Arizona can bite my Chalupa!

You got to be kidding me with all the lawyers and all the courts and all the millions of man years in those courts interpreting our laws you think that they are clear in most cases, as they come out of the legislators pens or now word processors?

As far as the Constitution is concern I suggest you might read up on the disagreements concerning it limit and meanings by the very people who wrote it!!!!!!!

You might wish to start with the disagreement between the founding fathers if the Constitution allows the setting up of a national bank or the chartering of any corporations for that matter under the Federal government.

Is it your position that the Constitution is UNKNOWABLE,
an eternal mystery ?

I don 't see it that way.





David

I think I make my position is clear concerning the Constitution IE there are issues that even the people who wrote it happen to had strongly disagree over during the first years of the government under Washington.

Over the centuries those issues been address by our courts in the manner call for under the Constitution.

To then declared that all those issues had been decided in an incorrect manner by the courts and you by reading the document can see at once the correct meanings of all the articles when the creators of that document needed to turn to the courts is beyond being silly.

The Constitution is not just the outline for a government system fresh off the presses, it is also all those hundreds of years of court rulings that address the issues in questions.

Perhaps you are brighter then the writers of the Constitution and know how all the questions and disagreements should had been decided instead of the way they were decided over the centuries but if so you are the only human to have that power.

PEW HISPANIC CENTER
Hispanics and Arizona's New Immigration Law

April 29, 2010


Arizona last week passed a law authorizing local police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being in the United States illegally.1 The law has generated sharp debate between advocates who say it is needed to combat illegal immigration and opponents who say it is an infringement on civil liberties and an invitation to racial/ethnic profiling of Hispanics by the police. In addition, some say the law will create tensions between police and Hispanics that will hinder general law enforcement.

Below are a set of recent findings from the Pew Research Center and Pew Hispanic Center that provide background on a range of issues raised by the new Arizona law. The findings are drawn mainly from nationwide surveys conducted in 2008 and 2009.

Americans see Hispanics as the racial/ethnic group most often subjected to discrimination.
A 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-in-four (23%) Americans said Hispanics are discriminated against "a lot" in society today, a share higher than observed for any other group. This represents a change from 2001, when blacks were seen as the racial/ethnic group discriminated against the most in society. Then, one-in-four (25%) Americans said blacks were discriminated against "a lot," while 19% said the same about Hispanics.







Hispanics are the ethnic group most likely to be illegal immigrants.
Nationally, there were an estimated 11.9 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2008. Three-quarters (76%) are Hispanic.

As the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has grown, so too have the number of deportations.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the estimated number of undocumented immigrants increased from 3 million in 1980 to 11.9 million in 2008, a four-fold increase. The increase in the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. coincides with an increase in the number of deportations, or removals, done by the federal government.2 According to the Department of Homeland Security, nearly 359,000 immigrants were removed in 2008, up from 18,000 in 1980.3


A majority of Hispanics worry that they, or someone they know, will be deported.
Nearly six-in-ten (57%) Latinos, in a 2008 Pew Hispanic Center survey, said they worried that they themselves, a family member or a close friend may be deported. The foreign born were more likely than the native born to say this -- 73% versus 35%.







One-in-ten Hispanics say that they have been asked by police or other authorities about their immigration status.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center's 2008 National Survey of Latinos, nearly one-in-ten (9%) Hispanics said they had been stopped by the police or other authorities and asked about their immigration status in the year prior to the survey, with the native born and foreign born equally likely to have said this.







A sizeable minority of Hispanics say they, or someone they know, has experienced discrimination.
According to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center survey of Hispanics ages 16 and older, one-third (32%) say they, a family member or a close friend had experienced discrimination in the five years prior to the survey because of their racial or ethnic background. This is down from the 41% of Latino adults who said the same in 2007, but is not much different from the share of Latinos in previous Pew Hispanic Center surveys who said they or someone they know had experienced discrimination. When asked about specific instances of discrimination, 64% of Latino adults identified discrimination against Hispanics in schools as a major problem and 58% of Latino adults said the same about the workplace.


Fewer than half of Latinos say they are confident that police officers in their community treat Hispanics fairly.
According to the 2008 National Survey of Latinos, 45% of Latinos said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence that police officers in their communities would treat Latinos fairly. This is lower than the share (74%) of whites who say police officers in their communities treat blacks and whites equally, but higher than the share (37%) of blacks who say the same.










Eight-in-ten Hispanics say local police should not be involved in identifying undocumented or illegal immigrants.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center's 2008 National Survey of Latinos, 81% of Hispanics said enforcement of immigration laws should be left mainly to the federal authorities while just 12% said local police should take an active role. Among the general public, opinion is split -- in 2007, half (49%) of non-Hispanics said enforcement should be left mainly to federal authorities, while 45% said local police should take an active role.





