The preliminary injunction, issued Wednesday, means that, at least for now, police are prevented from questioning people's immigration status if there is reason to believe they are in the country illegally."If there is reason to believe"? Do you mean articulable suspicion? Like the guy has a Mexican Consular ID card hanging out of his pocket? Or do you mean probable cause, like, oh... say he's actually busy climbing down the U.S. side of the border fence, and the Mexican CID card falls out of his pocket, and you arrest him for littering. Does that mean you can't ask him what he was doing halfway down the fence in the first place?
Does this make any sense to anybody?
The cop has "reason to believe" a crime is being committed right in his face and he's not allowed to ask about it?
Look, nothing is more corrosive to civil order than laws that aren't enforced or, worse, are enforced capriciously and whimsically. Either enforce immigration laws or repeal them, but this halfassery in the middle has got to stop.
14 comments:
but pandering to both sides is the politicians way.
Clearly the political class would prefer to repeal them. Problem for them is that the body politic would then make them former members of the political class, and they covet remaining a member over repeal, but not so much as to adhere to will of the body politic. So they sit there like one of Harcourt Fenton Mudd's androids, smoking at the contradiction, and do nothing. Usually muttering, "stupid voters..."
Here's the problem: being in the country without going through immigration (e.g. illegal immigrant) is not a "criminal" offense. Its a civil offense, like a parking ticket. So the guy climbing down the fence hasn't committed a criminal act. It should be but its not. The only way the police can enforce the new AZ law is to suspect they've committed a criminal act, that's the reason they ask for their papers. Many of them who've been working for a while have some sort of forged documents (SS cards, drivers license, etc>) which is a crime.
WV: promi - What the dems say to all those "undocumented workers": "We promi to get you in. Don't worry"
Anonymous
Illegal entry IS a felony in the US Code, but it is impossible to enforce due to the numbers of arrest. There is not enough detention space. If we had an aggravated case such as a BPA being assualted with serious injuries, sometimes the US Attorney would prosecute the case and use illegal entry as an additional charge.
Actually they aren't prohibited from asking. As I understand it, the Court only struck down the part of the law that REQUIRED the police to ask.
"...halfassery in the middle has got to stop." Aye. The question remains HOW do WE make it stop?
Has civil order corroded to the point that we cannot salvage it? I hope not, but am beginning to suspect we may be at that point shortly.
Boat Guy, yesterday morning (ie, before the idiot-in-robes issued her public kissing of Barry Lackwit's ass) I heard a news report saying that several towns in Arizona had already issued orders to not comply with or enforce the state immigration law. This isn't anything new, of course -- it's just "sanctuary cities" taken to the next logical step.
But when you have states refusing to enforce federal laws, or cities refusing to enforce either state or federal laws, you have a crisis on your hands. When people lose respect for the law, then it ceases to be the rule of law and becomes the rule of fiat, might makes right. We were supposed to be beyond that.
I don't think we're going to get out of this one. If we do, it's going to require a lot of people deciding to be utterly ruthless in destroying the assorted vermin that have created this situation. And I don't think ballots will suffice. Events of recent years have demonstrated that the Washington mentality is too strong to defeat. It simply absorbs all opposition, like the Blob, and emerges that much stronger.
Illegal Immigration : 21st Century :: Slavery : 19th Century.
At least the Feds can take comfort in the fact the 21st Century equivalent of a certain 19th century event will be fought with calibers smaller than .58. That will bring comfort to certain politicians that deadly, airplane downing over .50 caliber projectiles aren't being used like they were in the 19th century. We've progressed!
Anon @8:18 (AKA "Anon1):
As noted, llegal immigration--i.e., being a non-US Citizen in the country without official permission--is a Federal Felony. The Arizona law mirrors Federal Law.
Which brings us to wolfwalker: What if the Federal government refuses to enforce it's own law, the state says that it will enforce the Federal law, and the Federal government then says "Oh, no, you don't!"?
The interesting portion of all of this to me is that the law accepts a drivers license as proof of being in the country legally. Now I haven't had much interaction with the police, but isn't one of the first things that a cop going to do if they stop you for a crime (which is a prerequisite, they can't just walk up to random people and ask to see their citizenship papers without probable cause of another crime being committed) is ask to see your drivers license? If you provide it, no problem. If nobody of the 20 people stuffed into a car supposed to hold 10 has any ID or speaks English and are on a known human smuggling route, doesn't it make sense to require the police to check if they are in the country legally?
Anon 1 here:
Looks like I was wrong re: illegal entry = felony. That's what I get for listening to a Dem politician. I heard it from a Dem politician on Fox News this AM.... Someone should point this stuff out to the Senators and Congress critters who keep spouting the wrong info...
Wv: Snorpr = that's when you shoot beer out of your nose
I don't think the Feds want the immigration laws enforced because it will cost Obama votes. I have always figured "sanctuary cities" were violating at least a few laws. It does seem that both the Fed gov. and local governments are picking and choosing which laws to enforce, and whom to enforce them against.
That's called a third world country.
An idea...
If the Administration wins their case and gets a declaration that only the Feds can enforce Immigration law, local and state police should say, "Fine, we apparently can't enforce Federal Laws--guess we can't bust folks with homemade suppressors, SBR's etc.
I'd just like to see teh won's reaction.
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