The Arizona Immigration Law -- It Was Only a Matter of Time
I think most of the negative reaction to the recently signed immigration law in Arizona has it exactly backwards. If you told me that by carrying personal identification and producing it when asked by state police, I could play some role in preventing one of my countrymen from meeting the same fate as Rob Krentz, I would happily do it. I would consider it a small price to pay, as I do each time I show identification at legal border crossings. The legal residents of Arizona, of whatever race or ethnicity, should be banding together to protect the other legal residents of their state, of whatever race or ethnicity, against harm that results from illegal crossings of their southern border. Failing to protect each other from violent crime -- not from a request for identification from state police -- is what "undermines basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans."
Every unfree society is built
Every unfree society is built on arguments like this.
The referenced article about the murder of the rich white rancher indicates just how rare violent acts by illegals are:
"Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County said if it was related to smuggling, it would be the first such killing of a rancher in more than three decades."
I would think twice before using an Us-vs-Them mental framework to justify police state policy.
Judging from your photo you
Judging from your photo you are a white man, so it's fairly inconceivable that you would ever be asked to produce credentials in AZ.
We could do a lot of things that would save lives, like reducing the speed limit on interstates to 55, but we've decided that the massive inconvenience that would result would not be worth the lives saved. Obviously the multi-tiered citizenship implicit in a regime to be implemented by the likes of Maricopa County's notorious sheriff Joe Arpaio go way beyond inconvenience, but even if it didn't: arguing policy based on an anecdote, however tragic and gruesome, evinces a naivete that I would not have expected to encounter on an economics-centered blog.
seek truth from facts
Anecdotes are not data. Crime is on the decline in Arizona, and illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natural-born Americans. The government cannot guarantee you perfect safety even if you give it the power to check your papers and track your movements.
See this story in Reason:"Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona. ... Truth is, illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans. ... In 2007, scholars Ruben Rumbaut and Walter Ewing investigated the issue for the Immigration Policy Center and concluded that "if immigrants suddenly disappeared and the country became immigrant-free (and illegal-immigrant free), crime rates would likely increase.""
Is there any reason to think
Is there any reason to think this law will actually have the effect you want? If it had been in force three months ago, would the murder of Rob Krentz not have happened? I suspect this is one of those "look, we're doing something" laws that actually won't do anything positive and will do a lot negative, providing no real security and inflicting a lot of unAmerican offenses against civil liberty.
How would this law have
How would this law have prevented the death of Rob Krentz?
Prevention
Consider a hypothetical in which legal status could be determined instantaneously. In that hypothetical, the economic rewards of being in the U.S. illegally go down dramatically -- there would be no way to obtain work, transact business, or go for very long undetected. So the flow of illegal immigrants would drop. With fewer illegal immigrants, there would be less opportunity for crimes like the one perpetrated against Rob Krentz. The new law moves a small way between the status quo and this extreme hypothetical. In doing so, it should capture some of both the benefits and costs of the hypothetical relative to the status quo.
The article you linked to
The article you linked to about Mr. Krentz death places a heavy emphasis on the drug trade, those engaged in it are already employed and already transact business illegally and I see no reason the drug trade, given it's economic incentive will choose to stop anything given this law. If anything, they may create a huge (and higher quality) fake ID industry.
As for how long one can of Hispanic descent can go undetected, Arizona is 30% Hispanic, California 35%, Texas 36% and New Mexico 41%. Good luck with that. Also, how much time and money should local law enforcement spend checking IDs? If law enforcement thinks the ID is fake, how much time should they spend trying to verify it (I don't even know if they are supposed to try and verify it). And, of course, keep in mind the police are supposed to do this while not racial profiling. Your hypothetical runs headlong into a realitical.
I do not see how this law could possibly have a meaningful impact on preventing the death of a future Mr. Krentz, or on anything, except for a minor uptick in the demand for legal work for lawsuits.
As has been pointed out,
As has been pointed out, illegal immigrants appear to be less likely to commit crimes than those of us who are legally here.
So even if there were no costs to requiring everybody to carry papers at all times, we would have to balance the chance that a police officer would have found and detained Mr. Krentz's killer against the chance that people would die because police attention was focused on a lower-risk group.
Evidence?
Can you point me to any studies, or any other evidence, that indicates illegals are less likely to commit crimes?
I'm not challenging your premise (at least not yet), but would like to see the evidence.
Considering that Mr. Krentz
Considering that Mr. Krentz was probably killed by drug smugglers, this isn't so much true. There'd just be legal residents moving the drugs once inside the USA, and last I heard, legal residents dealing in drugs are quite willing to kill people.
Not to mention that your scenario is more worthy of a s-f novel than of reality; in reality such a system would be an authoritarian government's wet dream, because it'd do far more than simply prevent illegal immigration.