A majority of Hispanics oppose a range of other immigration enforcement measures.
In 2008, three-in-four (76%) Hispanics said they disapproved of workplace raids, 73% disapproved of the criminal prosecution of undocumented immigrants, 70% disapproved of the criminal prosecution of employers and more than half (53%) disapproved of employees database checks to identify the eligibility of potential employees.

Hispanics in Arizona.
According to Pew Hispanic Center tabulations from the 2008 American Community Survey, there are 2 million Hispanics in Arizona, representing 30% of the state's population. One-third (33%) of Arizona Hispanics are foreign born.4

Undocumented Immigrants in Arizona.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 500,000 undocumented immigrants resided in Arizona in 2008.5 Nearly all (94%) of these undocumented immigrants are from Mexico. Moreover, approximately 10% of Arizona's workforce is undocumented.
Read more about immigration, public opinion and other issues concerning the U.S. Hispanic population at pewhispanic.org.


5. A recent estimate from the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Department of Homeland Security says there are an estimated 460,000 undocumented immigrants in Arizona in 2009 (Hoefer, Rytina and Baker, 2010).

Arizona is not the only state filled with vigilantes:

Last week, 1,300 names of supposedly illegal immigrants in Utah were mailed to the media, law enforcement, various state agencies and officials, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The 30-page document included addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, Social Security data, and even medical information for a small number, such as “baby due 4/4/10”—names of children were also included.



The list was sent by the Orwellian named Concerned Citizens of the United States. The cover letter of the list demanded that the people on the list be “deported immediately” with a call to “DO YOUR JOB AND STOP MAKING EXCUSES! WE DEMAND ACTION.”

The document stated that their group "observes these individuals in our neighborhoods, driving on our streets, working in our stores, attending our schools and entering our public welfare buildings."

"We then spend the time and effort needed to gather information along with legal Mexican nationals who infiltrate their social networks and help us obtain the necessary information we need to add them to our list," the letter says.

While, none of the recipients has released the actual list of names, almost all of which are of Latino origin, some people listed have come forward—several of which who spoke to NBC station KSL-TV of Salt Lake City were, in fact, legally in the country—some even citizens. Legal scholars said those responsible could also face lawsuits from anyone misidentified as an illegal immigrant.

Per Emily Chiang, a constitutional scholar at the University of Utah law school such people “could have a claim for defamation because someone has made false statements about them. They’re private people, and the statements, if you can prove that they’re false, you might have a damages claim against whoever sent the letter.”

One person on the list did admit to being here illegally: "We have a reason why we came here to live, to at least have something better," Israel Perez told KSL on Tuesday. "But people trying to kick us out, we like dogs running around and putting us in a cage and sending us back somewhere we don't want." Perez said his parents brought him to the United States when he was 10 years old. Like too many young immigrants he is the not responsible for being here illegally, thus highlighting the generational complexity of the problem.

Instead of answering to the demands of the letter, state and federal authorities have instead denounced the letter and are spending resources trying to determine who likely accessed non-public personal information from a state agency to generate this list. Currently, authorities in Utah believe that at least two employees of the Department of Workforce Services may have been responsible. The two employees have been placed on leave while the investigation continues.

Various groups and people have come out against this action, some expected such as Ernie Gamonal, vice chairman of the Utah Democratic Hispanic Caucus, who stated, “This is a very serious crime. In the United States of America, we don’t make ‘black lists’ anymore. For that reason, I would like to see the Department of Justice look in and determine if they need to take further action.”

And Democratic state Representative Neil Hansen who stated, "Here's somebody accusing people of being illegals and yet they're not willing to put their name on this. It almost seems [like] cowardice."

Less expected, perhaps, was the support of several groups that support cracking down on illegal immigration Additionally many Republicans, who one might have expected to support any action that opposes illegal immigration, also came out against the group:

Despite being in the process of writing a Utah version of the controversial Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigration, Republican state
Representative Stephen still stated, “I think it’s a wrong approach. It sends the wrong message, and it doesn’t follow the rule of law with the bill that I’m writing.”

Both Utah’s Republican Governor and it's Attorney General came out against the law:

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said, “Urging others to watch and report on others — that’s not how we do things in this country. We need to do it in a way that is not lists, hate-mongering and outright and implied racism.”

Even non-politicians like Paul Mero of the conservative think tank, Sutherland Institute, said, reform is as important an issue as enforcement not to mention an “an authentic conservative position.”

The most unexpected effect may have been the surprise public press conference between Tony Yapias, direct of Proyecto Latino, and Alex Segura, founder of the Utah Minutemen Project, who stood together in front of an American flag at the Utah state capitol where they asked the people of Utah to “cool their rhetoric and debate civilly.”

