Arizona ... Right or wrong?

[Palehorse]

the only reason this is even being discussed is because liberals are having a fit because AZ has passed a law to take care of this problem that has been ignored for too long...

AZ has done nothing but initiate a knee jerk reaction that will only exacerbate the problem and subject American citizens to draconian treatment over something they had nothing to do with.

and fixing THIS problem will aid in the effort of our Health Care problem.....and please tell me WHAT personal agenda I have that 'amazes' you?

Based upon your stated positions within both of these issues, it appears you are more concerned with illegal aliens than you are your fellow Americans who cannot afford health care or cannot obtain health care through no fault of their own.

And you tell me how one states knee jerk reaction is going to "fix" the national health care problems?

[Henry Hawk]

First of all, I resent your statement that I "appear" that I am more concerned with illegal aliens than I am my fellow Americans who cannot afford health care...simply because I did NOT support this last bill that was trillion of dollars and nobody knew what all the hell was in it? 

AZ's "knee jerk" reaction is simply doing word-for-word what the federal law said we was SUPPOSED to do...but the feds was NOT doing it...so, they are taking into their own hands...give it time and lets see how exacerbated this problem gets...I can understand why YOU are not overly worried about Illegal Immigrants living here in Indiana, but AZ, is having REAL problems that you seem to think is being politically exaggerated...well, like I have said before, 70% of AZ citizens are in favor of this, but Obama seems to know better, like he always thinks he does....

and AZ, may be starting a soluton that other states may follow in line with....and reducing the number of Illegal Immigrants flooding our emergency rooms, with the cost being passed on to the "tax-paying" CITIZENS (HERE LEGALLY).

[Moonglow]

So do illegals from polans get I.D. ed?

[Palehorse]

First of all, I resent your statement that I "appear" that I am more concerned with illegal aliens than I am my fellow Americans who cannot afford health care...simply because I did NOT support this last bill that was trillion of dollars and nobody knew what all the hell was in it? 

AZ's "knee jerk" reaction is simply doing word-for-word what the federal law said we was SUPPOSED to do...but the feds was NOT doing it...so, they are taking into their own hands...give it time and lets see how exacerbated this problem gets...I can understand why YOU are not overly worried about Illegal Immigrants living here in Indiana, but AZ, is having REAL problems that you seem to think is being politically exaggerated...well, like I have said before, 70% of AZ citizens are in favor of this, but Obama seems to know better, like he always thinks he does....

and AZ, may be starting a soluton that other states may follow in line with....and reducing the number of Illegal Immigrants flooding our emergency rooms, with the cost being passed on to the "tax-paying" CITIZENS (HERE LEGALLY).

So its okay to spend trillions on a fence and manpower to close our borders but not take care of our fellow Americans?

[Henry Hawk]

So its okay to spend trillions on a fence and manpower to close our borders but not take care of our fellow Americans?

who said it would cost trillions?...

[Henry Hawk]

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
So Arizona passes a tough law against illegal immigration and suddenly they get Washington's attention.

One poll finds 70 percent of Arizona voters support the new law... hey, maybe we better do something too. So like the lemmings they are when they smell a chance to score political points... and some of them need a lot of help with the midterms approaching - there is talk now of rushing immigration reform through Congress.

President Obama called the Arizona law "misguided." What is misguided, Mr. President, is the federal government's refusal to enforce the laws already on the books. Read the Arizona law... parts of it are word-for-word the same as the federal laws - which continue to be ignored.Now we'll hear all sorts of blathering from our Washington gerbils about the need for a new federal law.

There will be press conferences, interviews, committee hearings, draft legislation, polling... all the usual carnival acts that accompany any hot-button issue in Washington, DC.Instead of simply closing the borders and enforcing the existing law so that they could turn their attention to something like the national debt and the fact that the country is bankrupt, we will get this freak show.Washington's position on illegal immigration is dishonest from the top down.

