Anyone avoiding Arizona?

[Duke87]

I recently read a piece in the New York times that the whole uproar about illegal immigration has little to do with immigration but is instead part of a movement to prevent the racial demographics of the US from changing.

Nah, this isn't about racial demographics. It is, however, very much about political demographics.
See, here's the thing: statistically, minorities tend to vote Democratic. If the currently illegal Latin American immigrants were to become citizens, they would gain the right to vote, and the electorate would presumably turn bluer. As such, conservatives tend to want to deport them while liberals tend to welcome them with open arms.

[shoptb1]

Nah, this isn't about racial demographics. It is, however, very much about political demographics.
See, here's the thing: statistically, minorities tend to vote Democratic. If the currently illegal Latin American immigrants were to become citizens, they would gain the right to vote, and the electorate would presumably turn bluer. As such, conservatives tend to want to deport them while liberals tend to welcome them with open arms.

In general, you're correct, although the Hispanic minority is not so clear-cut....

The past few elections have witnessed an increased variation of votes across racial and ethnic identities, especially with regard to Latinos. Using the 2002 National Survey of Latinos (with its representative sample of nearly 3,000 Latinos), it is found that in addition to traditional measures of party identification,  Latinos are significantly and considerably more likely to identify themselves as Republican versus Democrats based on their retention of traditional Latino family values and ideals, their self-identification along ethnic lines, and their overall trust of politicians and view of politicians' concern for Latinos.

This legislation, however, seems to be making many Latinos consider abandoning the GOP.  In fact, this latest move in Arizona may have actually shifted more Latino votes to the Democrats than the Republicans, ironically enough.  

I would like to add, however, that neither major political party has outlined any type of definitive strategy on how to reform immigration policies.  Traditionally, I would expect the Democrats to be more supportive of immigrant rights, but they know that they're walking a fine line so they've also been skirting the issue.  I think it's time for both parties to come out and state their intentions.  It will be interesting to see how this issue affects the congressional elections in November.

[Marc]

In general, you're correct, although the Hispanic minority is not so clear-cut....

This is true. My girlfriend is of hispanic and chinese origin (her parents are Nicaraguan-born and moved here in the early 80s). Her family is extremely Republican, which I was actually kinda surprised to find out about. My girlfriend is actually very passionate on the whole illegal alien issue and she agrees with this new AZ legislation 110%. The way she (and I) see it is that it's insulting to those who did come here legally for illegal aliens to get off scott free. My girlfriend actually dislikes Mexicans, but I've never asked her why. I guess it could be because of this issue.

[agentsteel53]

The way she (and I) see it is that it's insulting to those who did come here legally for illegal aliens to get off scott free.

I'm not insulted if someone gamed the system.  If I were insulted by other people's business on a frequent basis, I'd never get anything accomplished!

[haljackey]

I don't know much about the situation but here's my opinion:

To my knowledge, the USA is the only first world country that directly boarders a third world country. (This is not to be confused with developed/developing countries as they have to boarder with each other at some point.)

Thus, something should be done. Since more than one state boarders Mexico, it should be a collaborative effort between these states or a federal effort. What Arizona is doing is just as illegal as those crossing the boarder illegally. People have come to the US without much for centuries and this is just a modern take on it. The only difference here is that you want papers now, something that was much more difficult to organize back in the day.

If you want to keep the illegal Mexicans out, do what the Chinese did to keep the Mongolians out.  Build a great wall with limited access points and have frequent patrols. You could also take advantage of modern technology and use it to aid your situation (example: satellite tracking/imagery).

A radical alternative is to break through the barriers and implement incentives addressing why illegal crossing happens in the first place. By improving things on the other side of the boarder, you can greatly reduce this problem. However if it involves sending a lot of money and resources to another country I doubt the public would be very pleased with it. This is especially true when the US economy is in a recession and manned spaceflight is coming to an end with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet and due to a lack of funds.

