Arizona's New Immigration Law

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by saden1

We're all grow men, let's bring facts to the table shall we?

1. It makes sanctuary cities liable citizen lawsuits. These citizens will be suing themselves and AZ is the most broke state in the country (yes, even more broken than Cali). Some will claim they're broke because of all the welfare they provide for undocumented aliens but the real questions is how do undocumented aliens obtain these welfare services and how does this law address that issue? You must understand that these aliens have fake everything, license, social security, you name it, they have it.

This point is a huge reach. The sanctuary cities are only liable in the following cases:

"implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law. If there is a judicial finding that an entity has violated this section, the court shall order that the entity pay a civil penalty of not less than one thousand dollars and not more than five thousand dollars for each day that the policy has remained in effect after the filing of an action pursuant to this subsection."

Unless a city is willfully violating the AZ statutes (like the City of VB was not enforcing Fed law) they have nothing to worry about. And even if they are fined it's only after the filing of an action, it's not retroactive.

2. The crime rate in Arizona has been steadily declining even with increasing population of undocumented aliens. The question is what is the basis for claiming undocumented aliens increase are the source of crime in Arizona?

To start with, this:
A report issued by Maricopa County's Attorney General Andrew Thomas in October 2008 reveals the extent of Arizona's problem with crime committed by illegal immigrants.

In 2007, illegal immigrants accounted for:

10% of sex crimes convictions
11% of murders convictions
13% of stolen cars convictions
13% of aggravated assaults convictions
17% of those sentenced for violent crimes
19% of those sentenced for property crimes
20% of those sentenced for felony DUI
21% of crimes committed with weapons
34% of those sentenced for the manufacture, sale or transport of drugs
36% of those sentenced for kidnapping
44% of forgeries
50% of those sentenced for crimes related to "chop shops"
85% of false ID convictions
96% of smuggling convictions

Illegal immigrants make up 19 percent of those convicted of crimes in Maricopa County and 21 percent of those in county jails.

Illegal immigrants make up an estimated 9 percent of the county's population.

3. Lord Obama is certainly politicizing? He's a politician addressing a national issue, the issue of immigration, which last I checked is a federal issue. Anywho, this Arizona law is a political play itself and that's fine. Either side is entitled to convince the public their immigration vision is right for America. I don't know how he is misrepresenting the the AZ law. I would be happy to listen what part of what he said is objectionable.

See Post # 7. When the left can produce a number of "father's taking their kids for ice cream" that have been stopped and detained for no reason other than the color of their skin, I'll be glad to listen to your point. Until then this is political positioning, nothing more. I'm still waiting to see all the vast numbers of US citizens who have been wrongly prosecuted under the Patriot Act.

Will there be police officers who handle enforcement wrong, certainly. However I'm sure they will be in the vast minority. Every jurisdiction in AZ will be training it's officers on "by-the-book" enforcement techniques. I'm also sure police and localities in AZ will be very aware the national spotlight will be on.

4. Looking at comparison of Arizona's 2000 and 2010 budgets I don't see how this law will fix their budget issues. They're merely going to shift their expenditure from social services to incarceration, law enforcement, going to court and deprotation (not even sure they're going to do that themselves).

This law may not fix the budget now, but it should help it from getting worse due to issues surrounding illegal immigration. It may have a minor effect in reducing social services, but I think it will actually reduce law enforcement/incarceration costs. If you're an illegal and you're in a state that is cracking down, chances are you take the path of least resistance and move on to another state where you can keep a lower profile or that has more lax enforcement.

5. There are many questions this law doesn't address...How are you going to determine if someone legal or illegal if they have a fake driver's license?

Can't, they have a fake ID that's good they'll get by.

How are you going to punish companies if all the documents they have for an undocumented worker are valid?

If the company did its "due diligence", unknown.

How are you going to punish someone for providing comfort to undocumented alien if they say I didn't ask (citizens are not required to ask someone if they are documented and that's not constitutional).

The words "knows and recklessly disregards" are part of the sections addressing this.

How are they going to deal with lawsuits from multiple fronts.

Same way they would deal with any other lawsuit. Unless there's some "cease and desist" order, they just put it on the docket and get to it when they get to it.