No enforcement. No border security. Just pandering to the Hispanic voters and the corporations that hire the illegals.
But when one of our states that is being ravaged by the presence of 460,000 illegal aliens inside its borders does something about it, the president says that's "misguided."

What a shame.
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/

[Henry Hawk]

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907


NOW those are some interesting words....

[followsthewolf]

So no one can tell me what an illegal alien looks like (unless it's a Klingon, etc.).

And you are prepared to be stopped every day endlessly, and produce your "papers" every day endlessly, and explain the same old, same old every day, endlessly?

[Henry Hawk]

So no one can tell me what an illegal alien looks like (unless it's a Klingon, etc.).

And you are prepared to be stopped every day endlessly, and produce your "papers" every day endlessly, and explain the same old, same old every day, endlessly?

and you are basing this logic on WHAT?

[followsthewolf]

Unless you look like a Hispanic person and live in Arizona, you wouldn't have to worry about it.

Unless, of course, your heritage ethnic group or race happened to live right across the border, were dirt poor, and knew the promised land was a fence away.

Now, if you are a citizen of the US, but don't "look like" one (to the majority of white, European background Americans) you might just be a target, just like a Middle Eastern legal immigrant.

As to the logic --

     if I stand in the road, it is logical to assume I will, fairly soon, be hit by a vehicle. The more vehicles, the more likely it will happen. In Arizona, wouldn't you think the number of people of Hispanic or Latin origin would be fairly high? Safe to assume, then, that you would be the subject of severe scrutiny?

Remember how seat belt laws used to be a secondary offense? How about cell phone use/driving laws?

Pretty obvious, HH, that you fit very nicely into the background and wouldn't and haven't been the subject of excessive examination for any kind of legal violations.

A friend of mine, who happens to be from Colombia, and is a professor at UConn doesn't happen to be as fortunate, even though he is an American citizen. I could write you a litany of stop-and-frisk, "wrong neighborhood," and a hundred other "show me some ID" incidents.

Anecdotal evidence? Yes.

Illogical? No.

Reality? Absolutely.

[Palehorse]

who said it would cost trillions?...

It will, between the fence construction, the headcount increases, and purchase and installation of technology necessary to monitor the entire boarder-land of this country. Don't forget it isn't just the Mexican border, and there is a lot of sea territory that will need to be monitored as well. Then there's the Canadian borderland. . .

It'll cost me 10 grand to fence in my property, how much you think its going to cost for the 12 foot high fences and razor wire they'll need to put up over thousands of miles of our borderland??? That fence alone will be trillions. . . and then there will be the maintenance that will be necessary to repair the sections they cut out within unmanned areas. . .

[Palehorse]

Unless you look like a Hispanic person and live in Arizona, you wouldn't have to worry about it.

Unless, of course, your heritage ethnic group or race happened to live right across the border, were dirt poor, and knew the promised land was a fence away.

Now, if you are a citizen of the US, but don't "look like" one (to the majority of white, European background Americans) you might just be a target, just like a Middle Eastern legal immigrant.

As to the logic --

     if I stand in the road, it is logical to assume I will, fairly soon, be hit by a vehicle. The more vehicles, the more likely it will happen. In Arizona, wouldn't you think the number of people of Hispanic or Latin origin would be fairly high? Safe to assume, then, that you would be the subject of severe scrutiny?

Remember how seat belt laws used to be a secondary offense? How about cell phone use/driving laws?

Pretty obvious, HH, that you fit very nicely into the background and wouldn't and haven't been the subject of excessive examination for any kind of legal violations.

A friend of mine, who happens to be from Colombia, and is a professor at UConn doesn't happen to be as fortunate, even though he is an American citizen. I could write you a litany of stop-and-frisk, "wrong neighborhood," and a hundred other "show me some ID" incidents.

Anecdotal evidence? Yes.

Illogical? No.

Reality? Absolutely.