[J N Winkler]

To my knowledge, the USA is the only first world country that directly borders a third world country. (This is not to be confused with developed/developing countries as they have to border with each other at some point.)

Not quite true--Spain has a land frontier with Morocco, Poland has borders with Belarus and Ukraine, South Africa borders with Zimbabwe (and has a burgeoning illegal immigration problem of its own owing to Mugabe's farm confiscations), etc.  Cross-border migrant flows are (as noted upthread) an especially bad problem in Ceuta and Melilla.

Thus, something should be done.

Sorry, no, cannot accept that as a starting point.  In order to argue that "something must be done" you must be able to show that there are solutions which will lead to more utility than the present situation projected into the future without intervention.

Since more than one state borders Mexico, it should be a collaborative effort between these states or a federal effort.

That has already been underway for decades (notably with regard to commercial vehicle inspections at the border).

If you want to keep the illegal Mexicans out, do what the Chinese did to keep the Mongolians out.  Build a great wall with limited access points and have frequent patrols. You could also take advantage of modern technology and use it to aid your situation (example: satellite tracking/imagery).

Already been tried.  Most of the border is fenced.  (Shopbt1 has said upthread that Arizona has a lot of unfenced mileage; I am not fully au fait with fence construction, but I would expect that much of this mileage is in the Tohono O'odham reservation, which straddles the border, and has its own nationality and citizenship issues partly because we are not willing to give members of the tribe citizenship based on tribal membership rather than birth on US soil.  This leaves many members of the tribe in legal limbo because they have no way of proving where precisely they were born.)

Another aspect is cost.  The "smart fence," which is now generally considered to have failed, was proposed in the first place because it was thought to be cheaper than an actual physical fence.  It is certainly possible to build a "Great Wall" on the southern border, but is that really a good use of tax money?

A radical alternative is to break through the barriers and implement incentives addressing why illegal crossing happens in the first place. By improving things on the other side of the border, you can greatly reduce this problem. However if it involves sending a lot of money and resources to another country I doubt the public would be very pleased with it. This is especially true when the US economy is in a recession and manned spaceflight is coming to an end with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet and due to a lack of funds.

We do already send Mexico a considerable amount of direct aid, and have been doing so for decades.  What we cannot do, for a variety of legal and constitutional reasons, is take on the responsibility of developing Mexico to the extent that standards of living in Mexico are comparable to those in the US.

One factor that is commonly ignored in the illegal immigration debate (especially recently, with the new primacy of "secure the border first" arguments) is that immigrants come to the US because there are jobs in the US for which employers want cheap labor.  It is really quite two-faced of us to say that illegal immigrants are committing some kind of great crime against the state and then sit back and enjoy the (literal) fruits of their cheap labor.  I eat fruit with a clean conscience because I have never supported aggressive border enforcement; it is the ones who support it that I suspect of hypocrisy.

However, the illegal immigrant "problem" persists because nobody in Congress with any sense imagines that the American public will accept expensive fruit and vegetables, having to carry biometric citizenship proof just to get a job or access basic public services, etc. just to close the economic niche for illegal immigrants.

To me the only argument against illegal immigration that makes sense relates to dignity of labor.  If you have a job that can be done by machines, it is basically dehumanizing to hire humans to do that job even if short-run market conditions mean that the humans can do it more cheaply.  But in the agricultural sector the technological scope for substitution of humans by machines is probably not great enough to eliminate illegal immigration from Mexico (and Latin America) altogether.  And you can be sure that the fruit growers will defend their short-term profits by lying about the extent of the substitutability (as happened during a previous enforcement push during the Clinton administration when the Florida orange growers complained about their labor supply drying up, the Clinton officials went ahead anyway, and the growers suddenly "discovered" they could mechanize).

[haljackey]

Exactly. I didn't say something "must" be done, but if you don't like the current situation, than you "should" do something to help correct the problem.

