Should Janet Napolitino step down ?

[Springfork]

And that's what it comes down to in the end. As long as there's a demand in the US for stuff--be it labor or narcotics--that has to be smuggled in, it will be smuggled in. If you think there's a problem, the only way to address it is to reduce the demand. Good luck with that.

I guess this would apply to the unsatiable Mexican demand for US firearms as well.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I guess this would apply to the unsatiable Mexican demand for US firearms as well.

It's a balance of trade thing.

The Mexican government turns a blind eye as illegal people cross the border into my country, the US government turns a blind eye as illegal firearms cross the border into Mexico.

Hmmm, I wonder if the strategery is to hope that the firearms are used in Mexico, on Mexicans, to cut down the population pressure and thus the flow north.

Maybe Sec Napolitano has some ideas on that.

DR

 

[Euromutt]

No. You made an "issue of it" before I even posted the Homeland Security website.

No, I mentioned in passing that "DHSS" is not a commonly recognized acronym for the Secretary of Homeland Security. I may have been being pedantic, but I was not wrong, and you tried to make out that the latter was the case.

Perhaps you should check out the acronym OCD.

Perhaps you should check out the abbreviation "BS."

Until the fence on the Southern Border is built to the same standard as the ones constructed in areas where illegal immigration has been impacted, we will never know its true effectiveness.

For that to happen, it has to cover every foot of the border from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. At present, it's easier for illegal immigrants to go around the wall, so the number of crossings in walled sectors drop. If the entire length of the border were to be fenced, we'd see whether the drops observed in currently fenced sectors would happen across the board, or whether illegal border crossers would figure out ways to go over, under or through the fence. Would it be worth $150bn+ to find out the fence didn't work that well?

Is bureaucratic red tape a reason to break U.S. immigration laws?

Not in and of itself. But people are more inclined to obey the law if you don't make it more difficult than necessary for them to obey it.

Why shouldn't all immigrants stand in line the way you did to become a legal resident?

That's the thing: I didn't have to stand in line, because I was brought into the country by my then-fiancée, a US citizen. Because of that, I was assured of being granted entry, permanent residency, and the option to naturalize.

Legal residency in the U.S. is not a right, it is a privilege.

Time to take that plaque off the Statue of Liberty, then. More to the point, when you charge four hundred dollars or more merely to file an application with no guarantee the applicant is going to get anything back for that money, you should be able to see where problems might arise.

Why is it the problem of the U.S. what the world's population is?

It's not; I was merely pointing out that the pool of potential immigrants to the US is currently three times as large as it was 100 years ago, and yet, the number of legal immigrants is lower.

Your own harrowing account of how a Dutch citizen manged to get legal residency in the U.S. undermines your notion that the bureaucracy is stacked against Hispanics.

My story isn't "harrowing," it was just a mild pain in the bollocks from time to time. But again, because I was sponsored by my then-fiancée, I was certain that as long as I did everything right, I'd get where I wanted to be.

Come on. For decades, and even now, illegals were getting paid in cash. They never provided any SSN, fake, or otherwise.

Until the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which required employers to get a social security card or similar document off an employee. The Act also required employers to check that the SSN was genuine, but many didn't bother. But with tightened controls, that requirement is being obeyed more, which has caused the shift away from fake SSNs towards real but stolen ones. Illegal immigrants not only pay taxes, Social Security and Medicare premiums (along with sales tax, excise taxes, and property taxes) but they generally don't file returns, so they don't get refunds. From 1996 to 2003, illegal immigrants may have ponied up something in the order of $90bn in federal taxes over the 8-year period.

That is a complete myth about American workers not wanting or taking jobs that are done by illegals.

Really? They're not willing to do it at the same price, though, and evidently that is a price the market is unwilling to bear.

That was the reason for the Bracero Program.

Which ended in 1964.

But in case you have not been to a supermarket in the last decade, most of the fruit and vegetables are from MEXICO.

I haven't been to a supermarket in Arizona in the past decade, no. But I can clarify my earlier statement thus: "If it weren't for migrant labor, much of it illegal, the crops that are currently grown in the California central valley would instead also be grown in Mexico." Or do you want to claim that there aren't any crops grown in the Californian central valley?

We seemed to switch from illegal immigration to narcotics smuggling.

It's called an analogy; the point being, since you missed it, that where there's a demand, the supply will rise to meet it. As long as there's a demand for illegal immigrant labor, they will keep coming.

But Napolitano doesn't want to close the border to illegals, drug smugglers, or Swine Flu carriers.

You mean that Napolitano isn't interested in blowing millions of dollars and disrupting cross-border trade (thus causing more expenses) to implement measures of dubious efficacy, then yes. And I'm fine with that.

