Re: Fuck the immigrants!

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 09:19:47 -0800, Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> It's prohibited by law, without probable cause (and having a face that 
>> looks like, say, Mexican does not constitute probable cause :). 
>
>Probable cause is not that hard to come up with.

I thought that law enforcement shouldn't "come up" with something, but
only act when there actually _is_ something. 


>> I agree that government in general is quite inefficient. How would you 
>> increase efficiency, without resorting to a dictatorship?
>
>By adopting efficeincy practices prevelent in business and dropping the 
>"this is government not business" attitute. By holding people 
>responsible and accountable for their production, etc. I could go on and on.

How would you measure efficiency of law enforcement? Numbers of jailed
people? Or the lack thereof? I'd say that a low number of people in
jail, together with a low crime rate, is a good indicator for
efficient law enforcement. But how to quantify that? Or attribute it
to an individual?


>> I don't know why they didn't come. Lack of resources maybe?
>
>They said they forgot!

That's a funny one :)


>No excuse for not putting out the current fire! I agree that neglect of 
>the forests contributed to the enormity of the fires. Fire fighters 
>allow fires to clean the forest because it's a lot easier to let the 
>fire clean it (as opposed to cleaning it by some other means).

>One prevention method is allowing the fires to burn off the excess growth.

Actually, this doesn't seem to happen enough, at least not in SoCal.
>From what I read, many people think that extinguishing all the smaller
fires early in the summer contributes significantly to the much bigger
late-summer Santa Ana fires. In Mexico, for example, just across the
border, they don't have many big fires -- exactly because they don't
fight most of the smaller early summer fires. (Other than that, they
don't have better prevention.)


>Then we are in agreement. As I have been stating since the beginning of 
>this long thread, I am only advocating that current laws are enforced.

And I never ever said that I thought that this was wrong.


>They allow society to exist in peaceful harmony.

I can agree to that (as the purpose of law enforcement). So I think
both the laws and law enforcement should be measured on the degree of
peaceful harmony they create. That's the benefit side of the
efficiency equation.


>> But independently of that, I guess we can agree that our ultimate goal 
>> is that the laws are being observed as much as possible. Or not?
>
>Yes
>
>>> Society's viewpoint of what is just changed and so did the law.
>>
>> That's what I meant with the law trying to approximate what we 
>> perceive as justice. The idea that slavery was unjust was around long 
>> before the law got changed. It probably even had a majority some time 
>> before the law was changed. So the law came later than society's 
>> viewpoint.
>
>Are you saying that you believe illegals should be able to just walk 
>over the border, work, violate other laws with impunity, etc?!? I think 
>not. Are you saying our current immigration laws should be relaxed or 
>changed?

I think our whole idea of independent nations has outlived its useful
time. I think that the strongly federalist government structure of the
USA, including the various compromises and "checks and balances" (as
for example having a House with numbers of representatives by
population and a Senate with numbers by entities), gives a good
example how such a structure could be extended into the international
sphere. 

What I don't understand is that especially the US governments seem not
to understand the benefits this would bring for the USA. In the
aftermath of the fall of the USSR, there was a huge possibility for
the USA to become the leader in democratization of the world. But
instead, the USA proved to be one of the major obstacles to more
democratization of the international sphere, together with China and a
bunch of rogue states.

You may ask what that has to do with immigration. Well, just as with
protection of the environment, these things don't know borders. Dirty
air, just as the flows of people so poor the don't feel they have
anything to lose, don't stop at borders. These are phenomena that are
independent of national laws. 

The logical consequence is that only international laws can help
create peaceful harmony here. For international laws, we need some
kind of international government, for which (as I said above) I think
the USA provides a good model.

Some may think that this is none of our business. I think otherwise. I
have lived in Brazil. One of the big problems of that country is that
the elite class, over centuries, failed to provide conditions for the
poor people to become anything but again poor (and I mean dirt poor)
people. This created over time a situation where it became clear that
if the rich had not done everything to make it impossible for the poor
to grow, all -- including the rich -- would be better off now. Instead
they thought that if they gave them the opportunity, they would lose
cheap labor slaves. That was clearly wrong policy. This can be
extended, with care, to the international situation we're facing
currently.