That's why I didn't say developed/developing countries. The nations you mentioned are more second world nations bordering third world nations. The US is a first world nation. Spain doesn't count because it doesn't presently directly land boarder Morocco. Anyways that's another topic.

Throwing money at the problem isn't the answer, I agree with that. I also agree that someone has to do the dirty/labour intensive jobs, which is what a lot of these immigrants do for a living. Even here in Canada we import labour from elsewhere because very few want to work on the farm anymore.

[mgk920]

Exactly. I didn't say something "must" be done, but if you don't like the current situation, than you "should" do something to help correct the problem.

That's why I didn't say developed/developing countries. The nations you mentioned are more second world nations bordering third world nations. The US is a first world nation. Spain doesn't count because it doesn't presently directly land boarder Morocco. Anyways that's another topic.

Spain DOES have a direct land border with Morocco.  See:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.885295,-5.356522&spn=0.080944,0.175781&t=h&z=13

Cueta is in Spain and the border (an EU/Schengen frontier with Muslim North Africa) runs northwestward from that 'N-352' marker.  It is fenced like a maximum-security prison, complete with guard towers, floodlights, electronic sensors and loads of razor wire.

Also, that AZ law simply allows the state to enforce existing federal immigration laws and contains numerous safeguards against misuse and abuse.  It is *HUGELY* popular among state residents, including legal immigrant USA citizens.

Mike

[agentsteel53]

Spain DOES have a direct land border with Morocco.

that's gotta be one of the most senseless exclaves ever.  I'm surprised that sometime between the 1400s and now, Spain didn't simply say to Morocco, "oh, what the Hell, have it back, it's too much of a pain in the ass for us when the Mediterranean Sea forms a perfectly good border".

It is *HUGELY* popular among state residents, including legal immigrant USA citizens.

the best way to defeat that sort of popular opinion - wait for them to die.  In 50 years, we'll look at today's social conservatives the way we look at Dixiecrats today.

[Scott5114]

Presumably Spain thought that having control of both sides of the Mediterranean at that pinch point was a good enough reason to keep that up.

[J N Winkler]

that's gotta be one of the most senseless exclaves ever.  I'm surprised that sometime between the 1400s and now, Spain didn't simply say to Morocco, "oh, what the Hell, have it back, it's too much of a pain in the ass for us when the Mediterranean Sea forms a perfectly good border".

Ceuta and Melilla have been Spanish since the sixteenth century at least.  Morocco is a recent (1950's) creation and Spanish holdings in North Africa were originally much more extensive (don't mention the Battle of Annual!)!

In regards to the Arizona law, several people in this thread have already pointed to the extensive support it has among legal immigrants as a justification for it.  But it is only to be expected that legal immigrants would support it.  It is usually recent immigrants who tend to be vocal supporters of immigration protectionism, and quite a few Border Patrol officers are in fact second-generation immigrants (including many whose parents immigrated illegally and were later given an amnesty).

This phenomenon is seen everywhere, not just in the US--in Britain recent immigrants are just as eager to "pull up the ladder."  For this reason I am unwilling to accept "the recent immigrants support it" as a persuasive argument in favor of SB 1070.

[agentsteel53]

Ceuta and Melilla have been Spanish since the sixteenth century at least.  Morocco is a recent (1950's) creation and Spanish holdings in North Africa were originally much more extensive (don't mention the Battle of Annual!)!

Certainly Morocco is a new political entity, but "the Moors" have been giving and taking land with respect to Spain since the 7th century.  To have precisely two tiny spots of land in North Africa remain Spanish is frankly absurd.  Either have a holding of sensible size (i.e. where the cost of securing the perimeter isn't a significant portion of the value derived from the area) or just stay on one side of the Mediterranean.

In regards to the Arizona law, several people in this thread have already pointed to the extensive support it has among legal immigrants as a justification for it.  But it is only to be expected that legal immigrants would support it.  It is usually recent immigrants who tend to be vocal supporters of immigration protectionism, and quite a few Border Patrol officers are in fact second-generation immigrants (including many whose parents immigrated illegally and were later given an amnesty).

