I was pretty sure it was a crime, but a former federal prosecutor insists it's only a civil offense, and he (I would hope) knows a lot more about the nitpicky details of federal law than I do.
It may not be a crime (felony) to simply be an illegal alien in the US, but it is definitely a crime to do the things that are done to stay and work here, i.e., obtaining and using false SSN's, stolen identities, not reporting taxes, etc.
Do I get to pick which felonies I want to commit in order to work and stay here?
Without legal expertise, here is why I think Giuliani is wrong. According to Law.com there must be injury to person or public, and jail or a fine as penalty.
In order for an illegal alien being in this country illegally and not committing a crime that doesn't carry above penalty is if they do not work.
Because if they work they must have a social security number (a legal one) and have taxes taken out. And they cannot get a SS card if they are not here legally.
While it may be a crime for the employer to hire them, social security fraud is also a crime. While some are paid cash no questions asked, they are also committing a crime by not paying taxes.
Giuliani is just playing a semantics game in my opinion. Few are here illegally and getting by without working.
Deportation proceedings for 12 million would drain significant resources. You can't just round up a bunch of brown-skinned people with accents and ship them out. Not going to happen.
Deportation proceedings for 12 million would drain significant resources. You can't just round up a bunch of brown-skinned people with accents and ship them out. Not going to happen.
One, the whole "brown-skinned" shit is getting old. The racist card is the first refuge of imbeciles and liars. Which are you?
Two, not only could we afford it, if we put the effort in, we could add measures to make it more enforeceable, including biometric recordings of each illegal deported. It would be expensive, but not near so much as to make it undoable.
A modification of the proposed amnesty program would help, such as offering permanent residency to anyone who can turn in twelve other illegals, and an updated green card/work visa system.
Sandi,
Giuliani is just being the lawyer that he is. Parsing things in this manner is what they do, and I would submit is what separates your average attorney from the truly great. Perhaps this isn't the most spectacular of legal insights, but I thin that is beside the point. That said, the rest, as cardeblu also pointed out, are clearly criminal offenses.
Anyone,
Throwing on my amateur lawyer hat, is suspicion of committing a civil offense probable cause to start a criminal investigation of the SSN or tax issues?
Deportation would actually cost MUCH less than delaying our incredible cost with the over 20 Million illegal aliens we have here today.
Both Eisenhower and Roosevelt "repatriated" illegal aliens finding that when they ignored the same poor excuses for calling an end to the many burdens to our society by deporting them many returned on their own volition.
Entering our country by cutting-in-line ahead of the millions of immigrants who wait their turn is a crime of morality and it demonstrates an intentional refusal to rebuild their own governments in the strength of the vast numbers they found no problem with protesting here in a sea of Mexican flags chanting "reconquista" and defining their concept of Aztlan. Their protests stated purpose was to damage our society where this obviously shows anyone with an ounce of reason they don't wish to be Americans or to assimilate with us...they have no idea what the American dream is about nor do they wish to be a part of it. Many are on welfare of those who are not in our prisons where only 26% work on farms...Don't let anyone tell you differently.
The over $340 Billion annual cost of these uninvited guests is far above the cost in beginning the next 5 years to start deportation in earnest where many would again leave on their own accord... the estimate of 5 years would then obviously not be required. This 21 year long overdue action would certainly include their children as we are not the worlds babysitters and our exceptions to citizenship were never meant to be abused in this way.
I have a virtual library of information if anyone wants to know of exactly what is going on...merely ask me and I'll be happy to provide as much as you can stand absorb.
Deportation proceedings for 12 million would drain significant resources.
I am getting quite sick of that bullshit argument. In the first place "deportation" isn't necessary. You probably know that hiring illegal aliens is a crime.
If we had a few employers do the perp walk in orange fatigues there would be no jobs for them. Rather than starve they will go home the same way they got here. And btw the 12 million figure is very old, and probably around to 20 million now.
Here's a question for you 'deport them all and keep them out' folks.
Why?