Exactly. I have a SIL who was born iin the US and has lived here his whole life, but he is Mexican and works for the Mexican consulate in Texas. I have no doubt he'd be subjected to the same treatment as your friend should this draconian  law be allowed to be implemented. 

[Palehorse]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/systems/mexico-wall.htm

QUOTE
. . .
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said a wall running the length of a border would cost too much. A 2,000 mile state-of-the-art border fence has been estimated to cost between four and eight billion dollars.. . .
END QUOTE

And that would just be the Mexican border. . .

QUOTE

. . .On 14 December 2005 Mexican President Vicente Fox denounced as "disgraceful and shameful" a proposal to build a high-tech wall on the US-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants. Media reports on 21 December 2005 quoted Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez as saying, " Mexico is not going to bear, it is not going to permit, and it will not allow a stupid thing like this wall.". . .END QUOTE

And you think my statement surrounding the erection of a barrier between the US and Mexico resulting in the initiation of new Mexican-American war was just something I pulled out of my ass?

Then again, where there is a will there is a way, and you think a fence or wall is going to stop them????

QUOTE
. . .Tunnel passages across an international border into the United States have become a real problem. There are 40 such tunnels that have been discovered since 9/11, and the great bulk of them are on the southern border. Large-scale smuggling of drugs, weapons, and immigrants takes place today through these tunnels. One tunnel running from San Diego to Tijuana was marked by inordinate sophistication. It was a half mile long. It went 60 to 80 feet deep, 8 feet tall. It had a concrete floor. It was wired for electricity. It had drainage. At one end, 300 pounds of marijuana were found, and at the other end, 300 pounds of marijuana. What was interesting is that the California entry into the tunnel was a very modern warehouse, a huge warehouse compartmented but empty and kept empty for a year. In one office there was a hatch in the floor. It looked much like the hatch which Saddam had secreted himself in. But lifting that hatch disclosed a very sophisticated tunnel. It went under other buildings all the way across the double fence into Mexico and up in Mexico in a building as well.. . .END QUOTE

Nope. They just morph into tunnel rats. .  .

And then there's this little fiasco. . .

QUOTE
. . .DHS's U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contractor, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), had completed about 73 miles of primary SBI fencing costing approximately $198 million as of September 30, 2007, and about 215 miles of fencing costing about $625 million as of October 31, 2008. Seventy-one of the miles completed as of September 30, 2007, were pedestrian fencing completed at costs ranging from $400,000 to $4.8 million per mile and averaging $2.8 million per mile. CBP had also finished about 2 miles of vehicle fencing at a cost of $2.8 million. Pedestrian fencing accounted for 140 of the miles that CBP had completed as of October 31, 2008, with costs ranging from $400,000 to $15.1 million per mile for an average of $3.9 million per mile. Seventy-five of the miles were vehicle fencing and costs ranged from $200,000 to $1.8 million per mile, averaging $1.0 million per mile. The per mile costs to build the fencing varied considerably because of the type of fencing, topography, materials used, land acquisition costs, and labor costs, among other things.. . . END QUOTE

Imagine how much it is going to cost to fence in the border with Canada too! 

[me]

Uh PH, I don't believe the people from Canada are coming over here with drug gangs and killing people along the border.  They also are going through the proper channels to live here.

[Palehorse]

Uh PH, I don't believe the people from Canada are coming over here with drug gangs and killing people along the border.  They also are going through the proper channels to live here.

AHEM. It is documented fact that a number of the 9/11 terrorists came into this country via that very border! So, unless we are going to just wait for that to happen again, which surely it already has, we have to include ALL borders.

What about Florida? Think they won't risk the Gulf to get here? Cubans have and do.

By the way, that fence you are screaming for in AZ, it's pretty much in place already. . . so what good is it doing?

http://cbp.dhs.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/highlights/fence_map.ctt/fence_map.pdf

Or maybe its just Mexicans you people have a problem with???