I've always noted, with quite a lot of bemusement, that a good proportion of the people that stop me at checkpoints speak English with distinct Hispanic accents, and have last names of distinct Hispanic origin - so they may even be first-generation immigrants.  I want to mention the concept of hypocrisy to them, but I figure I'm already getting hassled, the least I can do is avoid further trouble by mouthing off.

This phenomenon is seen everywhere, not just in the US--in Britain recent immigrants are just as eager to "pull up the ladder."

Am I the only one here who is a first-generation immigrant that thinks "screw the ladder, it would be level ground if we let it"??  

[Duke87]

I've officially decided that:
A) This is all much ado about nothing.
B) Since I don't live in Arizona (or anywhere near it), the law is really none of my business, anyway.

As for all the boycotts and "buycotts", I'm rolling my eyes likewise at both.

[J N Winkler]

Certainly Morocco is a new political entity, but "the Moors" have been giving and taking land with respect to Spain since the 7th century.  To have precisely two tiny spots of land in North Africa remain Spanish is frankly absurd.  Either have a holding of sensible size (i.e. where the cost of securing the perimeter isn't a significant portion of the value derived from the area) or just stay on one side of the Mediterranean.

Treating Ceuta and Melilla as an area-versus-boundary problem misses the point.  To illustrate what is involved, consider the case of Gibraltar.  Unlike Ceuta and Melilla, which are considered part of Spain proper, Gibraltar is not part of metropolitan Britain, is a tax haven, and has its own distinguishing sign for vehicles (GBZ rather than GB for the UK home islands, including Northern Ireland).  Britain has even less reason to hold onto Gibraltar than Spain has to hold onto Ceuta and Melilla because Gibraltar is much further from Britain than those two enclaves are from mainland Spain, and the military necessity to control the passage between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic has more or less vanished with the emergence of the European Union.  But, as the saying goes, referenda on folding Gibraltar back into Spain deliver "110% majorities" for staying British.  (In practice this means the four or five people who vote for unification with Spain are known to the other Gibraltarians, who then firebomb their houses and yachts.)  Spain is nowadays a modern liberal democracy (women have equal rights, gays have been emancipated, etc.) with an efficient public administration, but to hear Gibraltarians talk you'd think their neighbor was still in the dark days of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.

I've always noted, with quite a lot of bemusement, that a good proportion of the people that stop me at checkpoints speak English with distinct Hispanic accents, and have last names of distinct Hispanic origin - so they may even be first-generation immigrants.  I want to mention the concept of hypocrisy to them, but I figure I'm already getting hassled, the least I can do is avoid further trouble by mouthing off.

They have elaborate rationalizations.  If they came legally:  "Well, I went to all of that trouble to be legal--why should the illegals have it easy?"  If they or their parents came illegally:  "Times were different back then, and the US economy no longer has the capacity to absorb illegal immigrants.  Mexico is also a lot better now than it was for the older generation, and these people should stay behind and help Mexico develop instead of coming to the US and breaking the law," etc.

But in general it is sensible not to mouth off.  I just pretend to be bored and slightly stupid when I go through these formalities.

Am I the only one here who is a first-generation immigrant that thinks "screw the ladder, it would be level ground if we let it"??

It is certainly an unusual position to espouse openly.  At the same time, pretty much every cultural group that has immigrated to the US has depended to some degree on the moral and logistical support of a small cadre of community-minded previous arrivals.  I tend to think we hear relatively little from these people because they are too busy doing what really matters--helping new immigrants integrate into the US--to waste time grandstanding about illegal immigration.

Ultimately, that is what SB 1070 is about--grandstanding--since a number of police departments in southern Arizona have said up front that they have no desire to be sidetracked from their primary responsibilities to deal with illegal immigration.

[J N Winkler]

I've officially decided that:
A) This is all much ado about nothing.
B) Since I don't live in Arizona (or anywhere near it), the law is really none of my business, anyway.