Regarding the list, Segura said, "Burn it; do whatever you need to do. Just get rid of it. This issue has gone not only to a national level but an international level, and it's going to give Utah a bad name, and we don't want that. We're all citizens of this state, and we all need to work in a compassionate matter to get this taken care of."

Per Desert News, “The pair agreed both sides have been overreacting and are too caustic in remarks. Some Hispanics are too quick to call critics racists or to say that Latinos are being treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. On the flip side, some non-Hispanics are too quick to call all Latinos "illegals" or to post hateful comments online.”

Segura even criticized current Minutemen chairman, Eli Cawley, for praising authors of "the list" by calling them patriots. Unlike most other prominent conservatives in Utah, Cawley has said those who generated the list should be protected by whistle-blower laws because they were revealing illegal activity by disclosing illegal immigrants—he is, at the very least, ignoring the fact that at some people on list have been proven to be here legally. Crawley has denied any involvement in the generation or distribution of the list

Paul Murphy, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office directly disagrees with Crawley and says that, “These people seem to be concerned about identifying people who are breaking the law [so] they should identify themselves and tell us whether or not THEY broke the law.”

So enough about the what…what about the why? Why has this happened in Utah? Why has Arizona passed its own law allowing their police officers to detain anyone they reasonably suspect of being an immigrant—quick, define reasonably and tell me when, where and how long you’ll be detained until you can prove it.

At some level, these actions are being taken due to the frustration over the federal government’s failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Per Jason L. Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, and author of Let Them In (a book extolling the free market conservative case in support of immigration), in 2006, Senators John McCain - R and Ted Kennedy - D teamed up to co-sponsor a bill that would have reformed immigration by increasing border security, by expanding and refining the guest worker program, and by providing a path to citizenship to those who paid taxes, paid a fine, learned English, etc., but despite passing the Senate, the law was killed by Republicans in the House, who during the summer before the 2006 election held a series of town hall-type meetings to denounce the plan as “amnesty” in an attempt to rally the conservative base that was in such disarray.

The GOP spent tens of millions of dollar on television ads portraying the Latino immigrants as “dangerous criminals” and in some cases “compared them to Islamic terrorists.” The strategy bombed of course; as everyone knows, the Democrats trounced the Republicans in the 2006 election, even making Democratic gains in solid Republican congressional districts in Arizona. The Republicans might have fared better had they supported the law since even the Wall Street Journal reported that 75 percent of Republicans found it “not realistic to require undocumented immigrants in the United States to return home to seek legal status,” and 81 percent said it was “unrealistic to seek their deportation”—instead of helping to solve the problem, the Republicans tried to exploit nativist feeling amongst their conservative base to increase their election possibilities.

Since 2006, nothing much has been done at the federal level to reform immigration policy, and reform is desperately needed, but for that to happen the rhetoric needs to be toned down. The reality is that border security has improved; illegal entries are down more than a third since they peaked in 2000. Additional support for regions affected by drug smugglers and gangs certainly deserve and should receive additional support, but the vast majority of immigrants who are here illegally came for a better life, not to commit crimes—in fact, according to the FBI crime in along the border has actually gone down in the last decade.

Despite Arizona Governor Jan Brewers claims that most people coming across the border illegally are smuggling drugs or cutting off heads, the truth is quite the opposite. There is no evidence that the majority of immigrants that enter illegally commit more crimes than the rest of the U.S. population. It wasn’t immigrants looking for work that killed that rancher in Arizona, it was drug smugglers—conflating the two does nothing to solve the problems with immigration or drug related crimes.

An editorial in the Arizona Republic probably said it best when they responded to the governor by writing: "It is irresponsible and reckless for Brewer to suggest that migrants who come here to work are routinely smuggling drugs. It plays into the systematic vilification of illegal immigrants that extreme anti-immigrant groups use to poison and polarize talks about immigration."

We can’t craft effective policy while we have people fear mongering and exaggerating

And despite widespread public support for Arizona’s law, there is ample evidence to support the belief that reform is possible, even desirable for most Americans.

In a bi-partisan poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies—a Republican Polling Firm, and Lake Research Partners—a Democratic polling firm, it was found that support for comprehensive immigration reform is not only strongly supported by most people in this country, it is actually strongly supported by people who support the Arizona law (according to the poll, significant amounts of support for that law has to do with the frustration that the federal government has failed to fix our broken system, not that they think the Arizona law is the best or even a workable approach).

According to the numbers:

60% of those polled support Arizona’s law, and 45% support it strongly, but only 35% of Latinos support it (It was a positive, non pejorative description of the AZ law).

Without defining comprehensive reform support was 57% with only 18% opposing it.