 

[hgc]

...
The Mexican government turns a blind eye as illegal people cross the border into my country, the US government turns a blind eye as illegal firearms cross the border into Mexico.

Hmmm, I wonder if the strategery is to hope that the firearms are used in Mexico, on Mexicans, to cut down the population pressure and thus the flow north.
...
DR

It's all about the money and the economies. Mexicans working in the U.S. send $$ back home to Mexico. Mexican labor fills a need in the U.S. labor market; illegal immigration is an informal guest worker program. U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors have an expanding, lucrative market in Mexico.

 

[Cicero]

It's all about the money and the economies. Mexicans working in the U.S. send $$ back home to Mexico. Mexican labor fills a need in the U.S. labor market; illegal immigration is an informal guest worker program. U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors have an expanding, lucrative market in Mexico.

Except that "Snipery" Hillary's contention, the same one President Obama parroted, that 90% of the lillegalIy transported firearms into Mexico came from the U.S. is balderdash. The number is somewhere around 20%-35%. Looks like some other country's firearm manufacturers are cashing in on that "lucrative Mexican market. "

 

[Cicero]

No, I mentioned in passing that "DHSS" is not a commonly recognized acronym for the Secretary of Homeland Security. I may have been being pedantic, but I was not wrong, and you tried to make out that the latter was the case.
Perhaps you should check out the abbreviation "BS."

It is the case if you use an acronym for what they call themselves on their own website.

For that to happen, it has to cover every foot of the border from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. At present, it's easier for illegal immigrants to go around the wall, so the number of crossings in walled sectors drop. If the entire length of the border were to be fenced, we'd see whether the drops observed in currently fenced sectors would happen across the board, or whether illegal border crossers would figure out ways to go over, under or through the fence. Would it be worth $150bn+ to find out the fence didn't work that well?

Of course Governor Napolitano was against using the National Guard on the boarder as well. In fact, like you, she really had no appatite to take any actions in curbing illegal immigration. Open boarders are a much simpler and cheaper solution

Not in and of itself. But people are more inclined to obey the law if you don't make it more difficult than necessary for them to obey it.
That's the thing: I didn't have to stand in line, because I was brought into the country by my then-fiancée, a US citizen. Because of that, I was assured of being granted entry, permanent residency, and the option to naturalize.

Difficult to obey? Who is putting a gun to the heads of immigrants to illegally enter into the U.S.?

Time to take that plaque off the Statue of Liberty, then. More to the point, when you charge four hundred dollars or more merely to file an application with no guarantee the applicant is going to get anything back for that money, you should be able to see where problems might arise.
It's not; I was merely pointing out that the pool of potential immigrants to the US is currently three times as large as it was 100 years ago, and yet, the number of legal immigrants is lower.

You would not see that plaque from a submarine. In other words, you would have to be entering legally to see it.


"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed
to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door"

A lot has changed since Emma Lazarus poetry were inscribed on the pedestal in 1912. But FDR dismissed this sentiment when he turned away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. Ironic since Lazarus was one of the earliest Zionist.

My story isn't "harrowing," it was just a mild pain in the bollocks from time to time. But again, because I was sponsored by my then-fiancée, I was certain that as long as I did everything right, I'd get where I wanted to be

.

Right. You didn't cross the Rio Grande with the dubious help of a coyote. You did the marriage thing to get your legal residency status. But illegal aliens do have children in the U.S. Their offspring are automatically considered U.S. citizens. That is one of those magnates that attract the illegals. If that law were changed would it help stem the tide of illegal immigration?

Until the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which required employers to get a social security card or similar document off an employee. The Act also required employers to check that the SSN was genuine, but many didn't bother. But with tightened controls, that requirement is being obeyed more, which has caused the shift away from fake SSNs towards real but stolen ones. Illegal immigrants not only pay taxes, Social Security and Medicare premiums (along with sales tax, excise taxes, and property taxes) but they generally don't file returns, so they don't get refunds. From 1996 to 2003, illegal immigrants may have ponied up something in the order of $90bn in federal taxes over the 8-year period.
Really? They're not willing to do it at the same price, though, and evidently that is a price the market is unwilling to bear.
Which ended in 1964.

Do you think those illegals (day laborers) that gather outside Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc, are providing the people who pay them in cash SS#'s? But you are also against raids on companies hiring illegals, yes? So was Napolitano. Illegals also send a great percentage of their income out of the country. Shouldn't illegals pay sales taxes? Nobody asks them for a green card when they check out at a grocery store. Who do you suppose pays for the hospitalization of all those illegal expectant mothers?

