Senate resuscitates immigration bill

[GaryC 7]

I don't think that analogy helps as much as you think. Presumably you wouldn't think it fair if after 30 years of being an upstanding citizen, the police decided to prosecute you for a thirty-year-old drunk driving offense. And if it turns out that means you were a felon all this time, it would seem wrong for the local government to claim your house and everything else based on the fact that a felon drunk like you had no right to the jobs you've held and the money you've made.

Exactly.

What is the statute of limitations for most non-violent crimes? 10 years or less in most states? In Texas, it's 5 years for theft, burglary and kidnapping.

Stubborn ideologues who have no reasonable concept of law preaching about lawfulness...oye!

statute of limitation.....they are breaking the law everyday!

Is that a legal opinion or just yours?

For the hundredth time.

§ 1325. Improper entry by alien

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

Any alien who

(1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or

(2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or

(3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...25----000-.html

To be here legally you need to be inspected. Eluding that inspection is a crime. For every day you are not inspected you are eluding it. That is a crime every day. Not to mention that working without EAD is also a crime. Not to mention that evading Income tax, medicare tax and SS tax is also a crime. Many of them use false ID's. That is a crime. Many of them use stolen ID's. That is a crime. Your hiding your head in the sand to think that the only crime was sneaking across the border.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

erekose, please tell me if you now agree that illegal aliens are daily breaking the law. If not please let me know your reasoning.

The 'act' of becoming an illegal immigrant is undocumented border entry or visa overstay. To break that specific law everyday - would a person not need to go back and forth across the border on a daily basis. Surely?

BTW - I'm aware that there are secondary issues pertaining to being undocumented. But those are separate offenses - like driving without a license or insurance and stopping off on the way to shoplift at a gas-station.

It's really fruitless with trying to get these ideologues to understand law and criminality. You know where they're being fed these myopic interpretations of law from? Not from legal experts, that's for sure.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Steven_and_Jinky

[mawilson 2,133]

Gary, you don't want to know which 30-year-old behavior (illegal border crossing or drunk driving) your average American would probably rather see prosecuted. Only on of those things was criminal and only one endangered lives of innocent people.

I imagine most people would be ok with drunk driving...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I don't think that analogy helps as much as you think. Presumably you wouldn't think it fair if after 30 years of being an upstanding citizen, the police decided to prosecute you for a thirty-year-old drunk driving offense. And if it turns out that means you were a felon all this time, it would seem wrong for the local government to claim your house and everything else based on the fact that a felon drunk like you had no right to the jobs you've held and the money you've made.

Exactly.

What is the statute of limitations for most non-violent crimes? 10 years or less in most states? In Texas, it's 5 years for theft, burglary and kidnapping.

Stubborn ideologues who have no reasonable concept of law preaching about lawfulness...oye!

statute of limitation.....they are breaking the law everyday!

Is that a legal opinion or just yours?

For the hundredth time.

§ 1325. Improper entry by alien

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

Any alien who

(1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or

(2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or

(3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...25----000-.html

To be here legally you need to be inspected. Eluding that inspection is a crime. For every day you are not inspected you are eluding it. That is a crime every day. Not to mention that working without EAD is also a crime. Not to mention that evading Income tax, medicare tax and SS tax is also a crime. Many of them use false ID's. That is a crime. Many of them use stolen ID's. That is a crime. Your hiding your head in the sand to think that the only crime was sneaking across the border.

Gary, the part in red is your opinion, right? Find me a legal opinion - an interpretation other than your own over how that law applies with the statute of limitations and then we'll talk.

[smoke20 0]

Is that a legal opinion or just yours?

its a fact- yesterday was 6/26 they were breaking the law, today is 6/27 they are breaking the law, tomorrow is 6/28 they will be breaking the law.

the term illegal immigrant says it all.

[Dan J 277]

Same could be said about unskilled worker visas. If we had them in 1986, there would have been a legal way for those 12 million people to get here.