Latino voters: 60% favor comprehensive reform

42% of the voters strongly support undefined comprehensive reform, only 11% strongly oppose

When it is defined as requiring immigrants to pay taxes, work, learn English, pay a fine, and get to the back of the line (not leave the country) 78% in support it, 61% strongly support it. (Interestingly, learning English was important enough, KNOWING it was less of a concern—apparently nobody polled wanted to take grammar tests.)

Latino voters: 77%, 61% strongly

Re: leaving the country—64% thought that those here illegally should be allowed to stay after registering, receiving background checks, and being put on a path toward citizenship.

Every single political and demographic group strongly supports comprehensive reform and there was strong support across all regions as well.

"In fact, the Republicans don't know that they are supposed to be against this, and so their support is actually the highest of anyone's at 84% compared to 76% for Democrats and 76% of Independents."

56% say they will vote this issue.

76% support taking action now vs. waiting.

Other key points:

When asked if it would be better if illegal immigrants were made legal and made to pay taxes or if it would be better if they were just made to leave: 58% said make them tax payers—increased saliency since it will increase revenues—beat two to one those that wanted them to leave to save jobs.

Most people also think that it is massively unrealistic to deport everyone (concurs with the aforementioned Wall Street Journal poll from 2007).

Those in support of reform said that is was not amnesty because people are required to pay taxes, work, learn English, pay a fine, and get to the back of the line.

Most people felt that if the immigrant pays taxes they should obviously be allowed to be citizens.

Most felt that immigrants were not anti-American.

Most people don't want temporary workers, they either want them here long term or to leave.

It seems to me that the time for true federal leadership couldn’t be better. Reform need not be an issue that divides the nation. The people already support reform, now we just need someone to lead us to it.

I leave you with the words of President Ronald Reagan:

“America is really many Americas. We call ourselves a nation of immigrants, and that truly what we are. We have drawn people from every corner of the Earth. We’re composed of virtually every race and religion, and not in small numbers, but large. We have a statue in New York Harbor that speak of this—a statue of a woman holding a torch of welcome to those who enter our country to become Americans. She has greeted millions upon millions of immigrants to country. She welcomes them still. She represents our open door.

All of the immigrants who came to us brought their own music, literature, customs, and ideas. And the marvelous things, a think which we’re proud, is they did not have to relinquish these things in order to fit in. In fact, what they brought to American became American. And this diversity has more than enriched us; it has literally shaped us.”

P.S.

Immigration is about as complex an issue as one can address so I intend to follow up with at least two or three more articles in the next week or so about immigration. If I didn’t address a concern you have in this article, hopefully I will do so in the next ones I write

P.P.S.

I know many pro-immigration types prefer the term undocumented immigrant or undocumented worker over illegal immigrant since nobody can be illegal (only their actions and you don’t call someone who speeds an illegal driver or an illegal person) and I have tended to agree, but oddly enough the aforementioned poll showed that even supporters of immigration reform thought undocumented sounded worst because it’s not impossible to at least get false documents so if you are undocumented you must really be up to no good. I’m not sure how I feel about that line of reasoning—it doesn’t mean I will go back to using illegal immigrant, but the idea of using undocumented is now problematized for me. As such, I decided to go with “illegal immigrant” in my title since that was language used in “the list.”

According to the latest poll, published in either the NYTimes or Boston Globe,
the figure stands at greater than 70% nationally, who support Arizona's law.

Its not a question of being "brighter then the writers of the Constitution";
it is simply reading what the Supreme Law of the Land IS, as thay wrote it;
i.e., of applying the rules of law that thay adopted.

There is no great mystery.





David

Fox network been polling once more?

1.) A natural extension of your position would be to say the Constitution can not be amended and to disregard the Amendments.

2.) Orthodox and deviant do not fit a political discussion.

No; Article 5 must be recognized n respected; that is orthodox.




Some political candidates advocate deviation and others oppose it;
those concepts accurately describe who favors what.


Its not complicated.





David

Your answer to my point about the words deviant and orthodox not being suited to a discussion of political and legal theory is a non sequitur. No one said anything about political candidates. The matter here is vocabulary.

Its not a non-sequitur; its just that u don't understand it.

U raised the point of "political discussion".
Politics is the art of taking over the government.
When engaged in this discussion,
one needs to know who favors what and who is on which side,
favoring deviation or opposing it.





David

Orthodoxy is not a political condition. Orthodoxy is generally applied to politics only as sarcasm.

As for the word deviant, to use that word means that you believe that government can do no wrong and can never be corrected, therefore, there should be no Amendments to the Constitution and Courts can not rule on the Constitutionality of any law.

Your bias makes you unable to see how inappropriate those words are.