Not all of us can take the abstentionist position you are urging.

[aswnl]

I'm surprised that sometime between the 1400s and now, Spain didn't simply say to Morocco, "oh, what the Hell, have it back, it's too much of a pain in the ass for us when the Mediterranean Sea forms a perfectly good border".

I don't think that is gonna happen as long as Great Britain isn't going to simply say to Spain: "oh, what the Hell, have Gibraltar back, as we found out we haven't got a reason left to keep it"

[agentsteel53]

I don't think that is gonna happen as long as Great Britain isn't going to simply say to Spain: "oh, what the Hell, have Gibraltar back, as we found out we haven't got a reason left to keep it"

yep, yet another pointless exclave, but at least relations between England and Spain are a bit better than they were in the 1400s.  Is it an open border between Spain and Gibraltar?  (For that matter, is the Chunnel an open border?  I know Britain doesn't use the Euro, are there any other situations in which they are not fully compliant with EU regulations?)

given that Gibraltar is already home to its own special laws, what do the yacht owners care if they are paying extremely little in taxes to the British or the Spanish government?

[J N Winkler]

Is it an open border between Spain and Gibraltar?

Nope.  Gibraltar is not in the Schengen zone.  Spain has a reputation for "working to rule" or doing a "go-slow" at the Gibraltar border as a tactic to pressure the British to give it up, but I don't know if that is still going on.

For that matter, is the Chunnel an open border?  I know Britain doesn't use the Euro, are there any other situations in which they are not fully compliant with EU regulations?

The UK is fully compliant with EU regulations, except for the instances where it isn't, which don't have to do with the euro or Schengen.  It is possible to be a full EU member without being in Schengen or the eurozone.  Because the UK and Ireland are not in the Schengen zone, travellers between either country and Schengenland need to clear passport control.  At airports this is done in the normal way (separate queues for EU and "all other countries").  On rail journeys between Britain and France via the Channel Tunnel, it is done through "juxtaposed checks"--you clear French immigration in London (the Schengen stamp says "Londres") and British immigration in Paris (the stamp says "Paris").  (I am not sure about Belgium because the Belgians haven't implemented juxtaposed checks.)

The UK and Ireland have an informally defined "Common Travel Area" which allows people to pass between the two without going through passport control.  However, it is common to operate mobile checkpoints near the border--I personally haven't run into one in NI, but when I visited Ireland in 1999 I was coming from NI and had to stop at a Garda checkpoint about a mile south of the border.  Tensions tend to be high during the week of 12 July because that is when all the (Protestant) Orange Lodges do their marches to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne.  I crossed on 10 July, and had just come from a loyalist street party in the Newtownards Road (which really raised the hairs on my arms since my background is Catholic).

given that Gibraltar is already home to its own special laws, what do the yacht owners care if they are paying extremely little in taxes to the British or the Spanish government?

They don't want to lose their special status.

[agentsteel53]

On rail journeys between Britain and France via the Channel Tunnel, it is done through "juxtaposed checks"--you clear French immigration in London (the Schengen stamp says "Londres") and British immigration in Paris (the stamp says "Paris").  (I am not sure about Belgium because the Belgians haven't implemented juxtaposed checks.)

this implies that you have to clear outgoing customs far away from the border - say, in Paris if you are heading to England - then make your way over to Calais and then head to England?

what's to prevent someone from getting their passport stamped by British immigration in Paris, then staying in France for a while, without accruing those dreaded "days spent inside the Schengen zone"?

[J N Winkler]

this implies that you have to clear outgoing customs far away from the border - say, in Paris if you are heading to England - then make your way over to Calais and then head to England?