>> I just don't think that my attitude towards the immigration 
>> bureaucracy would change their efficiency. Until I'm a citizen, I'm 
>> not even a constituency of anybody who might want to get elected. Have 
>> you ever applied for a visa that is more than a tourist visa? You are 
>> in "no rights" land when applying for visa. The only attitude that 
>> gets you anywhere is to do what they expect you to do and accept what 
>> they do. You start complaining, and you may wait forever. And there is
>> no higher instance where you could go and complain or excercise some 
>> pressure. What do you think you could do in such a situation?
>
>I don't believe you have a "right" to a visa - it's a privillege - so 
>I'm not sure what your complaint is. You seem to think you have the 
>right to demand it.

No. please re-read. I said "You are in 'no rights' land when applying
for visa." This should mean you have no night to anything. This
paragraph was a response to you saying that the people here accept the
inefficiencies of the immigration bureaucracy to easily. To which I
responded with the above, saying taht since they don't have any
rights, they don't have any possibility besides accepting. There is
not a single complaint in the whole paragraph.


>> Who can excercise pressure are the citizens, not the ones applying for 
>> visa. But they are usually not very concerned, mostly not even very 
>> informed. 
>
>Well I happend to be a citizen.

I know -- or I figured so much. But you were talking about the people
in this group, which are mostly not citizens. I also know that you are
concerned, but you probably agree with me that you are not typical for
the majority of US citizens in this. 


>Sometimes I wonder why we are discussing things as much as we are. I am 
>simply saying that current laws should be enforced and people argue with 
>me about this. 

I don't, and if you go back and read what I wrote, you probably won't
find a single place where I question that. 

>I ask them do you think that the law should not be 
>enforced and after much verbage they agree. 

I agreed to that from the beginning.

>I say I think enforcement 
>has a strong deterrent effect and after much verbage they agree. 

Never claimed that not.

>If we agree then what's the point of further discussion? 

You question some of the things I say, and I respond. You don't have
to, though :)


>>> Interesting approach. I think it assumes that the legal turned 
>>> illegal  alien will comply with the immediate deportation.
>>
>> Not necessarily. But say you have a court appearance for DUI. Until 
>> found guilty you are assumed innocent, of course. But the moment you 
>> are found guilty, the drill kicks in -- deposit gone, instead of to 
>> the local jail you go back to your home country (prepaid :) 
>
>Aside from the prepaid part, how is this at all different than what we 
>currently have?

It would remove some IMO unnecessary visa restrictions. Has not much
to do though with illegal immigration, IMO.


>>> Then again if illegals complied with such demands we wouldn't have a 
>>> problem. Seems to me that you are saying that immigrants from 
>>> countries of comparable economic levels can be trusted implying that 
>>> immigrants from say poor countries cannot be trusted. In general I'd 
>>> say you are probably right but isn't that discrimination? (not that 
>>> discrimination does not happen or that
>>> it's necessarily bad).
>>
>> Discrimination in the sense of "making fine distinctions" is not 
>> necessarily bad :) 
>
>I agree, as my last sentence said, however this is not much different 
>than any form of discrimination. One can say they are making find 
>distinctions between say men and women, whites and blacks or Europeans 
>and Muslims.

But immigration laws are already made by country. There are already
all kinds of "discriminations" in place. 

On a side note, it may be difficult to make a "fine distinction"
between Europeans and Muslims. A number of Europeans are actually
Muslims... :)


>But that didn't answer the question. I asked should the business owner 
>be compelled to turn in the illegal not whether or not it was up to the 
>business owner.

IMO as long as the business owner doesn't hire the guy, I don't think
he should be compelled to turn that person in (and I believe I said so
earlier). I don't even think he could, because he doesn't know whether
that person is illegal. He just doesn't have proof that the person is
legal (which is something different).


>Ah... until recently a DL did. DLs were not given to illegals. Of 
>course, recently that changed.

>> I remeber vaguely that when I was here as a tourist for half a year 
>> many years ago, I could have gotten a drivers license. I remember that 
>> I thought that it would be a cool thing to have, but then didn't go 
>> through with it -- found better things to do :)
>
>Yes, that's a slight problem in that DLs can be issued because aliens 
>have legal status right now and they often last longer than the legal 
>status does. Why not require that the issuance of a DL requires proof of 
>citizenship or proper visa and if a visa is involved then the DL is made 
>valid only for the duration of the visa?

