Amazing what the actual enforcement of laws on the books can do eh?
Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.
~~~Supporters of the law hope it creates jobs for thousands of Americans.
An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona’s illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.
The law’s supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.
Kavanagh says day labor is generally off the books, and that deprives the state of much-needed tax dollars. “We’ll never eliminate it, just like laws against street prostitution,” he says. “But we can greatly reduce the prevalence.”
The AP article tries to insinuate, once again, that police can detain a person for just looking illegal which is complete and utter baloney. Andrew McCarthy does the best job of any blogger to explain the actual laws for contacts between law enforcement and the public, and these do not change because of the Arizona statute.
Bottom line, the cop has to have a legal reason for the stop on top of the fact that the he/she has to have reasonable suspicion the person is here illegally.
Don’t let the left drive the meme of this law.
See author page
Sierra Hotel!
I like Rush Limbaugh’s idea of giving all the illegals in Arizona a one way bus pass to San Francisco, (whose govt. is boycotting AZ) and also handing them a map showing where they can sign up for all the free city services they might need.
That would teach ’em.
It wasn’t that long ago that the right wing was concerned about government infringing on their rights as citizens. Now it seems they want a bigger role for government and more powers for the government. Do you think that the government needs more powers ? I don’t. It wasn’t that longa ago, say 4 years when our economy was so good that we NEEDED these immigrants. But 2 very long and costly wars with tax cuts for the rich and not enough government regulation of the finacial sector has left us now with surplus workers.
Do you have your mantra written on a poster, taped to the wall above your computer screen, John ryan? You never have anything substantive to add to any discussion, you just trot out your leftard talking points. Maybe you should learn a couple of new tricks.
@John ryan: amazing rhetoric! Now if only it was your own…
After all, the dhimmis are the party of unintended consequences. 8)
Actually, Rush can afford to charter a few of those buses and should. The sad thing about Arizona losing its Illegal Aliens is that neighboring states will now be picking up the slack; especially California, a state that is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy with several points over the national average for unemployment. Will this deprive California’s citizens of even more opportunity while the Left consolidates their power and control?
Should California adopt a similar law and drive the illegals North and East or should we do as the moronic mayor of San Francisco suggests and provide a safe haven for all Illegal Aliens at the cost of our own prosperity?
Is financial collapse the price we are expected to pay for the Socialist ruses of Social Justice and Wealth Redistribution in their ongoing drive to consolidate power and control?
@John ryan…So you are in favor of people entering our country illegally, virtually spitting on our sovereignty? I know you are a drive by commenter and won’t defend you asinine comments, but really, is that what you wish for? Lawlessness?
Try going to Mexico illegally and see what it gets you, their immigration laws are considerably tougher than ours, yet they cry foul when we enforce our laws.
Source
@anticsrocks: racist! racist! racist! I keep trying to think of a better way to understand the left, but the only thing I can think of is ‘Ideologue’. Here is a small list:
-Everyone should get paid around the same
-Mexicans should be able to enter and work freely in the u.s. without the hassle of doing things ‘legally’ – that of course is unfair, and learning english should be at their convenience. In the meantime we will support their decision not to, and cater our public education to their needs
-Healthcare for all! Literally, everyone – and throw murdering babies into the mix. But they aren’t real people until the left assigns them a number so they can become taxable entities.
-Just say no to nuclear weapons (even if a WMD is used against us). Its much more gentleman like to line up with black powder rifles and shoot at each other in turn. In fact it would have been better if we just invaded Japan and let millions upon millions die (on both sides).
-Boycott Arizona! But please don’t retaliate against San Fran (true paraphrased quote) – it would be hard on their industry. Just let San Fran be the ‘parent’ figure for the U.S. and discipline its children
I’ll keep it short, but i think it would be fun to point out more ideologue messages that the left sends out to its children. If only we knew better and weren’t so darn uneducated.. what are they going to do with us, what are they going to do with us.. I am just happy they tolerate us. But of course when they stop tolerating us, we own most of the guns 😉
John, the one GD job that the Govenrment was really intended to do was to protect it’s citizens, not all this other crap that you progressives keep telling us that it should do. You are right, we Conseritives, want government paired back to what its original job was: defend the country from invasion, provide accessable interstate commerce and run the military. That about explain it so that you can understand. This Immigration issue is the Goverments job, one of the few enumerated that they have!
Most illegals who are in Arizona are there because Arizonans hired them, even though they were knowingly breaking both state and federal law by doing so.
I blame U.S. natives who break their own land’s law for profits a hell of a lot more than poor people who simply want to work.