We don't need unskilled worker visas. There are plenty of unskilled people in the US who are US citizens.

Then all the illegal aliens should be out of work right?

Wrong. Illegal aliens are willing to work for less, driving down the wages for everyone else.

If the option of hiring illegals wasn't available, businesses would have to pay more for the same jobs,

and everyone would be better off - even if we had to pay 10c more for our carrots.

Thats only looking at a very direct impact on a small portion of the economy. Illegal immigrants may take many of the unskilled jobs, but they do indirectly create more skilled jobs in other parts of the economy. Everyone, legal or illegal is a consumer in this economy. Buying goods and services from companies create jobs within those companies. So more consumers means higher sales and the need for more workers in other parts of the economy.

Lets say a meat packing plant opens up on a town. And they hire mostly illegal immigrants. That will increase the number of consumers in that area, increasing the need for goods and services at local business. Which in turn will need to hire more people to supply those products and services. Which then will need more Managers to manage all the new people. There will be an increase in other support services such as IT, which creates more work for those in other fields.

Now lets say the meat packing plant fires all its illegal employees. A vacuum at the bottom is created. People in higher level jobs will no longer be needed due to the decrease in consumerism. and the only job openings, are well, at the meat packing plant.

[Boiler 48,098]

So if you are an Undocumented American you can avoid deportation by pointing out that the statute of limitations has run out on your initial offence?

An interesting concept.

Not one that I have heard of being argued before.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Boiler

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Sure buddy. With people like you, lawyers and judges would be obsolete.

Whoa...smoke20...be sure to use the quote tags correctly...it's all jacked up.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Steven_and_Jinky

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So if you are an Undocumented American you can avoid deportation by pointing out that the statute of limitations has run out on your initial offence?

An interesting concept.

Not one that I have heard of being argued before.

I'm not using it as a direct argument per se. But these stubborn ideologues keep bringing up the issue of legality and crime as if, one, they have a reasonable, legal understanding of law, and two, as if crime and punishment is an open and shut case.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

As I said – if you’ve been here a long time and have significant family and property ties to the US, I can see a reasonable argument for legitimacy. How many people fall into those categories though is anyone’s guess.

[mawilson 2,133]

So if you are an Undocumented American you can avoid deportation by pointing out that the statute of limitations has run out on your initial offence?

An interesting concept.

Not one that I have heard of being argued before.

I'm not using it as a direct argument per se. But these stubborn ideologues keep bringing up the issue of legality and crime as if, one, they have a reasonable, legal understanding of law, and two, as if crime and punishment is an open and shut case.

Steven, with all due respect - if an illegal alien is caught, they are usually deported.

Illegal entry/presence is a punishable offense - you don't need a legal opinion to establish that.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

To all those stubborn ideologues and their self righteous attitudes about law...

By Mae M. Ngai

...

Before 1891 there were no provisions in our immigration laws to deport an immigrant who entered without permission. (Indeed, hardly any requirements for admission existed.) Thereafter, Congress enacted statutes of limitations of one to five years for deportable offenses. This policy recognized an important reality about illegal immigrants: They settle, raise families and acquire property -- in other words, they become part of the nation's economic and social fabric. In the first decades of the 20th century, it was considered unconscionable to expel such people. Judge Learned Hand of New York said that deportation, especially when it tore people from their homes and families, was "barbarous and cruel."

After World War I a conservative Congress imposed both quantitative (numerical ceilings) and qualitative (national origin and racial) restrictions on immigration, ending the storied era of open immigration from Europe. And in a fit of hyper-nationalist vengeance it also eliminated the statute of limitations on unlawful entry.

We have long since repudiated the national origins quota system as a racist policy. But we have remained committed to numerical restrictions and to expelling undocumented immigrants, regardless of their length of stay, the contributions they make and the social ties that they establish. The few reforms that were made over the years, which allowed for suspending deportation in hardship cases or according to a balance of equities, were virtually eliminated by Congress in 1996.