Really, how does it hurt you? Is it that they're working at jobs and being productive? That they might use up some part of the precious welfare state? Is it that you see some 'damn furriners' down on the street corner? Is it that you might have to wait at the emergency room?
And do you think of the consequences? If they were all gone, how many acres of crops go unpicked? How much productivity is lost when people who have more skills have to spend their time doing the things that immigrant less-skilled workers are doing.
Do you folks really think that immigrants are only a drain? All these 'costs' that are thrown out are presented in a vacuum. What about the benefits? What about the millions of tax dollars they contribute to the government? What about the millions, or would it be billions, they contribute to GDP?
The fact that it is not a crime to "be in the country illegal" does not make illegal immigration something other than illegal immigration. The term does not mean "immigration of illegal persons"; it means unlawful immigration; immigration that is itself contrary to law. Is that really so hard to understand?
Dan... I live in Los Angeles. Down the street a house is being remodeled. It has been gutted and an entire story is being added. It's a big job! Guess who's doing it?
You got it! A bunch of Mexican illegal workers. That's not the exception in this city, that's the rule. These aren't lousy crop-picking jobs, okay? This is construction that would normally pay at least $20/hour. Instead, it goes to these guys instead of Americans.
I just hope the residents don't complain when their Mexican-made house falls down around their ears.
And, being in the NE, I have seen decent/good jobs taken by Canadians, including white-collar positions. More bang for the buck, back then, but I don't see it as much now that we're at parity more or less.
Really, how does it hurt you? Is it that they're working at jobs and being productive? That they might use up some part of the precious welfare state? Is it that you see some 'damn furriners' down on the street corner? Is it that you might have to wait at the emergency room?
That paragraph is so assinine that it doesn't deserve a response.
And do you think of the consequences? If they were all gone, how many acres of crops go unpicked? How much productivity is lost when people who have more skills have to spend their time doing the things that immigrant less-skilled workers are doing.
Still a dumb statement, but let me take a guess. Crops wouldn't go unpicked, although prices of goods would rise some. For instance a $1 head of lettuce would go up maybe a quarter to fifty cents. The skilled worker doing an unskilled job is a canard too. They will simply have to pay a fair wage to entice American unskilled workers to do the job. If all competition has to do the same, it will have little effect on production.
Do you folks really think that immigrants are only a drain? All these 'costs' that are thrown out are presented in a vacuum. What about the benefits? What about the millions of tax dollars they contribute to the government? What about the millions, or would it be billions, they contribute to GDP?
Few look at the costs/benefits in a vacuum. Yes there are benefits, but not enough to overcome the costs. The burden to social services alone is huge. As with healthcare, in California alone dozens of hospitals and clinics have closed because they can't stay out of the red giving free medical sevices mostly to illegals.
Other costs to the Federal government far exceed the amount they pay in taxes.
What are you so scared of?
It is not fear to want everyone to obey the laws of this country, it is common sense and it is patriotic.
Oddly enough for some (and here I must include the big G), illegal immigration is indeed against the law. Specifically, USC, Title 8, Section 1325.
Any alien who
(1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or
(2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or
(3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
<blockquote>
Really, how does it hurt you?...Is it that you might have to wait at the emergency room?
</blockquote>
Y'know, standing in a lobby (there are never enough seats in the actual waiting room) for 2 hours at 4am while your wife is white as a sheet from fear of blood loss is no fucking picnic. So yeah, having to wait at the emergency room does hurt me, and it does hurt society. It is a real problem.
Hey Jesse, here's your response: maybe the person couldn't remodel that house down the street paying 20/hour, so it wouldn't get done, and you'd have an eyesore.
The point I was making is that you guys are piling on immigrants when you don't want to examine the OTHER issues. Getting rid of immigrants won't make hospital emergency rooms uncrowded. It won't make high-paying jobs all of a sudden appear for people. It won't make welfare payments go down, it won't make tax revenues go up. It won't make crops pick themselves.
And Sandi: if a law is immoral, and I believe that it is immoral to pre-decide someone is 'ok' or not depending on what side of an imaginary line they were born on, just like it is to decide based on their skin color, or gonad configuration, then it's wrong to advocate its enforcement.