Greg,
If you haven’t been around a lot of illegals, they don’t have stamps on their foreheads. I don’t think most are directly hired, maybe the landscape company that the homeowner hired, then hired illegals so that he could have more of a profit margin.
Where did this article from the Associated Depressed find all these illegals to interview? WHY DON’T THEY TURN THEM IN?????
A while back I contracted a new roof with a local company that’s been around the area for years. The job wasn’t to be done at a bargain basement price by any means. A week later a mixed crew of Mexican and Guatemalan laborers showed up. The foreman complained that he couldn’t understand a word they said. He told me most of his crews are illegals. The owners do the hiring. The raggedy crew worked through the July heat like a slave gang. They had another job the next day. Looking at them, you had to feel sorry for them. The owner turned up just as they were finishing the clean up work to pick up his check, behind the wheel of a Cadillac Escalade.
I figure that’s probably the whole illegal immigration problem in miniature. While the economy was booming American employers filled the country up with a cheap labor pool and reaped fortunes by using it. Now that the economy has tanked they have no further use for them, and are angry at the problems resulting from their presence.
Greg, I hear you, and I would readily trade some of the hard working illegals for the “Elites” that we have here, on the condition that we can send the Elites back to Mexico 2:1 🙂
Greg, it isn’t just here in AZ that these migrants are hired. There are very busy transportation routes taking them through the state and on to other places. The ones that stay here are somehow different, maybe less money or different connections. There are hundreds or thousands coming in daily that get past the border; they couldn’t possibly all stay here. The mind boggles–the trash this traffic leaves just passing by is mind-boggling too. But you are right, that legal contractors will decide they are too precious to hand-dig a pipe trench, or something, and run down to Home Depot to pick up a worker for $10-$20 a day.
@Patter…
Yeah, I know. The roofing job I mentioned was done in northern Indiana. We’ve got a huge illegal immigrant population here.
WTF??
Trying to portray yourself as the icon for small, non intrusive government after Obama, supporting health care and all the other big government? The archives are full of other drive by comments that prove that is a delusional argument coming from you.
You don’t want illegals to carry around anything as simple as our norm, like DL, registration and proof of auto insurance… you don’t care that you’ll be forced into handing over your insurance “papers” to the IRS… but you’d sure love to give a pass to the immigrants, having to carry a card ID.
🙄
Talk to the hand, dude.
Greg, you were doing so good stepping back after reading the legislation. Then again you come back and make employers, who may or may not know the immigrant status of their employees and are not at liberty to ask unless they want to risk a discrimination lawsuit, the bad guys.
Your school of thought is simply beyond any logical comprehension.
Then you state that since they are an eVerify state, that means employers are the bad guys. Problem is, eVerify doesn’t always confirm citizen status.
Now, what happens to the employer who decides not to hire a person who didn’t go thru the above process, or choose to state they are a legal non citizen employee, but actually is a naturalized citizen? Can he/she scream “discrimination”?
And it’s true that the Legal Arizona Workers Act required all “employers” to enroll in the eVerify system.
The devil in that detail is the definition of employer and employee. The LAWA has already undergone, and withstood, many legal challenges in it’s short history. And part of that has been the law’s intent to *exclude* subcontractors as “employees”, thereby making a small contractor hiring subs immune from having to classify project help as employees.
And where do you think much of the work obtained by illegals comes from? Independent, subcontract work, of course… from construction to landscaping.
Therefore, the contractors – not using eVerify for what isn’t an “employee” – are not breaking the law unless they know, for a fact, that the person they are hiring is in the country illegally.
If a cop can’t even ask that question, how can a contractor?
On the flip side, I have many friends who’s status I don’t know, and don’t want to know. I agree about the general work ethic, and the lazy work ethic of too many of our spoiled citizens. And in that vein, why wouldn’t any subcontractor prefer to hire those with a more dedicated work ethic over a reluctant unemployed citizen who feels he’s “underemployed”, and doing work beneath him?
Wish reality was so black and white, Greg. But your continued insistence to place the penalties of illegal status onto the private employer are an unacceptable shifting of blame. How about if I vandalize your house, and you take the responsibility for my vandalism because you chose not to have a camera security system?
@Greg:
Wow Greg…for a guy who claims to be “concerned” about the hiring of illegals by business owners…your actions sure don’t measure up to your words.
If you were truly concerned about whether illegal labor would be used for your roofing project and, by your own admission the problem is “huge” in your area, it seems that you would have asked the question of the roofing company right up front…or at least squelched the project as soon as the foreman told you that “most of his crews are illegals”.
Seems to me that you have a word/action mismatch in that you claim to be against businesses hiring illegals while spending your hard earned dollars with a business who…wait for it…hires illegals.