Did you get your facts from Ricardo Parra of La Raza?

http://immigration.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=789

Here is a study that says something else.

"A new study by the Austin-based Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas estimates that illegal immigration costs the state $4.5 billion to $6 billion a year, an amount mostly spent on educating their children.

But the study’s methodology was called flawed by the liberal Migration Policy Institute and the Center for Public Policy Priorities, as well as the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund.

Written by consultant James Bernsen — who did a similar study in 2006 for the conservative Lone Star Foundation — the report found that the costs of educating children of unauthorized immigrants aren’t offset by the estimated $1 billion a year in tax revenues the state collects from their parents, making such families a burden to the state.

“A perfect picture will continue to be impossible as long as state bureaucrats intentionally refuse to collect appropriate data on the numbers of illegal immigrants using Texas government services, particularly education,” the study said."

I haven't been to a supermarket in Arizona in the past decade, no. But I can clarify my earlier statement thus: "If it weren't for migrant labor, much of it illegal, the crops that are currently grown in the California central valley would instead also be grown in Mexico." Or do you want to claim that there aren't any crops grown in the Californian central valley?
It's called an analogy; the point being, since you missed it, that where there's a demand, the supply will rise to meet it. As long as there's a demand for illegal immigrant labor, they will keep coming.
You mean that Napolitano isn't interested in blowing millions of dollars and disrupting cross-border trade (thus causing more expenses) to implement measures of dubious efficacy, then yes. And I'm fine with that.

But you, and Napolitanio, do not want to curtail the demand by implementing harsher penalties on businesses that hire illegals. Governor Napolitano was just too concerned about wasting tax payer money on any solution to illegal immigration? Fascinating. She denied the Maricopa Sheriff's office a measly $1.4 million to go after employees hiring illegals. Doesn't that sort of enforcement go directly toward eliminating the demand? No demand, no supply. The problem with you and Napolitano is that the more effective a policy is the more you protest against it. Why do the spokespeople for illegal immigration go ballistic about fences, raids, tighter restrictions on employers if they don't work? Is it because they are deeply concerned about "wasteful" expenditures of American taxpayer money?

 

[hgc]

Except that "Snipery" Hillary's contention, the same one President Obama parroted, that 90% of the lillegalIy transported firearms into Mexico came from the U.S. is balderdash. The number is somewhere around 20%-35%. Looks like some other country's firearm manufacturers are cashing in on that "lucrative Mexican market. "

Yeah, probably China, for starters. Just a guess.

ETA: I wouldn't mind a cite on your 20-35% number. I trust you wouldn't go pulling stats out of your ass, but just in case...

 

[Cicero]

Yeah, probably China, for starters. Just a guess.

ETA: I wouldn't mind a cite on your 20-35% number. I trust you wouldn't go pulling stats out of your ass, but just in case...

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/counting_mexicos_guns.html

 

[hgc]

Thanks

 

[Euromutt]

ETA: I wouldn't mind a cite on your 20-35% number. I trust you wouldn't go pulling stats out of your ass, but just in case...

In addition, let me refer you to written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee from William Hoover, the ATF's Asst. Director for Field Operations. On page 9:

In fact, according to ATF’s National Tracing Center, 90 percent of the weapons that could be traced were determined to have originated from various sources within the U.S.

Note: 90% of the guns that the ATF was able to trace. That excludes both guns that the ATF was asked to trace but couldn't, and guns that the Mexican government didn't ask the ATF to trace.

Furthermore, in oral testimony to the Committee, Hoover stated:

I can tell you that over the last two years, in 2007, we traced 6,561 weapons from Mexico. In 2008, we traced 10,977 firearms from Mexico [...]

And on page 10 of the written testimony, he states:

In FY 2007 alone, Mexico submitted approximately 1,112 guns for tracing that originated in Texas, Arizona and California. The remaining 47 States accounted for 435 traces in FY 2007.

So in FY 2007, the Mexican government asked the ATF to trace 6,561 guns, of which (1,112+435=) 1,547 turned out to have come from US sources. So about 23.6%, and again, that's not counting the guns the Mexican government didn't ask the ATF to trace.

In addition, a recent LA Times article stated that the bulk of military-grade hardware turning up in cartel hands was being smuggled in via Guatemala and the sea. Much of the materiel was apparently left over from Cold War-era conflicts across Central America.

So the indications are that, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the majority of the narcotraficantes' firepower does not come from the American civilian market.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I heard a rumor that Al Queda is recruiting from the Muslim communities. But, in order not to offend all Muslims, we shouldn't spread this rumor............

 

[davefoc]

...