It's not 'patriotic' to blindly follow every stupid law in the country.
You're an idiot. Undocumented aliens spend money, infuse the economy, and have an overall positive influence on the economies of North American nations. I don't know how many times border patrol agents have stopped and questioned Hispanic-Americans at checkpoints in SE Arizona, while white passengers get a total pass. I've personally experienced it many times and never once did a non-brown skinned person in my car get scrutinized.
Right, because the flow of white illegals from Mexico is every bit as much a problem as Hispanic illegals.
When will these damn racist border patrol agents wake up and do their jobs properly—and stop and question everybody like the sainted TSA inspectors who confiscate tweezers from little old ladies do?
Less flippantly, I think there's some real science to be done in determining whether it's a net gain to the economies of one country and/or the other in a case where they share a porous border and there's a huge discrepancy in their respective per capita incomes and standards of living.
I doubt that the answer is so cut-and-dried that anyone can state as fact that "undocumented aliens spend money, infuse the economy, and have an overall positive influence on the economies of North American nations". Especially when you factor in intangible benefits/detriments like going to Target and seeing giant "WOMEN'S CLOTHING / ROPA PARA MUJERES" signs everywhere, or having to sit through Spanish instructions on automated phone systems.
I'm sure it's inadmissible to appeal to an authority like South Park on an issue like this, but having to teach classes in "Future-Speak" and not be able to order a cheeseburger because the cashier can't speak the language is not a minor or intangible effect on quality of life; nor is the fact that if an immigrant will shovel your snow for ten cents whereas you had been doing it for $5, you're out of a job.
There's some interesting math problems to do here. You're infusing the economy, all right—infusing it with huge amounts of supply of labor, with a multiplier in the form of willingness to accept less money than non-immigrants will. Demand for that labor doesn't go up at the same rapid pace, and the result is that unemployment-related costs skyrocket, as do related phenomena like crime, unwed pregnancy, social unrest, and so on.
The alternative is to make the big shared border less porous, which the fence attempts to do. But then all you're doing is strengthening a dam; the amount of potential energy it's holding back remains the same, or increasing in pressure, always threatening to burst through.
Sure, there are arguments that say the best thing is to just smash the dam and let nature take its course. There are arguments that say to just keep building the dam higher. But I very much doubt that it's been conclusively decided that the one answer is demonstrably better than the other.
Valjean, you've proven that you're the imbecilic version of the race-card player, at least. That'll give your other opinions their appropriate weight. As someone put it earlier, "OMG, Border Patrol watching for illegal Mexicans looks for Mexicans!"
They are not a benefit to our economy, they're representative of a gaping hole in our national security. Anecdotal remarks concerning small-scale benefit is meaningless next to the damage they do to our legal structures, to our overall economy, and to our public institutions.
Mexico needs to either fix its own economy, or surrender sovereignty to the U.S. It's most certainly not the only source of illegal immigration, and all forms of which need to be curtailed far better than we are now, but it is the major source of the problem.
Incidentally, arguing that illegal immigrants are beneficial because they are a cheaply exploitable unregulated workforce could be viewed as racist. It's certainly illiberal, and worthy of the worst kinds of robber barons, not 21st century Americans.
Incidentally, arguing that illegal immigrants are beneficial because they are a cheaply exploitable unregulated workforce could be viewed as racist. It's certainly illiberal, and worthy of the worst kinds of robber barons, not 21st century Americans.
Exactly, which is why his 'explanation' to me is really anything but.
Please explain to me, Dan, how having a population which lowers wages for Americans below a certain level of education is good?
You want to know the real truth? The bit that few will talk about?
Illegal Mexicans are taking jobs away from Blacks and poor Whites. Does it really effect me? No. But it effects the economically weakest portion of our population.
Letting that stand because it's cheaper for me, or you because we're middle-class and educated is wrong.
I think I was wrong above, based on Jody's cite, but I am not clear just how wrong. I am sure someone who really understands how this provision fits into the federal criminal law schema will at some point step forward and explain it. I can't.
