I was in Arizona and Southern California recently to visit family. I was driving on Interstate 8 from just south of Phoenix to San Diego. In the course of that trip, I encountered three checkpoints on the interstate highway that stopped every car and checked every vehicle to some degree. The folks staffing the checkpoints were Border Patrol officers. They were looking for illegal aliens. I was driving a pick-up truck with a canopy top with windows. They could see inside the cab or in the back if they bothered to look, but they didn’t. They didn’t say anything as I approached the checkpoint other than “Have a nice day.”
There was major man-power at each of these checkpoints looking for illegal aliens.
There have been stories told about border patrol checkpoints on US Highway 101 near Forks in our state; Immigration authorities looking for illegal aliens.
Are they looking for anything else? Can they search my vehicle without my consent?
If they find a stash of cash in a vehicle will they detain a driver and vehicle? Do they interact with state or local law enforcement agencies if they find criminals other than those immigration related?
So what tools do these folks use to identify illegal aliens? What does an illegal alien look like?
Eugene Robinson’s column in Tuesday’s Everett Herald characterized the Arizona immigration law as “draconian” and “abomination”. It was “racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean spirited and unjust.” Robinson said that the only good thing about it was the fact that its excessiveness may well make it unconstitutional.
As I understand it, the Arizona law requires that in the course of investigating a police related matter, participants are required to show adequate identification to establish legal residency in the state or country.
If the border patrol stops a car in Phoenix looking for illegal aliens, aren’t they looking for Mexicans? The border patrol doesn’t need probable cause to stop you, do they?
As a business owner, I am required to gather information from prospective employees that establish their citizenship or right to work if they are not citizens. If they don’t have proper documents, I cannot hire them. I am subject to penalties if I fail to secure those documents before hiring anyone.
There is a Department of Motor Vehicles in every state that collects a fee from every applicant that can pass a test, even when the test has to be given a foreign language, issues a license to drive a car without proof of insurance and is not subject to the same requirements I am as a private business owner to demand proof of citizenship or right to be in the country legally before receiving a license. And for those folks that are not citizens, they receive the same license that I do. Why don’t we have a provisional license for aliens?
I, as a private business owner may be subject to civil or criminal penalty for not doing the job we would expect the government to do.
Why is it that the police are “racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean spirited and unjust” if they demand that proof of citizenship but before I give a person a job or rent him a place to live I am required to do so?
I don’t believe we need a national identification card, but we do need state identity systems that talk to each other and have common standards that make the information easy to share.
We need a system that is at least as effective as other government programs that shoulders the burden of establishing legal residency rather than punishing private business owners. For public agencies that render services paid with public dollars, we need to tie provision of services to only citizens with that state ID card. Schools, medical services and social services are examples.
As an employer or landlord, presentation of a state card should adequately establish legal right to work or rent.
Posted on April 27, 2010 at 8:23 pm in Partisan Politics, Political commentary, Steve Dana Issues | RSS feed
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No Loss for Words
What does an Illegal Alien look like?
by Steve DanaI was in Arizona and Southern California recently to visit family. I was driving on Interstate 8 from just south of Phoenix to San Diego. In the course of that trip, I encountered three checkpoints on the interstate highway that stopped every car and checked every vehicle to some degree. The folks staffing the checkpoints were Border Patrol officers. They were looking for illegal aliens. I was driving a pick-up truck with a canopy top with windows. They could see inside the cab or in the back if they bothered to look, but they didn’t. They didn’t say anything as I approached the checkpoint other than “Have a nice day.”
There was major man-power at each of these checkpoints looking for illegal aliens.
There have been stories told about border patrol checkpoints on US Highway 101 near Forks in our state; Immigration authorities looking for illegal aliens.
Are they looking for anything else? Can they search my vehicle without my consent?
If they find a stash of cash in a vehicle will they detain a driver and vehicle? Do they interact with state or local law enforcement agencies if they find criminals other than those immigration related?
So what tools do these folks use to identify illegal aliens? What does an illegal alien look like?