There are legal residents without a work permit. They are in most
states not only entitled to one, they are required to get a DL. They
are not illegals, but they are not legal to work. So the DL was never
a document that stated whether somebody is allowed to work (and that's
what we were discussing here -- the WalMart etc situation of working
illegally). It is a document that states whether somebody is allowed
to _drive_.

I mean, that is in the name of the thing -- it is a Drivers License
(issued by the state), not a federal ID. As such, it has nothing to do
with the (federal) immigration status of a person, and was never meant
to have anything to do with federal laws. That's part of the
federalist structure. 

(Which is not meant ot say that I think completely illegal immigrants
should be allowed to get DLs.)


>> I agree about the CPA, though. If he asked the person for ID and SSN 
>> and submits tax reports properly under that SSN and the INS doesn't 
>> complain about a fake SSN, I think the CPA has done his due diligence.
>
>I submit to you that this probably happens a lot more than you think.

How do illegal immigrants get a SSN?


>Earlier you said that citizens are largely ignorant of immigration law 
>and now you are trying to say that people hire illegals knowingly 
>instead of assuming that the private citizen employer was simply 
>ignorant of what was required by immigration law?!?

I said they don't care, and they don't care about the details. This
doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't know that someone is
illegal. If this is true, then the fact that there are so many is
probably partly due to the fact that a majority of citizens simply
doesn't care.


>I'm not convinced. If I were going to hire say a gardener or a main 
>chances are around here that they will all look alien. Many are legal, 
>some are illegal. I have no idea how to verify they are legit (actually 
>I have some ideas but this is only because I've been involved in 
>immigration, hence my presence here, however the vast majority of 
>citizens, as you say, are ignorant of immigration issues). But you say 
>that such people "hire illegals on purpose" and that that is "easy to 
>answer". Do I suspect that they are perhaps illegal? Yes I would suspect 
>it but I do not know and I do not know how to prove it one way or another.

How about a conversation? If you hire a gardener or other
professional, you know (that's unrelated to immigration issues) that
they usually have to have some kind of business license. You could ask
for that. 

But I agree that this is quite a gray zone. That's why I think a
federal ID that states the immigration status would be a helpful thing
-- it would become as easy as looking at that ID to know about these
things.


>So I go to an agency, say a maid agency, and trust, perhaps hope, that 
>they being a business would not want to be caught hiring illegals so 
>perhaps they've screened them and this provides me a little protection 
>and assurance that I'm doing the right thing. It's not much but it's 
>more than I can do myself. But the business failed to screen them so I'm 
>also held accountable?

I'm not sure. I don't think you are.

>It doesn't take much to continue this to the Wal-Mart case and yet 
>people here attempt to condemn the businesses saying that they are 
>outsourcing their intentional illegal activities.

Of course, that's innocent until proven guilty. But if there is proof
that this was intentional, why not go after them? Prosecution will
have to show that there was at least unlawful negligence.


>> One difference is probably that everybody and his aunt has a gun here. 
>
>I disagree. I've been here a lot longer than you and I can safely say 
>that I do not know of a single person who owns a gun. My aunt(s) do not 
>own guns. In fact nobody in my family owns a gun.
>
>> And people are used to doing everything with their guns. 
>
>Huh? Who do you know owns a gun and what have they done with that gun? I 
>get up, work, shop, etc all without the "benefits" of a gun. I've never 
>been in a mall and seen a gun (expect on police) for that matter. What 
>are you talking about?!?

private firearms:
US: 200+ million, ~0.7 arms/person
Germany: ~20 million, ~0.2 arms/person

That's what I'm talking about. Pure numbers. I don't need to actually
see them. As a side note: it was here in the USA when I first saw a
gun on the street, after 25 years in Germany without that experience.
(And it was aimed at me, but that is a different story... :)

While we're at it, there's this:

homicides per year per 100k habitants
US: approx 5 
Germany: approx 1

prisoners per 100k habitants:
US: about 600 
Germany: about 100 

That's not an argument for gun control (I know that the issue is more
complex). But among the "developed countries", the US has the highest
rates of gun ownership, of homicides, and of prison population.


>IOW if 
>drugs were legalized a lot of the crime associated with them would go 
>away - but not all of it. Would this be better? It's debatable.

"Debatable" is a good start. Unluckily not many see it that way --
even though the experience with the drug alcohol is pretty obvious.