Incidentally, arguing that illegal immigrants are beneficial because they are a cheaply exploitable unregulated workforce could be viewed as racist. It's certainly illiberal, and worthy of the worst kinds of robber barons, not 21st century Americans.
Let's step back a bit. Many illegals can't speak English very well, if at all. They have unknown medical and criminal backgrounds. They can disappear at any time and leave the employer without an employee. And there's always a risk that the employer will get caught and punished. Yet despite all of this employers still find illegals an attractive option. Why is that?
Right now employment laws, minimum wage requirements, mandatory insurance, etc. all make legal workers more expensive to employ than illegals. So as a result we have multitudes of people sneaking across the border into a strange country eager to be "exploited" (which apparently includes skilled labor at $20/hr) while citizens who would be happy to work under the same rules are prohibited from doing so by law.
That might make some people feel better but I don't think it puts us in a morally superior position.
And there's always a risk that the employer will get caught and punished. Yet despite all of this employers still find illegals an attractive option. Why is that?
There is a very small risk the employers will be caught.
There is next to no risk employers will pay any kind of meaningful penalty.
Employers have flouted the law for decades while politicians and Hispanic activists demanded that law enforcement officials look the other way.
Interesting debate. However, I would like to clarify the whole illegal immigrant not being illegal thing: entering the country illegally is, in fact, a crime. However, residing in this country without proper permission/papers is NOT illegal. So you illegally enter the US, but you legally stay. It's an oddity of the law, but Rudy is correct that being in this country illegally is not, in fact, illegal. It's the entering that is against the law.
One final note: if you've been deported and then you return to the US, both the entry AND the act of residing become crimes.
9.11.2007 10:49am
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
Do I get to pick which felonies I want to commit in order to work and stay here?
Where are the trial lawyers when you really need them?
In order for an illegal alien being in this country illegally and not committing a crime that doesn't carry above penalty is if they do not work.
Because if they work they must have a social security number (a legal one) and have taxes taken out. And they cannot get a SS card if they are not here legally.
While it may be a crime for the employer to hire them, social security fraud is also a crime. While some are paid cash no questions asked, they are also committing a crime by not paying taxes.
Giuliani is just playing a semantics game in my opinion. Few are here illegally and getting by without working.
One, the whole "brown-skinned" shit is getting old. The racist card is the first refuge of imbeciles and liars. Which are you?
Two, not only could we afford it, if we put the effort in, we could add measures to make it more enforeceable, including biometric recordings of each illegal deported. It would be expensive, but not near so much as to make it undoable.
A modification of the proposed amnesty program would help, such as offering permanent residency to anyone who can turn in twelve other illegals, and an updated green card/work visa system.
Really great post, thanks.
Sandi,
Giuliani is just being the lawyer that he is. Parsing things in this manner is what they do, and I would submit is what separates your average attorney from the truly great. Perhaps this isn't the most spectacular of legal insights, but I thin that is beside the point. That said, the rest, as cardeblu also pointed out, are clearly criminal offenses.
Anyone,
Throwing on my amateur lawyer hat, is suspicion of committing a civil offense probable cause to start a criminal investigation of the SSN or tax issues?
Both Eisenhower and Roosevelt "repatriated" illegal aliens finding that when they ignored the same poor excuses for calling an end to the many burdens to our society by deporting them many returned on their own volition.
Entering our country by cutting-in-line ahead of the millions of immigrants who wait their turn is a crime of morality and it demonstrates an intentional refusal to rebuild their own governments in the strength of the vast numbers they found no problem with protesting here in a sea of Mexican flags chanting "reconquista" and defining their concept of Aztlan. Their protests stated purpose was to damage our society where this obviously shows anyone with an ounce of reason they don't wish to be Americans or to assimilate with us...they have no idea what the American dream is about nor do they wish to be a part of it. Many are on welfare of those who are not in our prisons where only 26% work on farms...Don't let anyone tell you differently.