Lament
I lament that the same people now all worried about their fellow citizen's safety only do so for rich white men. Have you any idea how many people are murdered all across the country, also innocent? Not so many of them are rich white men though. I would not be so happy to provide identification if I knew I was being asked for it because of how I look. It's amazing how American values get touted as some kind of holy grail then thrown aside at any whiff of danger. Torture anyone? Illegal wiretaps? Rendition? Carry papers as if you're in Nazi Germany? Why not, I don't mind a police state if it might in some small way keep everyone safe from everything. Oh wait. Maybe it's getting time to move. I don't recognize my country anymore. I hear Canada has truly universal health care, they don't spy on their citizens and don't require official papers to walk the streets.
Pick better comparisons
The words "now" and "only" are yours, not mine, as are the comparisons to torture, wiretaps, and Nazis. The latter is a particularly poor comparison, unless you are asserting that people who have come to the U.S. illegally despite the presence of legal channels are analogous to Jews who had been legal citizens of Eastern European countries for many years. Or perhaps you are asserting that being deported back to your country of origin to live according to the laws of that country is analogous to being rounded up and sent to camps for extermination.
birthers of a nation
The point of the mention of wiretaps and torture is that many white Americans are willing to sacrifice liberty for the false promise of security.
As to the "danger" posed by illegal immigration, which as we have seen doesn't actually exist, the way to end it would be to fine employers $1,000 per day for each illegal immigrant they hire. If there's no work, people will stop coming over. (Consider the concept of "supply and demand").
A law that attacked the practices of employers would do much more to reduce the problem (such as it is). But it would target employers, many of whom are white, so the right wing in Arizona and elsewhere isn't interested. Much better to express irrational animus through an unconstitutional law.
Civil rights violations inevitable in AZ
Efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens.
When did we start giving up our civil rights?
Immigration
The AZ law would be so much more credible and useful, if it just required EVERYONE to carry proof of immigration status when in a public place. This suspicion standard is code for non-white.
Ver are you papaz!
Not having to be stopped and show our "papers" is one of the fundamental human freedoms that this country was founded on. The reason our founders were so skeptical of occupation forces and police power is they saw what it actually means. Every police officer is not Hillstreet Blues character that upholds the law, respects the citizens and only harrasses the criminals. They are people, and they can and do abuse their powers. They stop pretty girls so they can flirt, they harrass people they don't like, they ask for IDs from certain minorities more than others.
Giving this power to the state police is not a minor inconvenience, it is an opening for vast corruption and a police state mentality that only builds upon itself. If Arizona was serious about illegal immigration it would punish employers who hire illegals - but those employers are mostly white, mostly wealthy and mostly republican ironically enough.
I agree with your headline, but not your article!
I'm an Arizona resident, and I fully understand why this legislation was created. By all accounts, Arizona has a ton of what we term illegal aliens, and constitutionally, Arizona has absolutely *zero* recourse for tackling this problem by itself. Immigration enforcement is exclusively administered by Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency.
This law is the Arizona legislatures "shot in the dark" driven by a perceived need to do *something* but not having the authority to do anything. I think it is fully appropriate to view this as a catastrophic failing of the *FEDERAL* government to intercede sooner as they are the only ones able to do anything about it, and it's not like this is some brand new problem. Do you remember the Minutemen sensation a couple years ago, where citizens were joining together and canvassing the border as civilians? That was another implicit cry for help.
It seems unconscionable that our federal government will wage two wars on our behalf on the other side of the globe, and yet fail totally and utterly at securing our homeland to any meaningful degree. *NOTE: I love immigrants, our country was built on them and when it's not we will begin to fail. We need to change our immigration policies too, but that also means nothing if we don't change our enforcement.
I feel that if our legal system is still functioning in any holistic sense of the word, this law will be struck down by the courts, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
To more directly address your post, the $64,000 question is "Will this help?" Well, the state can't deport these people - all it can do is PUT THEM IN JAIL! And not even for long (6wks - 4mo)! So we're paying to try them, process them, and jail them, and then release them and maybe repeat??? How's this going to help? All of the privacy invasion and racial profiling will only likely be a problem a couple years down the line once the publicity heat is off. Until then, I expect that superiors will keep a fairly tight rein on their officers.
What's needed is (a) direct Federal enforcement of current immigration law or Federal partnering with local agencies and granting meaningful authority while retaining a judgement evaluation process based at the Federal level to ensure that the locals aren't abusing, and (b) reform of immigration policy to make it easier to get migrant short- to mid-term visas and create and ***!FUND!*** a cohesive enforcement structure.
What we'll get is probably ahhhmm..... nothing? Cheers!
