Illegal Drivers Behind High Hit-And-Run Rate In LA

[Alps]

Do me a favor and convince Canada of your point of view.  I like Canada, their climate, people, etc and would love to live there.  Please ask them to make relocating to the Cottage Country of Ontario as seamless for me as moving to Milwaukee would be.   And, I'd like all the benefits of being Canadian too.  Financial and otherwise.  Without bothering with all of their pesky immigration laws, regulations, fees, etc.   

See what those "racist" Canadians have to say about that.

you're actually proving my point here.  immigration is a bureaucratic nightmare that punishes people who didn't have the good sense to be born where they want to live.

this coming from someone who has actually gone through the process of acquiring a green card, and is fed up with being asked more discriminatory questions at internal checkpoints in 2012 USA than he ever was in late 1980s communist Hungary.

when the US border patrol stops fucking around in Needles, California, we can discuss a rational immigration policy. 

Illegal is illegal. Reform the immigration system, sure, but we need to screen before just letting people in. News flash: a sudden influx of poor people without jobs doesn't help our economy.

[NE2]

Illegal is illegal.

Unless you're speeding. Then it's just keeping up with the flow of traffic.

[J N Winkler]

Sorry, I don't buy "illegal is illegal" as an argument because that avoids the whole question of whether it is good public policy for a thing to be illegal in the first place.  In China it is illegal to circumvent the Great Firewall:  should we therefore write off the Chinese who do so as antisocial lawbreakers?  From September 19, 1941 to the end of World War II, all Jews in the German Reich were required by decree to wear yellow stars:  are we to accuse the Jews who chose not to wear them, and instead to hide in plain sight as what eventually became known as "U-Boats," of being antisocial lawbreakers too?  If you do not, then how do you draw a moral or utilitarian distinction between US immigration policy and censorship in China or the wearing of badges in Nazi Germany?

All law enforcement is inherently selective.  Laws work not solely because they are enforced, but also because they have some measure of popular consent, and this is particularly true in democracies because the range of coercive measures that can be deployed is much smaller.  In the US the immigration laws may have a significant degree of support from citizens, but the reality is that by setting up all-but-impossible paths to legal residency and citizenship for low-income workers, they in effect create large populations of "U-Boats" even though in this country they are not subject to extermination if found out.  If we want to maintain good compliance with the law while being selective about whom we let into this country, we need to be realistic about the gains and losses that can be expected from such a policy and also about our ability to keep out those who are not inclined to follow the law.  The politics of immigration in the US has, with rare exceptions, never been governed by this kind of realism.

[cpzilliacus]

Sorry, I don't buy "illegal is illegal" as an argument because that avoids the whole question of whether it is good public policy for a thing to be illegal in the first place.  In China it is illegal to circumvent the Great Firewall:  should we therefore write off the Chinese who do so as antisocial lawbreakers?  From September 19, 1941 to the end of World War II, all Jews in the German Reich were required by decree to wear yellow stars:  are we to accuse the Jews who chose not to wear them, and instead to hide in plain sight as what eventually became known as "U-Boats," of being antisocial lawbreakers too?  If you do not, then how do you draw a moral or utilitarian distinction between US immigration policy and censorship in China or the wearing of badges in Nazi Germany?

All law enforcement is inherently selective.  Laws work not solely because they are enforced, but also because they have some measure of popular consent, and this is particularly true in democracies because the range of coercive measures that can be deployed is much smaller.  In the US the immigration laws may have a significant degree of support from citizens, but the reality is that by setting up all-but-impossible paths to legal residency and citizenship for low-income workers, they in effect create large populations of "U-Boats" even though in this country they are not subject to extermination if found out.  If we want to maintain good compliance with the law while being selective about whom we let into this country, we need to be realistic about the gains and losses that can be expected from such a policy and also about our ability to keep out those who are not inclined to follow the law.  The politics of immigration in the US has, with rare exceptions, never been governed by this kind of realism.

Excellent post.  And much of the what we call "illegal" immigration to the United States was legal up to the early 1920's, when Congress decided to limit it. 

Most "illegal" immigration is for economic reasons, and it is not a new phenomenon.

As a U.S. citizen, I am ashamed of our asinine and often self-contradicting immigration laws and policies, and the amount of my tax dollars that get sucked up by immigration enforcement.

[vdeane]

Indeed - I go so far as to ask "why should one's life be dictated by which arbitrary set of lines on the map they were born in".

Absurd question that has nothing to do with the issue.  Again, people spend a lot of time, money and effort to obtain LEGAL residency in the USA.  I support those people 110%.  The rest need to do it right or be tossed out.  And they should not qualify for the privilege of obtaining a U.S. driver's license.  Next.....

You were asserting that people would be too lazy to apply for a DL because they immigrated illegally rather than legally.  I was showing you why that comparison is so bad as to be laughable.

Take a look at the chart.  For many (I would say most), legal immigration is NOT PRACTICAL or even possible.  The system is BROKEN.  We need to fix it first.

I'm also not saying that your opinions on the matter are racist.  But there are many peoples' who are.  Why do you think we have quotas?  They were originally put in place because people hated the Chinese and Italian immigrants - no other reason.  Since then they've been switched to whichever non-white group we want to keep out.  The quota system should be abolished immediately.

Btw, I don't consider driving a privilege.  It's a right contingent on following traffic laws and not getting into too many accidents.  And last I checked, Driver's Ed isn't required to take a road test.