The over $340 Billion annual cost of these uninvited guests is far above the cost in beginning the next 5 years to start deportation in earnest where many would again leave on their own accord... the estimate of 5 years would then obviously not be required. This 21 year long overdue action would certainly include their children as we are not the worlds babysitters and our exceptions to citizenship were never meant to be abused in this way.
I have a virtual library of information if anyone wants to know of exactly what is going on...merely ask me and I'll be happy to provide as much as you can stand absorb.
I am getting quite sick of that bullshit argument. In the first place "deportation" isn't necessary. You probably know that hiring illegal aliens is a crime.
If we had a few employers do the perp walk in orange fatigues there would be no jobs for them. Rather than starve they will go home the same way they got here. And btw the 12 million figure is very old, and probably around to 20 million now.
Why?
Really, how does it hurt you? Is it that they're working at jobs and being productive? That they might use up some part of the precious welfare state? Is it that you see some 'damn furriners' down on the street corner? Is it that you might have to wait at the emergency room?
And do you think of the consequences? If they were all gone, how many acres of crops go unpicked? How much productivity is lost when people who have more skills have to spend their time doing the things that immigrant less-skilled workers are doing.
Do you folks really think that immigrants are only a drain? All these 'costs' that are thrown out are presented in a vacuum. What about the benefits? What about the millions of tax dollars they contribute to the government? What about the millions, or would it be billions, they contribute to GDP?
What are you so scared of?
You got it! A bunch of Mexican illegal workers. That's not the exception in this city, that's the rule. These aren't lousy crop-picking jobs, okay? This is construction that would normally pay at least $20/hour. Instead, it goes to these guys instead of Americans.
I just hope the residents don't complain when their Mexican-made house falls down around their ears.
Will you leave his non-examined stereotyping alone? Jeez.
That paragraph is so assinine that it doesn't deserve a response.
And do you think of the consequences? If they were all gone, how many acres of crops go unpicked? How much productivity is lost when people who have more skills have to spend their time doing the things that immigrant less-skilled workers are doing.
Still a dumb statement, but let me take a guess. Crops wouldn't go unpicked, although prices of goods would rise some. For instance a $1 head of lettuce would go up maybe a quarter to fifty cents. The skilled worker doing an unskilled job is a canard too. They will simply have to pay a fair wage to entice American unskilled workers to do the job. If all competition has to do the same, it will have little effect on production.
Do you folks really think that immigrants are only a drain? All these 'costs' that are thrown out are presented in a vacuum. What about the benefits? What about the millions of tax dollars they contribute to the government? What about the millions, or would it be billions, they contribute to GDP?
Few look at the costs/benefits in a vacuum. Yes there are benefits, but not enough to overcome the costs. The burden to social services alone is huge. As with healthcare, in California alone dozens of hospitals and clinics have closed because they can't stay out of the red giving free medical sevices mostly to illegals.
Other costs to the Federal government far exceed the amount they pay in taxes.
What are you so scared of?
It is not fear to want everyone to obey the laws of this country, it is common sense and it is patriotic.
Really, how does it hurt you?...Is it that you might have to wait at the emergency room?
</blockquote>
Y'know, standing in a lobby (there are never enough seats in the actual waiting room) for 2 hours at 4am while your wife is white as a sheet from fear of blood loss is no fucking picnic. So yeah, having to wait at the emergency room does hurt me, and it does hurt society. It is a real problem.
Sandi, maybe you missed it.
The point I was making is that you guys are piling on immigrants when you don't want to examine the OTHER issues. Getting rid of immigrants won't make hospital emergency rooms uncrowded. It won't make high-paying jobs all of a sudden appear for people. It won't make welfare payments go down, it won't make tax revenues go up. It won't make crops pick themselves.
And Sandi: if a law is immoral, and I believe that it is immoral to pre-decide someone is 'ok' or not depending on what side of an imaginary line they were born on, just like it is to decide based on their skin color, or gonad configuration, then it's wrong to advocate its enforcement.
It's not 'patriotic' to blindly follow every stupid law in the country.