So the indications are that, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the majority of the narcotraficantes' firepower does not come from the American civilian market.

You might be right but I wasn't sure that your conclusion followed from the posted facts.

The US government was able to determine the source for roughly 25% of the guns they were asked to determine a source for by the Mexican government.

Do we know anything about where the other 75% came from? Could they be of US origin also and it just wasn't possible to determine what the source was?

And conversely, if weapons were of obviously non-American origin, was the Mexican government requesting US assistance for source identification? So maybe there's a whole mess of guns coming in to Mexico that the Mexican government isn't requesting American source identification with.

So maybe not even 25% of the guns coming into Mexico are originating in the US?

It seems that from the available information we just don't know much about where the guns coming into Mexico are coming from. I'd be very surprised if most of them aren't coming from the US, but perhaps the information provided has proved me wrong and I just don't understand how.

 

[Cicero]

You might be right but I wasn't sure that your conclusion followed from the posted facts.

The US government was able to determine the source for roughly 25% of the guns they were asked to determine a source for by the Mexican government.

Do we know anything about where the other 75% came from? Could they be of US origin also and it just wasn't possible to determine what the source was?

And conversely, if weapons were of obviously non-American origin, was the Mexican government requesting US assistance for source identification? So maybe there's a whole mess of guns coming in to Mexico that the Mexican government isn't requesting American source identification with.

So maybe not even 25% of the guns coming into Mexico are originating in the US?

It seems that from the available information we just don't know much about where the guns coming into Mexico are coming from. I'd be very surprised if most of them aren't coming from the US, but perhaps the information provided has proved me wrong and I just don't understand how.

Apparently "Snipery" Hillary was also unable to make sense of the available information, so she just pulled the 90% figure out of her ample posterior. Since it is definitely not 90%, or 75%, or even 50%, it was an irresponsible number to throw out to the servile media.

 

[Euromutt]

Of course Governor Napolitano was against using the National Guard on the boarder as well. In fact, like you, she really had no appatite to take any actions in curbing illegal immigration.

Exactly where the hell do you get off telling me what I do or do not believe?

And has it occurred to you that what Napolitano did not have an appetite for, while governor, was spending state resources on what is supposed to be the federal government's job?

Difficult to obey? Who is putting a gun to the heads of immigrants to illegally enter into the U.S.?

Complex question fallacy.

Your typical illegal immigrant is someone who wants to enter the US because he can't get work in his home country, or if he can, the pay is insufficient to support his family. I doubt that there are are many ilegal immigrants who, given the opportunity to immigrate legally, would prefer to immigrate illegally. But the very reason that they want to enter the US in the first place--namely that they desperately need money--is what makes it difficult (perhaps impossible) for them to immigrate legally, given the fees charged by DHS and the State Dept.

You would not see that plaque from a submarine. In other words, you would have to be entering legally to see it.

Maybe if it were easier to immigrate legally...

Question here: where the Constitution is concerned, do you consider yourself a "constructionist" or do you lean more towards the "living document" theory? If the former, how do you reconcile that view with your repeated assertions that "times have changed" to justify breaks with America's past?

But illegal aliens do have children in the U.S. Their offspring are automatically considered U.S. citizens. That is one of those magnates that attract the illegals. If that law were changed would it help stem the tide of illegal immigration?

For starters, that law is the Constitution (XIV Amendment, Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."). So that would take a constitutional amendment, which is a fairly tall order.

But even if you could get it passed, "would it help stem the tide of illegal immigration?" I sincerely doubt it. As long as they believe they can make more money doing low-skilled jobs in the US than they can at home, immigrants will continue to come, and if they can't get in legally, they'll try to get in illegally.

But you are also against raids on companies hiring illegals, yes?

I don't recall saying that. Care to point out where I did?

So was Napolitano.

I'm not prepared to take your word regarding Napolitano's motivations. I reiterate that immigration enforcement is not the states' remit; it is the federal government's.

Shouldn't illegals pay sales taxes?

Are you suggesting they don't? How are they supposed to pull that off?

Did you get your facts from Ricardo Parra of La Raza?

No, that came from USA Today, and they got their numbers from the IRS and the Social Security Administration. Didn't you bother to look where my link led, or indeed read the article? Besides, it's not as if, in the link you provided, Parra was the only one arguing that illegal immigrants pay a substantial chunk of money into the system. Lipman, Capps, Fix; yeah, those sound like Hispanic names to me(!)

And maybe Bernsen's studies are correct, but if so, they provide only part of the picture, because he only looks at revenue and expenses to the state of Texas (which does not levy income tax, incidentally). This does not exclude the possibility that illegal immigrants are paying their share, except that the money that would offset the state's expenses are in fact going to the federal, rather than the state, government.