Once you clear immigration under a juxtaposed check regime, you are in effect in a sealed corridor.  Many Eurostar services between London and Paris are nonstop and even when Eurostar stops at an intermediate station in the country of departure, like Ashford in Kent (coming from London) or Calais (coming from Paris), it is not possible to leave the train without going through passport control again.  I haven't checked, but I would also guess that it is not even possible to buy tickets on Eurostar for purely in-country travel--I'd expect you to be able to travel between Paris and Calais via TGV, for example, but not Eurostar, and similarly it would be a bit strange to take Eurostar just to get from London St. Pancras to Ashford.

what's to prevent someone from getting their passport stamped by British immigration in Paris, then staying in France for a while, without accruing those dreaded "days spent inside the Schengen zone"?

Simple--you can't board the train until you have been cleared to enter Britain and you can't leave the train without passing through passport control (and thus getting a Schengen entry stamp) until you are actually on British soil.

If I were trying to play a numbers game with immigration, I wouldn't do it on Eurostar anyway because it is too tightly policed.  The traditional scam involved a trip to Switzerland before it was in the Schengen zone (the countries bordering Switzerland tended not to check passports at the land frontier).  That no longer works because Switzerland is now in Schengen.  Depending on whether the UK immigration authorities take account of Irish entry stamps, it might be possible to work something by arriving in Ireland and crossing the unsupervised land frontier, but for US passport holders the game isn't really worth the candle.

[agentsteel53]

ah okay, I did not know that is how the corridor worked.  So if the train stops in, say Ashford in Kent, do passengers get on?  You mentioned getting off would be silly, but if so, getting on would be the only reason to stop the train. 

If they get on, do they get London stamps or Ashford in Kent stamps? 

What about those who drive between Dover and Calais?  Do they get processed traditionally upon setting foot on the new country's soil?

[english si]

What about those who drive between Dover and Calais?  Do they get processed traditionally upon setting foot on the new country's soil?

No one drives between Dover and Calais, except the Top Gear team and some others who have used amphibious cars...

If you take the ferry, then the checks are on both sides, to some extent (the French actually bother a bit with Calais) and done as part of the ticket checks - like with planes. Officially passport control is on the side of arrival.

With the Channel Tunnel vehicle transporting trains, passport control is also technically on the new countries soil, but on the departure side. I don't think it's the situation with Gare du Nord, Lille Europe, Ashford and Waterloo (I doubt very much they would have changed it to St Pancras, added Ebbsfleet or would have bothered with the S of France/Alps specials), but with the vehicle terminals, a small part of each one was given to the country on the other side of the English Channel/La Manche, so you enter France (or England), have your passport checked, re-enter the country you were in before, drive onto the train, cross the channel and drive straight off into the country of arrival.

Eurostar trains fill up on one side of the Channel, empty on the other. Ebbsfleet and Ashford are exit-only London-bound and no-exit Paris/Brussels bound. I'm not sure about Lille, but I think that there would be restrictions on entering/leaving trains the wrong way and in any case, you have to go through Passport Control to get on a Eurostar wherever you are going and there are frequent TGV/Thalys services anyway. The boarding/disembarkation restrictions occur elsewhere, where there aren't borders and so on - for instance to try and stop commuters boarding intercity trains to do a London-Watford commute (or to deal with competition clauses built into franchises - Virgin have to have a monopoly on Wolverhampton-London services, so Wrexham&Shrewsbury trains are pick up northbound/drop off southbound only so as to not impinge)

I haven't asked any non UK passport holders what the stamps say - there's no stamping between the UK/Ireland and Schengen - I've asked before for a stamp and got an odd look.

[agentsteel53]

a small part of each one was given to the country on the other side of the English Channel/La Manche

sheesh, talk about odd exclaves.  Is there some French land in London, too, for French Immigration, and vice versa in Paris?  I am figuring they work on the same principles as an embassy, which is technically land that belongs to the country being represented, but is never counted formally as an exclave.

[english si]

No only at Cheriton and Coquelles. I think they do get treated like embassies - but they are deliberately the same area, so neither country lost land.

[agentsteel53]

they are deliberately the same area, so neither country lost land.

overthinking it much, England and France?