Critics oppose legalizing undocumented immigrants on the grounds that it rewards bad behavior. This concern is, again, at the center of debate over the Kennedy-McCain bill. Yet, we should consider that nearly all offenses, civil and criminal, carry statutes of limitations. Time limits provide an incentive for plaintiffs to bring suit promptly. It is not the best use of the government's resources to pursue old cases in which the evidence is stale or difficult to obtain. The benefits of prosecution often diminish with time, as the offender has often reformed. Limiting the time of possible prosecution also thwarts the potential for blackmail by a third party that knows of the offense. (This is essentially how employers abuse undocumented workers.) Finally, the passage of time brings with it the need for closure. The U.S. Supreme Court recently explained: "The statute of limitations establishes a deadline after which the defendant may legitimately have peace of mind." Only the most serious crimes, such as kidnapping and murder, carry no statutes of limitations.

A statute of limitations on unlawful entry is therefore not anachronistic but consistent with basic legal and moral principles. It does not condone or reward illegal immigration: Unauthorized presence would remain a violation of the law and continue to carry the risk of apprehension and removal, at least for some period of time. But it would allow us to recognize that the undocumented become, for better or worse, members of the community, and to accept them as such.

Restoring the statute of limitations would not solve our immigration problems. But it would go a long way toward stemming the accretion of a caste population that is easily exploitable and lives forever outside the polity.

The writer teaches history at the University of Chicago. She is the author of "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5061301460.html

[Dan J 277]

I don't think that analogy helps as much as you think. Presumably you wouldn't think it fair if after 30 years of being an upstanding citizen, the police decided to prosecute you for a thirty-year-old drunk driving offense. And if it turns out that means you were a felon all this time, it would seem wrong for the local government to claim your house and everything else based on the fact that a felon drunk like you had no right to the jobs you've held and the money you've made.

Exactly.

What is the statute of limitations for most non-violent crimes? 10 years or less in most states? In Texas, it's 5 years for theft, burglary and kidnapping.

Stubborn ideologues who have no reasonable concept of law preaching about lawfulness...oye!

statute of limitation.....they are breaking the law everyday!

Is that a legal opinion or just yours?

For the hundredth time.

§ 1325. Improper entry by alien

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

Any alien who

(1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or

(2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or

(3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/usc...25----000-.html

To be here legally you need to be inspected. Eluding that inspection is a crime. For every day you are not inspected you are eluding it. That is a crime every day. Not to mention that working without EAD is also a crime. Not to mention that evading Income tax, medicare tax and SS tax is also a crime. Many of them use false ID's. That is a crime. Many of them use stolen ID's. That is a crime. Your hiding your head in the sand to think that the only crime was sneaking across the border.

The question is not what the law says, but how the courts interpret and apply it. Which may not be how you think it should be. The way I see that law, all the clauses only apply when you enter. Some people do enter illegally through a real PoE, and may stay hidden as to not be examined or inspected by immigration officers.

But generally, you can only commit a crime once. You don't commit a new crime, just because your immigration status is illegal.

Lets say you Gary decide to murder someone and you run from the law. Do you get another murder count against you for every day you stay out of jail?

[smoke20 0]

Sure buddy. With people like you, lawyers and judges would be obsolete.

Whoa...smoke20...be sure to use the quote tags correctly...it's all jacked up.

still waiting for an explaination of the "people like you" comment. do you mean people that don't use a thesaurus to try sound more intellegent? what are you saying steven? you're not trying to start w/ personal insults now are you?

[Alex+R 0]

Sure buddy. With people like you, lawyers and judges would be obsolete.

Whoa...smoke20...be sure to use the quote tags correctly...it's all jacked up.

still waiting for an explaination of the "people like you" comment. do you mean people that don't use a thesaurus to try sound more intellegent? what are you saying steven? you're not trying to start w/ personal insults now are you?

Thesaurus? Wha?