You're an idiot. Undocumented aliens spend money, infuse the economy, and have an overall positive influence on the economies of North American nations. I don't know how many times border patrol agents have stopped and questioned Hispanic-Americans at checkpoints in SE Arizona, while white passengers get a total pass. I've personally experienced it many times and never once did a non-brown skinned person in my car get scrutinized.
Stop being an asshole.
When will these damn racist border patrol agents wake up and do their jobs properly—and stop and question everybody like the sainted TSA inspectors who confiscate tweezers from little old ladies do?
I doubt that the answer is so cut-and-dried that anyone can state as fact that "undocumented aliens spend money, infuse the economy, and have an overall positive influence on the economies of North American nations". Especially when you factor in intangible benefits/detriments like going to Target and seeing giant "WOMEN'S CLOTHING / ROPA PARA MUJERES" signs everywhere, or having to sit through Spanish instructions on automated phone systems.
I'm sure it's inadmissible to appeal to an authority like South Park on an issue like this, but having to teach classes in "Future-Speak" and not be able to order a cheeseburger because the cashier can't speak the language is not a minor or intangible effect on quality of life; nor is the fact that if an immigrant will shovel your snow for ten cents whereas you had been doing it for $5, you're out of a job.
There's some interesting math problems to do here. You're infusing the economy, all right—infusing it with huge amounts of supply of labor, with a multiplier in the form of willingness to accept less money than non-immigrants will. Demand for that labor doesn't go up at the same rapid pace, and the result is that unemployment-related costs skyrocket, as do related phenomena like crime, unwed pregnancy, social unrest, and so on.
The alternative is to make the big shared border less porous, which the fence attempts to do. But then all you're doing is strengthening a dam; the amount of potential energy it's holding back remains the same, or increasing in pressure, always threatening to burst through.
Sure, there are arguments that say the best thing is to just smash the dam and let nature take its course. There are arguments that say to just keep building the dam higher. But I very much doubt that it's been conclusively decided that the one answer is demonstrably better than the other.
not to single out anyone, but the construction above strikes me as surreal.
They are not a benefit to our economy, they're representative of a gaping hole in our national security. Anecdotal remarks concerning small-scale benefit is meaningless next to the damage they do to our legal structures, to our overall economy, and to our public institutions.
Mexico needs to either fix its own economy, or surrender sovereignty to the U.S. It's most certainly not the only source of illegal immigration, and all forms of which need to be curtailed far better than we are now, but it is the major source of the problem.
Incidentally, arguing that illegal immigrants are beneficial because they are a cheaply exploitable unregulated workforce could be viewed as racist. It's certainly illiberal, and worthy of the worst kinds of robber barons, not 21st century Americans.
Exactly, which is why his 'explanation' to me is really anything but.
Please explain to me, Dan, how having a population which lowers wages for Americans below a certain level of education is good?
You want to know the real truth? The bit that few will talk about?
Illegal Mexicans are taking jobs away from Blacks and poor Whites. Does it really effect me? No. But it effects the economically weakest portion of our population.
Letting that stand because it's cheaper for me, or you because we're middle-class and educated is wrong.
Let's step back a bit. Many illegals can't speak English very well, if at all. They have unknown medical and criminal backgrounds. They can disappear at any time and leave the employer without an employee. And there's always a risk that the employer will get caught and punished. Yet despite all of this employers still find illegals an attractive option. Why is that?
Right now employment laws, minimum wage requirements, mandatory insurance, etc. all make legal workers more expensive to employ than illegals. So as a result we have multitudes of people sneaking across the border into a strange country eager to be "exploited" (which apparently includes skilled labor at $20/hr) while citizens who would be happy to work under the same rules are prohibited from doing so by law.
That might make some people feel better but I don't think it puts us in a morally superior position.
There is a very small risk the employers will be caught.
There is next to no risk employers will pay any kind of meaningful penalty.
Employers have flouted the law for decades while politicians and Hispanic activists demanded that law enforcement officials look the other way.
One final note: if you've been deported and then you return to the US, both the entry AND the act of residing become crimes.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.