right but whose fault is it? It’s too late now because the damage has been done. Imagine ………Bush thought he should make friends of his neighbors and try to address the issue with compassion instead of spite. Imagine thinking he could pull Pugs their fair share of the Mex voters! The nerve and incompetence of that man. Just look what all that ground swell produced. And that is???
It is a heck of a note when I am forced toward a McCain/Kennedy position or defending Gonzales because the ‘other side’ is bonkers. And no, I DO NOT LIKE McCain/Kennedy but my dear fellow Pugs decided to go live in fantasyland and just raise hell but not DO ONE THING about the border or problems. You will NEVER ship them back and have created generations of enemies.
AJ jumped the shark, I’m guessing, oh about mid-2005, with his
oh, I’m guessing, forth or fifth boast of a “turning point” in the Iraq War.
But none of you erstwhile Strataites noticed.
AJ
I would have to go back and look as to where I read it, since I don’t live my life like I will have to testify in front of a grand jury tomorrow, but I seem to remember stories that since the NG was detailed to the border in SUPPORT positions only they freed up manpower and the Border Patrol was able to cut the number of border crossers by 20 or more percent this year and the capture numbers were upped by putting a higher percentage of BP officers on the front line.
Sally:
That was interesting. People should read it. I liked Chavez’s remark about her family being in the country for centuries. I think a certain number of people on the right have tried to lump all hispanics into one big group, ignoring the roots of the hispanic community and culture in our history.
I also found her remarks about the group FAIR to be kind of spooky. Those people remind me of things I have read about eugenics pioneers back in the 30’s.
I thought this was worth noting because of the number of times I have heard this reported:
This is not the first time Mac Donald has played fast and loose with her facts. In an article she wrote in 2004 for City Journal, “The Illegal Alien Crime Wave,†Mac Donald asserted, “In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.†The problem is, the statistic is entirely bogus — and worse it has become one of the most ubiquitous factoids used in the debate on immigration, cited in congressional testimony, repeated ad nauseum on cable news and talk radio, and has even been picked up by some otherwise sensible voices in the immigration debate. The Los Angeles Police Department does not gather information on the legal status of those arrested, much less on people — those who have outstanding warrants — that by definition they can’t find, which I confirmed in repeated conversations with the LAPD public-information office. Moreover, in 2004, the year Mac Donald wrote the piece, there were a total of 518 homicides in L.A. Now unless every murder was committed by at least three illegal aliens, none of whom was ever apprehended, Mac Donald’s 1,200-1,500 figure should have leaped out at her as obviously problematic — the 95-percent claim alone should have set off warning bells. I contacted her after Snopes.com, the Los Angeles Times, and others had debunked her assertion. She told me “The LAPD fugitive warrants section gave me that figure.†When I asked her how she explained the 1,200-1,500 figure when there were only 518 homicides in 2004, she said, “As you know, warrants are cumulative; they do not derive only from the current year. Outstanding warrants are not the same as the murder rate.†But she did not add that qualifier to her original statement — and, besides, it wouldn’t much matter if she had since the information on illegal aliens who are the subject of warrants simply isn’t available no matter what her source in the LAPD told her.
No Sue, that is not what I said. What I was saying is that if all you do is throw up a wall and do not register people or develop any kind of temporary worker programs there will always be people trying to sneak into the country.
After all if your only form of enforcement is a wall and once people get here they can blend into that large mass of millions of people the hardliners just want to ignore there will be all kinds of scams by all kinds of people to get around that wall.
We need a broader based reform package that covers more than just that border.
AJ
The border itself is only one component that stops a subset of the problem.
Another factor is those admitted to the country on visas and simply overstay their authorization.
I need to research the relative percentages here.
Most people focus on the 2 prior major pieces of legislation dealing with the immigration issue and don’t have a clue that there have been at least 15 or 16 other laws passed that played into the whole process.
For example the Bosnian importation law that ended up for example with the paint shop at a shipyard near me almost needing a Bosnian translator to get work done.
We have another low profile bill in progress right now to bring in a number of Iraqis who have loyally supported the coalition and who are in danger of have them and their family suffering the wrath of those who want to take them out.
Oh and don’t forget the Cuba exodus which ended up as a vastly large influx to Florida which was an UNFUNDED federal mandate that we had to suck up and try to figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul.
We still to this day have the wet foot dry foot goof ball separation of cases and the ongoing Haitian daily badminton return of serve the Coast Guard plays in our coastal waters.
Too many times it is just not turning them back, but sending home the body bags.
Another example of us having to in self defense say we can’t be the savior to all as much as it is in our makeup to try to be so.
Cuba, Haiti and Mexico and other South American countries create or maintain the conditions that inspire the flow.
Any real solution will have to address all these issues if you truly want to call it comprehensive immigration reform.
Less than that and you are fooling yourself.