Unconvinced
Does your logic still hold if illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American citizens are? Intuitively it makes sense that this would be the case, as illegal immigrants have a higher expected cost for committing crime (ie, they risk deportation if caught).
I’d like tocite the same article that mlloyd did:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/22/how-immigration-crackdowns-bac/print
Az new law
You people who are against this law must not be living it like I am.
Calif has been destroyed by the illegals. We are over run here in the southland. Our schools are full of them, emergency rooms bankrupt because of them. Welfare rolls are breaking the bank because of their anchor babies. The list goes on and on. I hear as much spanish as I do english anymore.
Gang spray paint all over, razor wire on freeway signs to keep the evil doers from painting them. Its a mess!
10% of Mexico has already moved here....how much more can we take?? All 100 million of them? How about the 5 billion other people in the world that want to come here?
If your for illegals your nuts!!
Illegal immigrants are less
Illegal immigrants are less prone to crime than natives. Crime rates in Southern CA have been trending downward for a while now, even with all those illegal immigrants you claim to be overrunning the State. In fact, here in Los Angeles, the homicide rate is lower now than it was when then governor Ronald Reagan enacted state wide gun controls to keep those angry dark skinned people from carrying firearms.
The insistence on blaming California's woes on illegal immigrants, despite reality, betrays a deeper, less politically correct motivation.
The basic notion of fairness
The basic notion of fairness we cherish as Americans was undermined when the US decided to treat immigrants like a commodity that should be suppressed by a protectionist policy in favor of native born members. Membership does indeed have it's privileges!
Now, we're supposed to endorse AZ's police state tactics because the killer of Rob Krentz would have been nabbed by the same police force that cannot seem find him now.
Not to mention it matters not that illegal immigration does not seem to actually burden the US, except for the effort required to keep it illegal. So the solution is... make it more burdensome by pursuing it more aggressively. Now, that makes good sense!
I was a legal resident in
I was a legal resident in Spain, Czechoslovakia, Greece and France for close to 15 years between 1984 and 2001. In all except Czechoslovakia - about which I am unsure - I was legally required to have the copies of both my residency papers and my US passport available at all times. I was never asked for them in Spain or Greece, but was required to produce them in France. I'm bewildered at the intense reaction to this fairly common world-wide practice.
But...
Under what circumstances were you asked to produce them? Were you stopped on the street by police? Where you pulled over in your car, or detained at the train station? More likely you were asked to produce them when buying an airline ticket, or checking in to a hotel, or crossing the boarder from another European country.
When I went to Italy I had to "register" as a visitor with the local police. But I was never stopped on the street in Rome and asked for my passport. There is a big difference between being actively vs. passively detained by law enforcement. (using the "delayed" version of detained here.) Having to show proof of citizenship to book a hotel, or register your kid for school is one thing - being stopped on the street because you "look" like an immigrant is quite different.
Eric, Under the law, police
Eric,
Under the law, police are empowered to arrest anyone upon "reasonable suspicion" that they are an immigrant not carrying papers. The reaction has been intense because hispanic citizens and legal aliens feel they have to carry papers now, but the predominantly white legislators who passed the law will say its not a burden because they'll never have to.
Imagine how conservatives would react if President Obama proposed a law that essentially required only Republicans to carry identification papers at all times. It would take about five seconds before he was labeled the antichrist.
any other liberties you'd give up
Mr. Samwick,
You seem to recognize that the AZ law would, at best, have a minute and indirect effect on violent crime, but you're still willing to surrender some of your liberty to reduce the risk of another person (who happens to be a white male) being killed.
Can I take it that you favor European-style gun control, then, even if you believe that the 2nd Am provides an individual right? Thousands of people (disproportionately poor black people) are killed by guns in this country every year. Countries like the U.K. have dramatically lower gun death rates than we do. One can safely presume that U.K.-style gun laws would have, at minimum, a significant effect on violent crime. But you're willing to go on record in favor of a move to waive the Second Amendment, so that we no longer fail to protect each other from violent crime?
Could you say that a little louder...
You want to make sure you alienate libertarians in addition to hispanics. It's a 2fer!
Your Whiteness is showing
This isn't about people here illegally, its about trying to stop hispanic americans (U.S. citizens) from voting. The same way that photo ID laws are about trying to stop minorities from voting.
Ivory Towerism
I'm astonished that someone with an academic record like Professor Samwick would write something like this. The logical flaws and social obliviousness in his post have been well-dissected by previous commentators. I will add only an observation from economics. If you want to get serious about combating illegal immigration, enact federal legislation that imposes on businesses a fine of one thousand dollars per day per illegal immigrant employed. That will convert the flood (assuming there is one) to a trickle, and make enforcement on that trickle a far simpler matter. Of course this is a highly hypothetical hypothetical, because businesses *love* having workers that are exploitable not only because they are financially undemanding but also because they can be blackmailed by the threat of exposure -- and can easily communicate these sentiments to their legislators.
