The war on illegal immigration

[turtlespeed 226]

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wow, this thread is still going??

Glad you're back. We need some pale Canucks to bash.

Only if they are illegal, eh?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[tkhayes 348]

I see it turned into the 'JESUS' thread as well....

[masterrig 1]

You're not surprised... are you?


Chuck

[tkhayes 348]

Surprised?
Not at all

Disturbed?
Very much so

[turtlespeed 226]

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Surprised?
Not at all

Disturbed?
Very much so

More Dissapointed than anything else.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[GeorgiaDon 379]

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In Reply To
So in effect if I want to visit Arizona, for example, I am forced to obtain and carry in my pocket at all times a US passport, even though I am a US citizen and not planning on leaving the country.

No, you don't, as shown in the other thread.

That has not been shown in the other thread. Whether or not you believe that the Arizona law will lead to profiling, it is clear that circumstances could occur at any time that could lead to contact with the police, and they can then legitimately ask for proof of citizenship. I could be driving, minding my own business, and another driver could run into me, for example. Davjohns (in another thread ) provided a list of acceptible forms of ID under the Arizona law:
Ø A valid Arizona driver license.

Ø A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.

Ø A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.

Ø A valid federal, state or local government issued identification, if the issuing entity requires proof of legal presence before issuance.

Only that last applies to an out-of-state resident. Of course I would have my Georgia driver's license with me, but it is not clear that Arizona police would accept that as proof of citizenship. Some states require proof of citizenship before issuing a license, others do not. Will all police officers have a list of acceptable/unacceptable licenses, will they just accept all out-of-state licenses at face value, or will they detain holders of out-of-state licenses until they can provide other evidence of legal status? Only time will tell.

If a Georgia license is not deemed sufficient proof of citizenship, what else would do? According to the Federal government (from Bill von's post):

From USGovInfo:

==================

Documents serving as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship are:

* Previously issued, undamaged US passport
* Certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state of birth
* Consular Report of Birth (of U.S. citizen) Abroad or Certification of Birth
* Naturalization Certificate
* Certificate of Citizenship

The Consular Report of Birth Abroad or Certification of Birth should be obtained by persons who were born abroad to U.S. citizens.

For a naturalized citizen, only the Naturalization Certificate and a US passport are available as evidence of US citizenship. The naturalization certificate, as I explained in my earlier post, is not designed to be portable and is in any practical sense useless as ID (unless you expect citizens to carry an unfolded 11 inch by 9 inch document at all times). That leaves the US passport.

I could take a chance that a Georgia driver's license would be sufficient, but I have no way of knowing in advance if that will be acceptable, and if it isn't I'm risking being detained until the Arizona police can verify my status from Federal sources. Unless and until the Feds set up an error-free rapid response system for checking on such requests, I could be looking at days to weeks in detention until local authorities hear back from the feds. The safer alternative is to carry a universally accepted form of ID, which is a passport, when visiting Arizona from another state. Get it now?

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So, you're simultaneously complaining that you have to carry 'federal ID' to visit Arizona, and advocating that fed.gov issue 'federal ID' to everyone?

Sorta contradicting yourself, don't you think?

If you had actually read my post, you would have understood that I was complaining about having to carry a naturalization certificate, which is not designed to be portable. For that matter, passports are also not designed to be stuck in your pocket and carried around day after day for years at a time.

A drivers license is designed to fit in a wallet and be carried around, but it's intended function to prove the legal right to drive. A secondary function is to offer evidence of identity. It isn't designed to be evidence of citizenship, and it isn't very useful for that purpose because numerous types of non-citizens are legally able to (and in fact are required to) obtain a driver's license in order to drive in the US. Also, in those states that do attempt to link legal residency or citizenship to drivers licenses, the system is easily circumvented and depends totally on the honesty of the applicant. All you need to get an authentic Georgia license is a birth certificate (ridiculously easily faked) and a utility bill to prove residence. There is no system to cross-check birth certificates, and people would scream bloody murder if there was as it would take weeks or months to get a drivers license issued if DMV had to verify every birth certificate. There was an attempt to get states to do something like this, called the RealID program, and states refused to cooperate because of the expense and the program collapsed. My point (once again) is that, if the goal of the exercise to to have a document that actually provides proof of citizenship, it would have to involve something more-or-less identical to a national identity card. If just going through the motions, appearing to be doing something without actually accomplishing anything very rigorous, is good enough, then by all means stick with drivers licenses. But then, we should be honest about the fact that we aren't really very serious about illegal immigration, we just care about putting on a show not the results.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[rushmc 23]

So
What are you going to do if and when the Fed law is enforced?

I mean the law says they can stop you JUST to check your immigration status and ask for supporting papers. Period.

No prior stop is needed and no other reason is needed or has to be given to make the stop


In these cases proof of citiznship would be established how?

The AZ law is very week compared to the Fed law yet no one has complained about it?

Why? Because it is not being enforced?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[GeorgiaDon 379]

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What are you going to do if and when the Fed law is enforced?

I mean the law says they can stop you JUST to check your immigration status and ask for supporting papers. Period.