Yes we do. But what is being proposed is not it. As you recognize at times because you say ‘fix it’ but then turn around and say this is the best we can do. No Terrye, it isn’t the best we can do. If it is, then I am in the camp that wants it left alone. Until those who think this is the best we can do realize that no it isn’t.
Sue:
That made no sense.
No sense at all.
I am tired of the right making all sorts of demands from everyone else on the issue without coming up with any rational detailed plan of their own that actually has a snow ball’s chance of success.
Build a wall, enforce the law. That is right up there with say no to drugs.
We have a back log of deportations, what do you intend to do about that? Enforce the laws? How? Are you going to hire more law enforcement, open more detention centers, stream line the process to move people through quicker, appoint more judges etc? Well, that takes Congress because it requires legislation and money.
Are you going to ignore all the people who come here some other than the wall? Or are you going to change our legal immigration system and visa requirementm? That takes a bill, the current system can not keep up with the demand.
The wall itself will require doing Environmental Impact Studies, there will be challenges to the wall by local communities who will say it is costing them money or land or water. The Mexican government is going to International Court to challenge part of the wall itself because they say it is on their land. The wall will get built but it will take time and if that is all you have people will adapt and work around it to some extent. That is what people do.
Do you want to go after employers? Then you need stronger laws and a data base so that people can not claim they did not the people were illegal and that takes a bill.
The system as it is does not work and while saying we should just enforce the laws in comforting in a simplistic way it does not begin to actually make a difference, it is not a solution, it is a mantra, a slogan. If we deported 10,000 people a month it would take a century to deport them all, if we do not deport them and just ignore them we are not enforcing the law. So it is obvious that just saying enforce the laws over and over again is not a solution to anything. It is just a way to avoid coming up with a better idea.
And something else Sue, I am not saying this is the best we can do. I am saying that the right lost the last election. They just do not seem to grasp that. Polls do not run the country, the Congress does and right now the right is in the minority. They are not in any position to be demanding that the majority say how high when they say jump.
If you want to call the shots, do not run off people like me who have been voting for Republicans. That will not help you get more seats and without those seats the fact that you think we can do better does not mean a whole hell of a lot.
And this is a process. This Senate Bill was just a start. That is how our government works, sorry if you don’t like it.
Sue:
That made no sense.
Welcome to my world. Your side in this argument hasn’t made sense since the day Kennedy/McCain announced a deal and wanted a vote that week. No debate. You see why they wanted it that way but you are unwilling to acknowledge that is not how it should have been handled.
I don’t care how tired you are of ‘my side making demands’. A law was passed to build a fence. Where’s the fence? Yet now, somehow, this bill should be acceptable because it has enforcements in it, but enforcements can’t be done because they are too hard anyways and some crook will show up and just bypass the law so why bother? And then, you know, the next thing someone will be using the example of 3 national guardsmen breaking the law so why bother using them to begin with, because like you know there have never been crooked cops before but we manage to keep cops on the payroll. But I bet if you ask AJ he supports the national guard.
Anyways, I’m making lots of fun of you and AJ here, so I’ll say adios amigo and amiga.
And this is a process. This Senate Bill was just a start. That is how our government works, sorry if you don’t like it.
You are the one complaining about the process and calling it broken. Frankly, I feel it worked as it was designed to do.
Later…
I don’t care how tired you are of ‘my side making demands’. A law was passed to build a fence. Where’s the fence?
What did Terrye just tell you? She said it will take years for the fence to go up. People — environmentalists, property owners, local communities on both sides of the border — are going to keep filing legal challenges to those parts of the fence that will affect them, and that will slow down construction. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge, who wants what, what the polls say, what the pundits say, what Rush Limbaugh says, how busy the Senate switchboard is, whether “the American people have spoken,” who you threaten with political extinction, who you make fun of, who might get removed from office by impeachment or recall, how many people switch parties, how many people stay home next Election Day, who you think has jumped the shark, who you vote in or out of office, how mad you get, how badly people need to be punished for hiring illegal immigrants, how undeserving illegal immigrants are of a chance to become U.S. citizens, how much crime is committed by illegal immigrants, how many illegal immigrants are members of gangs like MS-13 or would-be reconquistadors for Aztlan, how many illegal immigrants are diseased or what diseases they are carrying, how many Mexican flags you see on American soil, how many “get off our continent” signs you see in International A.N.S.W.E.R. protest marches, how stupid or lazy or corrupt you think people are, how simple “illegal” is to understand, how easy it is to “just enforce the law,” how despicable “amnesty” is, how horrible this last immigration bill was or what horrors lurked in it, or what you or I think — YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR FENCE IN ONE YEAR, OKAY??? Here, I’ll say it again — YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR FENCE IN A YEAR. Anybody who thinks we can just halt all attempts at changing the way our broken immigration system works until AFTER the wall is up can just brace himself as the illegals just keep flowing into the country and failing to self-deport as the years crawl by.