Of course, this is a very common condition amongst Leftists…they claim to be for or against something while participating in the very thing that they’re bellyaching about being for or against.
Exit question: What is your opinion of the Bush tax cuts?
I can’t get too hard on Greg over this particular universal problem. If I call Reddy Rooter to fix a broken pipe in the yard, and they show up with a helper who doesn’t seem to speak English (and it goes without saying that the majority of the work crew, whatever the job, is Hispanic around here), what am I supposed to do? say “show me the green card or I’ll break my contract”? Many of them have green cards. Many of the green cards and DLs are forged–then I’d have to be a document expert too to stay conscientious. This does not mean I approve of hiring the street corner men, I wouldn’t do it myself, I don’t even hire the neighbors who would like to work on my yard; but there’s only so much I can do to make the world perfect or I’d turn into some freak like Cass Sunstein worrying about the legal rights of lab rats.
Exit question: What is your opinion of the Bush tax cuts?
I couldn’t see the logic of drastically cutting taxes while simultaneously increasing outlays during good economic times. My faith in that approach has faded since the Reagan years. Just out of the military and college I thought Reaganomics made wonderful sense. I voted for the guy twice.
Yes, I know Obama has been doing the same thing. I’ve cut him slack because I bought the argument that deficit stimulus spending has been essential to keep the economy from crashing and burning beyond any hope of recovery. A year and a half ago I thought that might happen in a matter of weeks. I thought family investments might be totally wiped out–they had been more than halved almost overnight–and my own cash holdings reducted to nothing but a string of meaningless numbers proving that I’d been doing pretty well before somebody kicked the entire game board across the room.
That slack isn’t something I’m willing to grant indefinitely. If Obama isn’t seriously addressing the deficit by the end of his first term, he won’t get a second vote from me. I know that “seriously addressing the deficit” is going to involve a lot that I won’t like. We all had better get used to that very unpleasant fact.
Well, Greg, considering that you couldn’t see the logic of cutting taxes while increasing outlays did you do what would have been the logical thing (for you) and return to the gov’t what you gleaned from said tax cuts?
Or did you simply utilize and enjoy the extra dollars that came your way?
Finally, I cannot help but notice that you totally ignored the vast majority of my post choosing to focus instead solely on the Exit Question.
Too prickly perhaps?
Reduced taxes have in every instance increased federal revenue. it is because the money stays in the hands of the people actually creating the jobs and more jobs mean more taxes. The only folks I know that can’t see that are the ones that actually think that you can borrow yourself out of debt, and I noticed that most of them are not very good with money in the first place and should not be giving advice.
“Or did you simply utilize and enjoy the extra dollars that came your way?”
I studied a distribution chart revealing my accumulative “gleanings” from 10 years of Bush tax cuts on the Citizens for Tax Justice website. I’ve lost more than the total I gleaned over a single year of reduced interest rates. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost over twice the 10-year-total I gleaned just from January 2009 through present.
As they are so fond of saying, Your results may vary.
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm
Your investment losses or gains are an irrelevant straw man argument.
The question was:
Let me simplify it for you. Considering your stated opposition to cutting taxes while increasing spending did you, or did you not, return to the gov’t the dollar amounts that you recv’d from said tax cuts?
Nope. I’ve always paid all I that legally owe and accepted back any that I didn’t. Does that make me a hypocrite?
I’ll concede that your straw man call might be a fair one. I place a lot more blame for the instability that emerged during 2008 on the preceding years of republican economic policy. If you don’t see things that way, there’s arguably no relationship between the Bush tax cuts, the doubled national debt, and the dramatic reduction of interest rates. I’m no economist.
Bottom line, if it was a Federal law that ANY employer caught with workers who don’t match up to their roster of social security numbers, i.e. illegal immigrants, received a fine then the problem of illegal immigrants would all but go away. The fine should not be a dollar amount, because the local roofers would be hurt and hit hard by a $10,000 or $25,000 fine. But companies like the Cargill meat processing plant that is near me in Central IL who hire a lot of illegals and have been busted by ICE several times would look at such a fine as a cost of doing business. The fine should be a percentage of the business’ revenue, that way it levels the playing field, so to speak. Something that the liberals are always harping about.
Remove the jobs for illegals, and you remove the incentive for them to come into the United States.
And BTW, that bullsh*t about them doing jobs Americans won’t do? – I invite anyone who believes that to watch a few episodes of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.
Excuse me, but where does the AP story say that these illegals are returning to Mexico? Don’t you think they’re just moving to other states? They have coyotes to pay off after all. Yes, yes, I know…other states are likely to follow Arizona’s lead.