The fact is that a substantial number of illegal immigrants could be tracked down using the records of the IRS and the Social Security Administration. These organizations can trace where revenue is coming from, and identify payments from multiple sources all credited to a single SSN. And, of course, the IRS created the ITIN, which seems to exist primarily to allow you to pay taxes over income you shouldn't be earning because you don't have an SSN. The IRS and Social Security Administration obviously don't care; they're receiving revenue, and combating illegal immigration isn't their problem. But how come nobody in DC seems to have hit upon the idea that those agencies could be forced to open their books to Immigration and Customs Enforcement? I submit (at the risk of straying into CT'er territory) that one possible answer is that anyone in Congress or the executive who has raised that point has had it explained to them by the Treasury that illegal immigrants provide a substantial net benefit to federal income, and that it is therefore inadvisable to rock that particular boat.

But you, and Napolitanio, do not want to curtail the demand by implementing harsher penalties on businesses that hire illegals.

Again, kindly don't presume to tell me what I do or do not want.

Governor Napolitano was just too concerned about wasting tax payer money on any solution to illegal immigration? Fascinating. She denied the Maricopa Sheriff's office a measly $1.4 million to go after employees hiring illegals. Doesn't that sort of enforcement go directly toward eliminating the demand? No demand, no supply.

Again, I submit that Governor Napolitano was not interested in spending Arizona state funds on doing the federal government's job. Moreover, given Sheriff Arpaio's demonstrated difficulty in understanding the Bill of Rights, I wouldn't trust him or his personnel to comprehend federal immigration law to a degree sufficient to avoid perpetrating abuses. Hell, I don't even trust his deputies to put on a parking brake correctly.

Here's some interesting findings from a report published last December:

In 2007, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors approved a partnership between the sheriff’s office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The state also awarded MCSO $1.5 million for its anti-human-smuggling operation. MCSO’s contract with ICE requires specific procedures for immigration enforcement, such as establishing trustworthy evidence that crimes are taking place. Such evidence has not always preceded the sweeps, such as the sweep in
October 2007 in Fountain Hills, the town where Arpaio lives. Fountain Hills is not connected to human smuggling activity. To the criticism that he has not followed requirements of the ICE contract, Sheriff Arpaio has responded, “Do you think I’m going to report to the federal government? I don’t report to them.”

[...]

But MCSO has diverted substantial resources away from other law-enforcement activities to the immigration sweeps and the human-smuggling unit. As Arpaio described it, “We are quickly becoming a full-fledged anti-illegal immigration agency." The eight sweeps have involved hundreds of deputies and thousands of work days. The Tribune found that “MCSO has repeatedly used regular patrol
deputies for immigration enforcement.” The human smuggling unit was staffed through “temporary” reassignments of deputies from patrol units, many of which were not replaced.

In addition to diverting patrol deputies from their normal assignments, the shift in focus resulted in massive overtime. Shortly after the ICE contract was signed, deputies amassed 4,500 extra hours per two-week pay period, compared to the previous average of 2,900 overtime hours. The predictable result was a $1.3 million deficit in MCSO’s budget in only three months. The sheriff covered part of the deficit by keeping patrol division positions unfilled, to the tune of 66 deputies. Meanwhile, the sheriff curtailed overtime. On at least one occasion, as many as 46 criminal defendants missed their court appearances because deputies
were told to skip overtime. Likewise, immigration enforcement diminished. As the Tribune reports, MCSO “eliminated its deficit,” but “deputies now rarely arrest illegal immigrants under the state smuggling law, MCSO records show, even when suspects are clearly involved in human smuggling.”

MCSO’s massive diversion of resources into policing illegal immigration—largely in communities such as Phoenix and Mesa that have police departments—coincides with growing rates of violent crimes, plummeting arrest rates, and increased response time to citizens’ calls for help.

Who published this report? The Goldwater Institute; not exactly bleeding-heart liberals.

So evidently, Arpaio has (as usual) opted for style over substance, blowing large amounts of his budget on conspicuous but largely ineffective operations (not much mention of MCSO "go[ing] after employees hiring illegals," I note), and in so doing, he has neglected his actual job, which is providing law enforcement, particularly in unincorporated Maricopa County. Giving him more money would, in effect, be rewarding incompetence.

The problem with you and Napolitano is that the more effective a policy is the more you protest against it. Why do the spokespeople for illegal immigration go ballistic about fences, raids, tighter restrictions on employers if they don't work? Is it because they are deeply concerned about "wasteful" expenditures of American taxpayer money?