Sometimes I wonder whether I did the right thing in sending my son to Dartmouth College.
Dr. Samwick only expressed
Dr. Samwick only expressed his opinion on a single act of viloence committed by a criminal (illegal alien).
No need for you to get down in the gutter.
The law to fine business owners has been out there forever,
certainly the current administration is not protecting the
"ivory tower" why have they not acted.
Did you "SEND" your son to Dartmouth or did he choose the college himself? I hope you allowed him freedom of choice.
Dartmouth college is a great institution. The faculty of which Dr. Samwick is a member make it their business to keep it that way and deserve praise for their efforts.
I used "send" in the sense of
I used "send" in the sense of "paid for." My son chose to go to Dartmouth, and I paid the freight. I'm glad he and I did what we did; my son received an excellent education at Dartmouth, and I share your high opinion of the place (in interpreting my remark about Dartmouth, you needed to turn on your irony detector).
However, it's exactly that high opinion that makes me wonder why someone who makes as lousy arguments as Samwick's is teaching there. Perhaps the law fining business owners is "out there," but if it is, I don't know what penalties it calls for and see no sign of it being enforced in any serious way. It's not clear to me how these observations amount to getting down in the gutter.
So I'm left with the logical flaws in Samwick's argument pointed out by previous commenters; I won't repeat them here. The AZ legislature has appealed to its citizens' worst instincts, not their best ones.
"LOUSY"
Dr. Samwick's ("lousy") comments as you choose to call them
have nothing to do with his ability to teach. If you investigated his CV and are aware he was chosen for the honor of teacher of the year for New Hampshire you might want to apologize. I am defending education not any individual. Dr. Samwick and other renowned educators do their jobs, you should be praising there efforts not demeaning them because they do not agree with you on this or any other matter. "Nuf said"
Last time
I did not say Samwick's "comments" were "lousy." I said his "arguments" were lousy. There's a difference that you would do well to learn.
Do you remember the Minutemen
Do you remember the Minutemen sensation a couple years ago, where citizens were joining together and canvassing the border as civilians? That was another implicit cry for help.
Mr. Samwick: Your right to
Mr. Samwick:
Your right to carry papers is protected by my right NOT to. I believe it can be found in the 4th and 14th amendments of the US Constitution. The US Constitution is more important than the life of one rancher. After all, many have died over the last two centuries protecting the freedoms provided for in it.
Cable TV is abuzz with the national debate. (I live in Scottsdale) and what's very funny is that the defenders / authors keep saying about those who oppose the bill, "they should read it first" as if they haven't. Heck, what a shallow response. So, I read the bill. It's only eighteen pages and I will say that the language did not mirror the federal law exactly. Read section one and then ask "how's this going to be implemented?"...
Btw, the bill does nothing, either way, to address illegal immigration or border protections. Moreover, if it mimics federal law how why will it work any better?
But, want to know who else is in favor of the bill? Real criminals. Why? Because, law enforcement will be way too busy to watch them with their daily immigration duties.
Intellectual dishonesty only get you so far...
Funny that I never heard that argument come up from you when, say, discussing the second-amendment. “If you told me that by submitting to a background check when buying ammunition, I could play a role in preventing a large number of deaths, I would gladly do it.” OR “If you told me that by voting for a Public Option in Health care, I could play a role in helping a large number of people afford health care and live longer, I would gladly do it.” OR "If you told me that by paying a thousand bucks more of taxes every year, I could save one homeless life from dying on the street, I would gladly do it."
See? Think progressive, man!
Re: the comments here that
Re: the comments here that illegals commit fewer crimes -- do you have a link? A quick Google of the subject brought this up, with many more links available making similar statements.
"
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has found that 22 percent of felonies in the county are committed by illegal immigrants.(3) Illegal immigrants are estimated to be 10 percent of the county's adult population.(4)
Analysis of data from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program showed that illegal immigrants were 11 percent of the state's prison population. Illegal immigrants were estimated to be 8 percent of state's adult population at the time of the analysis.(5)"
Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/center-for-immigration-studies-o...
Deceiving statistics
Hispanics, especially those who are here illegally, are less likely to report crimes than other groups are. Hispanics also receive less diligence from law enforcement agencies than what other groups receive.
The rate at which homicides are 'closed' is 62%. Of the remaining 38% it is impossible to know what percentage to assign to whatever racial group. Plus, without actually knowing the number of immigrants who are here illegally... how is it possible to know how many crimes are committed by illegal immigrants by percentage?