A UCLA study estimated in January that US GDP would decrease by $2.6 Trillion over 10 years if 12,000,000 illegal aliens were rounded up and deported. The study estimated that the US GDP would increase over 10 years if all illegals were put on a path to citizenship.
@rocky…Do you have a link for that study?
Greg,
Regarding your roofing project. On your next project you can provide parameters to the bidding contractors. Don’t take the low bid. Specify that the contractor have documented workers. Ask for insurance. Go look at one of the contractors ongoing projects.
I wouldn’t get all wrapped up over the Cadillac. It’s doesn’t mean he can afford it.
In short, do your homework.
Oddly enough Greg, the Federal and State goverments don’t allow contractors to use undocumented workers on their construction projects.
@rocky,
You dont import 12 million (30 with dependents) lawn care specilsts, give them all the entitlements and then provide for medicare and all the subsidies for them and their kids and expect at 2.6 trillion profit. Man, that is like telling me you are selling a $10 dollar product for $5 bucks and you are going to make it up in voume. Sounds like typical government financial Bullshit.
My view is very simple. I don’t think anyone should have the right to criticize how Arizona (a state and local government) conducts its affairs to protect its people. If people think that Arizona is so wrong in enforcing the laws against illegal immigrants, I propose they go and live in Arizona on the border towns and learn to live in fear like the locals do down there as at night, truckloads of illegal immigrants are smuggled in along with illegal contraband, drugs, jewels and young girls for prostitution that are accompanied by armed cartel men. I would also suggest that these people then put their kids in the local public schools on these border towns and try and protect their kids from the local gangs that hang around the schools looking for new customers and new prostitute baits. If you are not willing to live as the local Arizonians do on these border towns, you should mind your own business and allow Arizona law enforcement to do their jobs.
My opinion.
Whoa dude! Err, Whoa Tammy! That is like so Deja Vu and all, the way that the constitution left powers to the states and states have their own like constitution things. Most excellent points, dude’ette!
The problem with most lefttards is that either they live in isolated idiocy and are just ignorant of the conditions in the Border States, or they are just POC (plain old-fasion communists).
@anticsrocks, here are links to the study (exec summary, full report, etal), done by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda and release thru the Center for American Progress, Immigration Policy Center in Jan 2010.
Here’s Dan Stein’s opposing counter to the report’s claims. “FAIR” and balanced, eh? LOL
@Tammy, seriously terrific observation. But, judging by the grads of recent decades of either high schoo or colleges, public and higher education apparently skip over American History studies… and most especially the 1st thru 10th Amendments. They must only start reading at the 11th. Too many are clueless to the Bill of Rights.
Excuse me, but who said they *were* returning to Mexico? Curt’s headline and posting indicate they are “leaving the State”. I see no comment here that suggested they were returning to Mexico. So perhaps your question is moot?
I say give ’em all one way tickets to California and Colorado… both who are mounting sundry boycotts against the state. heh… wonder how that will work out. AZ houses a lot of those states criminals within their borders. Perhaps they can send them back too, along with the illegals who prefer to relocate to friendlier sanctuary states.
My money’s on AZ for beating down court challenges, and battling back the PC correct states. They hold all the cards. Otherwise, this is all political posturing for the Hispanic vote… nothing more.
I was living in Plano, Texas the last 7 years and the neighbor next door to me became a friend. He had a social security card, driver’s license and I found out right before I moved that he was illegal and had been in this country for 25 years. Every other house on my street had a house full of illegal aliens in it.
The problem is much more severe than just stopping them and finding out they are illegal.
Thanks Mata! It helps to see where the lefties get there talking points, errr I mean factual sources.
@MataHarley: interesting point I was not aware of… i live in co springs and did not realize we were part of the elitist boycott. Funny, colorado has almost always been a red state – but after attending U. of N. CO, it is a quick education in the liberal community building that is now CO. I do feel that this coming election will prove different, though. I have been to san fran and can easily see how they would act as the parent, slapping the hands of their children (other states that aren’t ‘progressive’ enough). However, I don’t view colorado in the same light – except Boulder Co. of course, which is more of a republic than a city. I’m pretty sure the conservatives here are just sleeping. I know many that have said, “i’m not sitting out this time when elections roll around..” I think everyone should take a hint from us – most of co is fairly conservative, but stayed home when the polls were open, so now we have robots like Michael “the rubber stamp” Bennett running things. Its a shame that the dems left a robot to run a reelection campaign on its own – kind of sad to watch actually.