I can't speak for "spokespeople for illegal immigration," because I'm not one of them. I'm skeptical such a person even exists. There are certainly people (myself included) who feel that it should be easier to legally immigrate to the US, and that the majority of currently illegal immigrants would greatly prefer to reside and work in the US legally if they were provided the opportunity to do so, but that's not the same thing as being actively in favor of illegal immigration. Much like being in favor of legalization of drugs and/or prostitution doesn't mean you support drug traffickers and pimps (quite the opposite, in fact).

Moreover, your assertion that the methods you list are effective is begging the question to some extent. They may succeed in stopping some illegal immigration, and deporting some illegal immigrants, but do they get to the root of the problem? And do they achieve their results at an acceptable price? I'm sure that suspending the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments would create the ability to round up illegal immigrants in large numbers and deport them with a minimum of fuss. But how many abuses would be incurred in the process? The "expedited removal program" (implemented under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996) has already resulted in the deportation of legally resident aliens and even US citizens because there is insufficient oversight. The Goldwater Institute report I cited above points out that MCSO doesn't stick to the requirements of its contract with ICE that at least some lip service be paid to the Fourth Amendment (admittedly a concept Sheriff "I can has police state?" Joe has always had difficulty with).

You want to curb illegal immigration? Like I suggested, why not force the IRS and Social Security Administration to open their records so you can trace people paying into the system using stolen SSNs? But the ultimate cause of immigration is that people think they will be better off here than they are in their own countries (or can earn more money, which they can send home). If they can't come legally, they will come illegally. Instead of blowing money on fences and "saturation patrol sweeps", you'd be better off spending it on stimulating economic development in the countries and regions these illegals come from, so they can earn a living wage there.

 

[Euromutt]

Do we know anything about where the other 75% came from? Could they be of US origin also and it just wasn't possible to determine what the source was?

And conversely, if weapons were of obviously non-American origin, was the Mexican government requesting US assistance for source identification?

The claim, essentially, is that Mexican narcotraficantes are equipping themselves with firearms acquired from the American private market, i.e. from licensed retailers and private sellers. The argument being that, if it weren't for "lax" American gun laws, the cartels wouldn't be armed to the degree that they are.

Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, any firearm manufactured in or imported into the United States must be stamped with the name of the manufacturer or importer, and a serial number, so that the ATF knows where to start a trace. The manufacturer/importer keeps records of which distributor which gun went to; the distributor keeps records of which dealer which gun went to; and the dealer keeps records (the ATF form 4473), listing to whom a gun was sold.

If a gun has been manufactured in the US (or imported into the US), there are two ways it could be untraceable: either it was made prior to the GCA of 1968 entering into force, or it was illegally manufactured/imported and sold. The narcos probably aren't interested in very many 40 year-old guns, and if the guns are illegally manufactured in, or smuggled through, the US, it's hard to argue that lax US gun laws are to blame.

There are plenty of non-American-made guns that pass through the American market, incidentally, so there's always a chance with a non-American made gun that it can be traced though the US via the importer. There are also non-American manufacturers with a corporate presence in the US (e.g. Beretta, Glock, FNH, Heckler & Koch), and the ATF might well be able to request information on guns made by such companies even if the specific guns didn't pass through the US (which would account for the 10% of guns the ATF was able to trace that didn't come from US sources).

Note that there might also be American-made guns that the Mexican government didn't bother asking the ATF to trace because the Mexican government is already able to determine where they came from; e.g. an M4 carbine made by Colt's Manufacturing that was sold to a Mexican state police force (and then sold to a cartel by a corrupt police armorer). But again, you can't blame lax American gun laws for that.

Apparently "Snipery" Hillary was also unable to make sense of the available information, so she just pulled the 90% figure out of her ample posterior. Since it is definitely not 90%, or 75%, or even 50%, it was an irresponsible number to throw out to the servile media.

Ad hominems (or feminams) aside, Secretary Clinton did not pull the 90% number out of her ass; but she, like various members of the Senate Judiciary Committee et al., misunderstood what that number actually represented (i.e. not the percentage of guns recovered from cartel members traced to the US, but the percentage of guns recovered from cartel members that the ATF was asked, and was able to trace).

 

[Cicero]

Exactly where the hell do you get off telling me what I do or do not believe?

And has it occurred to you that what Napolitano did not have an appetite for, while governor, was spending state resources on what is supposed to be the federal government's job?

You swung in on a knotted rope to defend Napolitano's record on illegal immigration as AZ Governor and as DHSS. That tells me a great deal about what you believe. Napolitano always used the excuse that she wasn't going to do anything about illegal immigration because that came under the purvue of the federal government. The AZ voters, including 47% of Hispanic voters passed Prop 200 in 2003. Napolitano was not a supporter of this bill.