No prior stop is needed and no other reason is needed or has to be given to make the stop


In these cases proof of citiznship would be established how?

Yep, the Border Patrol for example can, and do, set up checkpoints to check all vehicles for illegal immigrants. When I lived in Tucson and was doing research in the surrounding desert, I always carried my work authorization card as I frequently ran into checkpoints. No problem. The problem now that I am a citizen is just a practical one, in that the Federal Government does not provide any form of documentation that is intended to be put in your wallet and carried on your person. They do it for the green card, so it can be done, but they just don't for naturalized citizens. Imagine if your drivers license was a 11" x 9" unlaminated sheet of paper, and was invalidated if folded, and if damaged cost $400 and took up to 10 months to replace, and you couldn't legally drive during that time. I sure you'd wonder WTF were they thinking?

The larger issue is that the drivers license sucks as proof of citizenship, for the reasons I gave before.

The solution to the latter problem, which would also solve the first (more trivial) problem, is a form of government issued ID that specifically is designed as proof of citizenship or legal status and is designed to resist counterfeiting. It could logically be integrated with an effective E-Verify system so employers could easily check on the ID and avoid hiring illegals.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[rushmc 23]

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What are you going to do if and when the Fed law is enforced?

I mean the law says they can stop you JUST to check your immigration status and ask for supporting papers. Period.

No prior stop is needed and no other reason is needed or has to be given to make the stop


In these cases proof of citiznship would be established how?

Yep, the Border Patrol for example can, and do, set up checkpoints to check all vehicles for illegal immigrants. When I lived in Tucson and was doing research in the surrounding desert, I always carried my work authorization card as I frequently ran into checkpoints. No problem. The problem now that I am a citizen is just a practical one, in that the Federal Government does not provide any form of documentation that is intended to be put in your wallet and carried on your person. They do it for the green card, so it can be done, but they just don't for naturalized citizens. Imagine if your drivers license was a 11" x 9" unlaminated sheet of paper, and was invalidated if folded, and if damaged cost $400 and took up to 10 months to replace, and you couldn't legally drive during that time. I sure you'd wonder WTF were they thinking?

The larger issue is that the drivers license sucks as proof of citizenship, for the reasons I gave before.

The solution to the latter problem, which would also solve the first (more trivial) problem, is a form of government issued ID that specifically is designed as proof of citizenship or legal status and is designed to resist counterfeiting. It could logically be integrated with an effective E-Verify system so employers could easily check on the ID and avoid hiring illegals.

Don

Good points good solution

And easy enough but why the fight (not you) to not do something like this?

Just proof of who you are and citizenship. Nothing to do with why are you here or where are you going?

Could it be that the resistance is because it would be a first step toward a voter identification card?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[GeorgiaDon 379]

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And easy enough but why the fight ...

Maybe not so easy to get up-and-running for the over 300 million existing citizens. It will be expensive and involve creating a new bureaucracy to do so accurately and in a timely manner, as everyone's documentation will have to be independently verified. Otherwise, it will just be an amnesty program: mail in a fake birth certificate, nobody checks, they mail back your citizenship card, and hey presto! you're a citizen. Of course these days there's not much support for expensive new programs, even ones near and dear to the conservative heart, such as stopping illegal immigration. The Feds did try to do it on the cheap, by foisting the bill on the states as an unfunded mandate, but when the states realized the cost and the security issues they rebelled and refused to implement RealID.

And then there are the folks who just think it's a bad idea for the Feds to be prying into their business. Of course the same people expect the Feds to be prying into the illegal's business, but they should just magically know who's who and leave the real citizens alone. I've no idea how that's supposed to work.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[Bolas 5]

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Maybe not so easy to get up-and-running for the over 300 million existing citizens. It will be expensive and involve creating a new bureaucracy to do so accurately and in a timely manner, as everyone's documentation will have to be independently verified.

All they'd need to do is expand the passport program, another bureaucracy is definitely not needed.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[okalb 104]

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All they'd need to do is expand the passport program, another bureaucracy is definitely not needed.

Wait, I thought expanding government programs is bad. They can't do anything right anyway. Oh I see, it's only bad if it is a program you disagree with. It's perfectly fine and they are more than competent if it is a program you agree with.

Time flies like an arrow....fruit flies like a banana

[Bolas 5]

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All they'd need to do is expand the passport program, another bureaucracy is definitely not needed.

Wait, I thought expanding government programs is bad. They can't do anything right anyway. Oh I see, it's only bad if it is a program you disagree with. It's perfectly fine and they are more than competent if it is a program you agree with.

I never mentioned whether I agreed or disagreed with the idea as I felt it was not the point.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[okalb 104]

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All they'd need to do is expand the passport program, another bureaucracy is definitely not needed.

Wait, I thought expanding government programs is bad. They can't do anything right anyway. Oh I see, it's only bad if it is a program you disagree with. It's perfectly fine and they are more than competent if it is a program you agree with.

I never mentioned whether I agreed or disagreed with the idea as I felt it was not the point.

OK then lets say that response was to everyone in general and not you specifically

Time flies like an arrow....fruit flies like a banana