Rob in Katy – US companies and individuals knowingly break the law by hiring undocumented workers. You can pick up migrant workers on your street corner in AZ and CA. It’s illegal not to ask workers for papers and not to pay taxes on them. The stamp on the forehead comment is ridiculous. They know perfectly well what they are doing…. exactly who they are hiring.
Why doesn’t anyone have the guts to direct their anger at the real source of the problem?
The undocumented workers aren’t taking jobs…. the US companies and individuals who knowingly hire them are taking jobs away from US citizens.
As for sending undocumenteds to San Francisco or New York… according to the Dept of Homeland Security’s report on immigration (published in 2010), CA has an undocumented population of 2.6 million… as opposed to 460k in AZ. Even NY has a larger population than AZ (550K) and it’s no where near the border. And as for the individual who mentioned Illinois – Illinois has an undocumented pop of 540k… also MORE THAN ARIZONA.
This is a political move, anyone who thinks so has clearly nearly never lived in a border state.
If you really want to do something about the problems, why don’t you do something that will make a difference. Deporting people who are working as day laborers and trying to put food on their table is not going to solve any problems.
For example, let’s shut down the gun shacks on the Arizona border that sell the AK-47s that fuel the drug trade.
Further, name calling and angry comments will not solve any of the problems our great nation is facing.
Finally, Arizona was Mexico before it was the US. The language of Arizona was Spanish long before it was English.
The 2010 Department of Homeland study also concludes that:
“The greatest percentage increases in the unauthorized population between 2000 and 2009 occurred in Georgia (115 percent), Nevada (55 percent), and Texas (54 percent).”
Interestingly, Arizona’s unauthorized immigration population was actually down an estimated 100,000 in 2009 (down to 460 k in 2009 from 560k in 2008).
Bob,
You pretty much just spewed a lot of BS and didn’t say much. I like the red herring of AK sales, to mexicans from across the border, don’t you think if you shut the freaking borders that would stop – what a load. And if CA has 10 million, 465,000 won’t hurt them one bit will it. Where did you get the idea that I am not for workplace enforcement, I am, I don’t think I should be hireing undocumented workers, neither should any business. Stop the jobs and the entitlements and the problem will fix itself. Or, like three times in the past, we can round them up and send them back, it has been done and it has worked before. This great country was founded on self reliance and pulling your own weight and then reaping and keeping the rewards there of. We don’t need 30 million imported lawn workers, that is what I did as a kid, that is what we should be making our kids do to learn the importans of hard work and earning your own money (rather than having entitlements from parents or govenment).
I lived in Houston for 50 years, in Katy for 3, I see the problems ever freaking day. I have also been to the border cities and parts of Houston are starting to look just like them – I don’t like it.
We don’t “need” immirgration they way that it is presented, we need it to fund the ponzy scheem that our politiions have been selling us for years in the form of entitlements, welfare and social security. I am tired of carrying others on my earnings. Failure is a right, it should be protected.
ROB in katy:hi, yrs the more it goes on the more it is difficult to solve,but the conservatives got it for the next election,they will move the mountain,keep safe, 🙄 bye
That really has no bearing on the present problem of illegal immigrants.
As far as blaming those who hire illegal immigrants, I have long said that if you imposed a hefty fine on said businesses, then the problem of illegal immigrants would be vastly reduced. No jobs=almost no illegal immigrants; you will always have some who cross the border in desperation.
Lastly AZ may have an illegal immigrant population of around a half million, but there are far more illegals in the state than that. AZ is basically the doorway for illegals into the United States, that makes it a corridor whose illegal population is always in flux. I would imagine the stat put forth on how many illegals are in AZ represents those who live and work there. You would think that if we could count them, we could do something more about the problem…
What makes any of you think that ALL liberals are against this new Arizona law?
Although I voted for and continue to support Obama (most of the time) – I absolutely LOVE what Arizona is doing. I wish they’d pass a similar law in Indiana.
After reading about the illegals’ exodus from Arizona, my husband and I are seriously considering moving there!
What can we do as a country? The most simple thing to do cut the head off the snake. First make the contractor put in writing, that no illegals will work on your property. If you forget to do that, then just don’t let him start the project. He is breaking the law by hiring illegals. I am a contractor, I do all the work myself. I am over 40 and still do all my own work. It kills me to see other companies using illegals to do their roofing, siding, concrete and landscaping, of course it is across the board in every area of the trades.
If you take the work from those breaking the law and if the government would stictly enforce the law, it would make this country a better place. Of course if you remember these are the same people who complained about large corporations sending work overseas.
Roy, yes THAT is the solution, they don’t care to apply it,
look at where we are today 31 august 2011.
you where absolutly right then, and now even more
best to you