"Illegal Immigration Strains Services in Arizona"
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/11/n...469200&en=659ef80494c29a53&ei=5070&oref=login

The fact is that a substantial number of illegal immigrants could be tracked down using the records of the IRS and the Social Security Administration. These organizations can trace where revenue is coming from, and identify payments from multiple sources all credited to a single SSN. And, of course, the IRS created the ITIN, which seems to exist primarily to allow you to pay taxes over income you shouldn't be earning because you don't have an SSN. The IRS and Social Security Administration obviously don't care; they're receiving revenue, and combating illegal immigration isn't their problem. But how come nobody in DC seems to have hit upon the idea that those agencies could be forced to open their books to Immigration and Customs Enforcement? I submit (at the risk of straying into CT'er territory) that one possible answer is that anyone in Congress or the executive who has raised that point has had it explained to them by the Treasury that illegal immigrants provide a substantial net benefit to federal income, and that it is therefore inadvisable to rock that particular boat.

Were you not aware that AZ passed E-Verify (state Sen. Russell Pearce's proposal) in 2007?

"Prohibits employers from knowingly hiring undocumented workers and requires all employers to use E-Verify, effective January 1, 2008. It was followed up in 2008 with HB 2745, which prohibits government contracts to any businesses not using E-Verify, effective May 1, 2008."

Napolitano signed the bill back in July, 2007. Here is what the Hispanic News said about this:

"Napolitano Loses Moral Compass, Finds Russell Pearce"

http://www.hispanic7.com/napolitano_loses_moral_compass,_finds_russell_pearce.htm

She must be as evil as Sheriff Joe.

Again, kindly don't presume to tell me what I do or do not want.
Again, I submit that Governor Napolitano was not interested in spending Arizona state funds on doing the federal government's job. Moreover, given Sheriff Arpaio's demonstrated difficulty in understanding the Bill of Rights, I wouldn't trust him or his personnel to comprehend federal immigration law to a degree sufficient to avoid perpetrating abuses. Hell, I don't even trust his deputies to put on a parking brake correctly.

So evidently, Arpaio has (as usual) opted for style over substance, blowing large amounts of his budget on conspicuous but largely ineffective operations (not much mention of MCSO "go[ing] after employees hiring illegals," I note), and in so doing, he has neglected his actual job, which is providing law enforcement, particularly in unincorporated Maricopa County. Giving him more money would, in effect, be rewarding incompetence.

"Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law"

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=44899

You will let me know if they ever find anything, won't you?

I can't speak for "spokespeople for illegal immigration," because I'm not one of them. I'm skeptical such a person even exists. There are certainly people (myself included) who feel that it should be easier to legally immigrate to the US, and that the majority of currently illegal immigrants would greatly prefer to reside and work in the US legally if they were provided the opportunity to do so, but that's not the same thing as being actively in favor of illegal immigration. Much like being in favor of legalization of drugs and/or prostitution doesn't mean you support drug traffickers and pimps (quite the opposite, in fact).

Sure they would prefer, but it is not as if they are fleeing religious or political persecution.

You want to curb illegal immigration? Like I suggested, why not force the IRS and Social Security Administration to open their records so you can trace people paying into the system using stolen SSNs? But the ultimate cause of immigration is that people think they will be better off here than they are in their own countries (or can earn more money, which they can send home). If they can't come legally, they will come illegally. Instead of blowing money on fences and "saturation patrol sweeps", you'd be better off spending it on stimulating economic development in the countries and regions these illegals come from, so they can earn a living wage there.

If you think dealing with INS was a bureaucratic nightmare, dealing with the IRS & SSA would make it seem like Kinderspiel. Look at the flack that the E-Verify system gets from the "comprehensive immigration plan" folks. Imagine the furor that would accompany any effort to reveal info contained in private tax documents that even the FOIA couldn't breech.

I noticed you didn't have much to say about FDR's interpretation of Emma Lazarus poetry found on the Statue of Liberty pedestal.

 

[Euromutt]

You swung in on a knotted rope to defend Napolitano's record on illegal immigration as AZ Governor and as DHSS. That tells me a great deal about what you believe.

Actually, I entered this conversation because that list of complaints from Human Events you quoted had some rather obvious possible and actual flaws. And this being a skeptical forum, I thought that was worth pointing out.

Napolitano always used the excuse that she wasn't going to do anything about illegal immigration because that came under the purvue of the federal government.

And from a legal perspective, that's quite correct.

Were you not aware that AZ passed E-Verify (state Sen. Russell Pearce's proposal) in 2007?