Eugene Robinson’s column in Tuesday’s Everett Herald characterized the Arizona immigration law as “draconian” and “abomination”. It was “racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean spirited and unjust.” Robinson said that the only good thing about it was the fact that its excessiveness may well make it unconstitutional.
As I understand it, the Arizona law requires that in the course of investigating a police related matter, participants are required to show adequate identification to establish legal residency in the state or country.
If the border patrol stops a car in Phoenix looking for illegal aliens, aren’t they looking for Mexicans? The border patrol doesn’t need probable cause to stop you, do they?
As a business owner, I am required to gather information from prospective employees that establish their citizenship or right to work if they are not citizens. If they don’t have proper documents, I cannot hire them. I am subject to penalties if I fail to secure those documents before hiring anyone.
There is a Department of Motor Vehicles in every state that collects a fee from every applicant that can pass a test, even when the test has to be given a foreign language, issues a license to drive a car without proof of insurance and is not subject to the same requirements I am as a private business owner to demand proof of citizenship or right to be in the country legally before receiving a license. And for those folks that are not citizens, they receive the same license that I do. Why don’t we have a provisional license for aliens?
I, as a private business owner may be subject to civil or criminal penalty for not doing the job we would expect the government to do.
Why is it that the police are “racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean spirited and unjust” if they demand that proof of citizenship but before I give a person a job or rent him a place to live I am required to do so?
I don’t believe we need a national identification card, but we do need state identity systems that talk to each other and have common standards that make the information easy to share.
We need a system that is at least as effective as other government programs that shoulders the burden of establishing legal residency rather than punishing private business owners. For public agencies that render services paid with public dollars, we need to tie provision of services to only citizens with that state ID card. Schools, medical services and social services are examples.
As an employer or landlord, presentation of a state card should adequately establish legal right to work or rent.
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Posted on April 27, 2010 at 8:23 pm in Partisan Politics, Political commentary, Steve Dana Issues | RSS feed | Reply | Trackback URL
2 Comments to “What does an Illegal Alien look like?”
May 12, 2010 at 9:35 am
The interesting about your article, and point of view is that you are obviously not latino,asian, african american or any other ethnicity defined as an ethnic minority. The fact that your truck was not stopped and that you were not asked to provide proof of residency speaks volumes to the racist tone of the law. What does an illegal alien look like? This is the issue. You believe that an illegal alien is defined by the color of skin. If this were not the case why would not the term illegal alien not also speak to the numbers of Germans, English or western Europeans that live illegally in this country? Well I will tell you why. It is because they look like you and therefore could not possibly perceived as a threat. Until we call the law what it is and understand that racism is racism we will continue our downward spiral as a country.
May 12, 2010 at 2:51 pm
The point of my piece was to compare the obvious profiling done by the Border Patrol INS forces looking for hispanics to other government agencies that refuse to profile. The INS is clearly looking for hispanics. If you are looking for Mexicans crossing the border illegally, how would you do it? What other tool do they have to work with? Or don’t you care if there are people in our country illegally? If you get stopped for a traffic violation and they determine there is a warrant for your arrest for non-payment of traffic fines, they arrest you and hold you. If in the course of checking your ID the cop discovers that you are an illegal alien, you should be deported, regardless of your country of origin. The federal government should be enforcing the law for every illegal alien!
What would you do to insure that folks who are in our country are here legitimately? How would you deal with the issue of schools and medical clinics that are overburdened because of undocumented foreigners?
I’m not sure that I would call it racism by wanting immigrants to be here legally. Statistically, the number of illegal aliens in the US from Hispanic countries outnumbers all others combined by a factor of 10. It is not unreasonable to believe that an illegal alien looks hispanic. The trouble is that there are so many hispanics that are not here illegally it does create a conflict.
Most of the citizens of the US want our country to be a country that respects the law. Immigrants that come here legally list that as one of the reasons they came here. Ignoring immigration laws is not the solution.
If voters in the US decide they want open borders, they can elect representatives that can change the laws. Until they do, the responsibility to enforce the law falls to every public agency that is funded by public tax dollars regardless of the uncomfortability.
Legal immigrants to the US are not put off by having to produce proof of legal residency.