Yes, I was, and I already pointed out why that was a bad idea in my first post in this thread:

Again, the "Legal Arizona Workers Act" contained a number of major flaws. First, it made it mandatory for employers to use the Basic Pilot program (later renamed "E-Verify") despite the fact that this program was known to be far from perfect (most notably, the databases used were known to not list every immigrant who had been legally issued a work permit), and Congress had therefore made use of this tool voluntary.

Note that E-Verify wasn't created under Arizona state law; it was a pre-existing federal database. The LAWA made it mandatory for AZ employers to run prospective employees through it.

"Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law"

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Conten...x?rsrcid=44899

You will let me know if they ever find anything, won't you?

Considering that that article is from two months ago, absence of evidence at this juncture is not evidence of absence. Criminal investigations take time.

I have t amused, incidentally, that Arpaio is hastily taking credit for illegal immigrants identified while being booked at Maricopa County jail, seeing as how many illegals thus identified were arrested by the Phoenix and Mesa Police Departments, both of whom (as the Goldwater Institute report notes) pointed out that that method was bagging significantly more illegals than Arpaio's "saturation patrol sweeps," and had their concerns waved away by Arpaio.

Sure they would prefer, but it is not as if they are fleeing religious or political persecution.

If they were, they could apply for political asylum. And since there's no quota for asylum-seekers, they'd stand a much better chance of getting in, and it wouldn't cost as much either. But in the meantime, malnutrition and lack of decent medical services can kill you or members of your family just as dead as an oppressive government.

If you think dealing with INS was a bureaucratic nightmare, dealing with the IRS & SSA would make it seem like Kinderspiel. Look at the flack that the E-Verify system gets from the "comprehensive immigration plan" folks. Imagine the furor that would accompany any effort to reveal info contained in private tax documents that even the FOIA couldn't breech.

As I've pointed out, the problem with E-Verify is that it is known not to list every issued work permit, and therefore, the fact that someone isn't listed in E-Verify does not mean they're not legal to work.

But hey, now I've suggested a method to track down illegal immigrants, and curiously, you're coming up with excuses why it can't be done. Where are the privacy concerns in investigating suspected fraudulent use of an SSN by someone to whom that number is not assigned? You can find plenty of stories from anti-immigration activists about how some citizen got hit with a bill from the IRS for back taxes on wages she didn't earn because some illegal was using her SSN, and the conclusion we're supposed to draw is that it's the illegal's (or illegals') fault. Why isn't it the IRS's, and/or the SSA's? Those two agencies are practically complicit in illegal immigration in that they're happy enough to accept revenue from people they can guess are working illegally, but they treat the money as a windfall, and they don't see fit to approach the rightful holder of the SSN ("excuse us, but our records show you as living in Connecticut, but we're getting payments registered to your SSN from five different companies in New Mexico, so we thought we'd check if that was really you") until they reckon there's payments in arrears, and then, all of a sudden, they have no problem identifying the rightful holder. Why is anyone outraged at the illegals, instead of at the IRS?

I noticed you didn't have much to say about FDR's interpretation of Emma Lazarus poetry found on the Statue of Liberty pedestal.

Oh, you mean this statement of yours:

But FDR dismissed this sentiment when he turned away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

You were referring, I presume, to the palaver surrounding the MS St. Louis in May-June 1939? The passengers on that vessel actually had applications pending with the US government; they were trying to get to Cuba in the hopes of waiting there for their applications to be approved. Insofar as they were "turned away" by the US, it was temporarily. That was arguably the wrong move at the time, but there's a lot of 20/20 hindsight involved there, since at the time, the invasions of Poland and western Europe had not yet taken place. And besides, it's not like the FDR administration was the only one to come out of that affair with egg on its face. For starters, Cuba was the country the St. Louis was originally bound for. And the 76th Congress had just shot down the "Wagner-Rogers Bill" a few months earlier.

Moreover, note that a single incident in which a group of German Jews were temporarily turned away does not constitute evidence that that was federal immigration policy at the time. There are thousands of examples of German Jews who emigrated to the United States between March 1933 and December 1941, including Kurt Weill, Henry Kissinger, Max "Dr. Feelgood" Jacobson, Hannah Ahrendt, Otto Klemperer and Alfred Einstein (note: Alfred, not Albert), plus some 1,400 unaccompanied children.

So, once again, you've cited an example in which you presented half the story, and then presented this distorted view as being representative of something larger.

For my part, I note you've neglected to answer a few of my questions as well, such as whether you consider yourself a "constructionist" on matters of the Constitution, and if so, how you marry this with an attitude of "times have changed"; and how you think illegal immigrants manage to avoid paying sales tax.