arizona state senate oks arrests of immigrant trespassers.....

[AR182]

i don't think gov. napolitano will sign this bill....
i also think the bill is pandering to the voters of az who are pissed off at the attitude of the illegals.....

Bill sent to governor

Casey Newton
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 13, 2006 12:00 AM


State lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow the arrest and prosecution of undocumented immigrants under Arizona's trespassing law, saying the move would deter immigrants from entering the country illegally.

The House and Senate gave final approval to Senate Bill 1157 and sent it to the governor, just two days after undocumented immigrants joined thousands of supporters at the Capitol seeking recognition of their contributions to American society.

The bill won passage after sponsors agreed to charge first offenders with a misdemeanor, not a felony as the bill had originally been written. advertisement


"This is common-sense legislation," said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, shortly before the House voted 33-27 to pass the bill. "It's about time we started standing up for the legal residents, the legal citizens of the United States and enforce our laws (and) protect our neighborhoods."

Gov. Janet Napolitano has hinted that she will veto measures that criminalize undocumented immigrants' presence in the United States. On Wednesday, she criticized a proposed federal measure.

"To convert 11 million people into felons automatically, I think, is not wise," Napolitano said, referring to a U.S. House of Representatives bill similar to the original version of SB 1157. "There should be felonies associated with illegal immigration, but they should be focused on the people who are making money off of this human misery: the human traffickers, the smugglers, the money launderers that are involved in this. Those folks really deserve the full brunt of the law."

Even if the governor signs the measure, it faces an uncertain future. Its constitutionality has been called into question, and at least one group of Latino advocates has promised to challenge the measure if it becomes law. The group, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has noted that a state judge last year rejected a similar attempt to arrest undocumented immigrants as trespassers in New Hampshire.

In that case, the court dismissed charges against the eight Latino immigrants and ruled that immigration enforcement is the sole domain of the federal government.

Key provisions of the Arizona bill would:


? Make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for immigrants to enter Arizona illegally. After the first offense, undocumented immigrants could be charged with felonies.


? Empower local law enforcement officials to question the immigration status of anyone they have lawfully detained.


? Establish a fingerprint database for those charged under the new law, which supporters say would help in tracking human smugglers and drug dealers.

Napolitano could act on the bill as soon as today.


Police officials' view
The Governor's Office would not comment on the bill directly Wednesday but released 28 pages of letters from law enforcement officials asking her to veto it.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said the bill would "unconscionably drain significant resources needed to protect public safety."

"Making prosecution of trespassing cases a higher priority than the prosecution of serious, violent crimes that are directly impacting victims is a serious mistake," LaWall wrote to the governor.

Pearce countered by saying that police officers ask him "every day" to pass a bill like SB 1157.

During floor debate, Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu, said police in his district are "waiting with bated breath to enforce it."

Six Republicans voted against the measure anyway, saying its provisions would be difficult to implement.

"I think it's totally unworkable," said Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale, who called the bill a "feel good" measure.

Dale Norris, director of the 7,000-member Arizona Police Association, agreed.

"You've now just created half a million criminals in the state," said Norris, whose membership includes about 2,000 Border Patrol agents. "Where are the officers going to come from to enforce that law? Because if my officer is now spending an hour, two hours, three hours putting that person in jail, who replaces him when a citizen needs help?"


Political dimension
Critics dismissed the Legislature's move as an election-year bid to make Napolitano look weak on immigration issues.

"I think it's easily discernible as political showboating," said Alfredo Gutierrez, a former lawmaker who helped organized this week's march.

If Napolitano vetoes the bill, it could cost her support from the strong majority of Arizonans clamoring for more secure borders. At the same time, it might help her with the Hispanic voters she alienated when she came out in support of placing National Guard troops at the border.

As written originally, the bill would have made entering the country illegally a felony on the first offense, a provision that helped spur more than 100,000 people to march on the Capitol in protest on Monday.

The bill's sponsor in the Senate, Paradise Valley Republican Barbara Leff, later agreed to make the first offense a misdemeanor to help win enough votes for the bill to pass.

Even in its current state, the bill's passage would have important symbolic value, a majority of lawmakers said.

"This continues to send an important message to Congress that we want something done," said Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa.

Rep. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, disagreed.

"It is a piecemeal approach that sends the wrong message to our Hispanic community," Gallardo wrote in a letter protesting the final version of the bill. "We need border security, employer sanctions and a guest-worker program. This bill does not address any of these pressing issues."

 

[kosar]

"It is a piecemeal approach that sends the wrong message to our Hispanic community," Gallardo wrote in a letter protesting the final version of the bill. "We need border security, employer sanctions and a guest-worker program. This bill does not address any of these pressing issues."

I agree with the above. Honestly, I really don't think there is anything we can do about illegals that are already in the states. We need to come up with a rational plan to naturalize them.

People like Dr. Freeze call it an invasion, as if all 12-14 million 'invaders' just got here last week. I'll give people like him the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't realize before that there are tons of illegals here and have been living here for oh so many years.

Funny thing about those Freeze types of people. I have seen not one comment chastising the businesses that draw the illegals here. Why not? Why isn't there a big outcry about the companies that save on taxes (pay none in most cases), wages (pay half)? Why?

If there were not tens or hundreds of thousands of businesses 'needing' these people, then there would be little incentive to come here. Well, there really would be no incentive.

As far as the Frist house bill goes, well, I don't think making clergy, social workers..etc...felons for helping illegals is the answer.

 

[StevieD]

I think the first thing should be to secure the borders and not allow them to continue to come in. We can deal with the ones who are already here later in a reasonable and cost effective way. Not just something to secure a few votes and cost a fortune.

 

[smurphy]

Funny thing about those Freeze types of people. I have seen not one comment chastising the businesses that draw the illegals here. Why not? Why isn't there a big outcry about the companies that save on taxes (pay none in most cases), wages (pay half)? Why?

Because then they would actually face the hypocracy of being anti-illegal and anti-wage/benefits simultaneaoulsy.

The blame lies 100% with our border policy and the rampant abuse of businesses taking advantage of this cheap labor source.

If I was a Mexican living in poverty, I'd break the law and do everything to get here too. I don't blame the actual illegals for doing what they can to get where the opportunities are. But we should be doing a better job of stopping them and punishing the business that take advantage.

Seal the border, punish the businesses, raise minimum wage, then filter in legally whatever jobs are still unfilled.

 

[AR182]

i agree with most of what you guys are saying.....

the border has to be sealed......i like the idea of a wall.....i'm even willing to pay a special tax to get this built.....

we are a country of laws.....

it is against the law to hire illegals.....companies that hire illegals should be fined a certain amount per illegal.....no matter the company.....these companies hiring illegals & paying them below minimum wage so that these companies can have a higher profit margin is appaling....

kosar.....i disagree with you about not doing anything to people who are defying our laws.....& some of them are even bragging about it....ie...the priest in l.a. is a perfect example of this....... we all have to follow the law including priests, social workers & everybody else who is acting against the law.....we have anarchy if people don't follow the law.....

i heard that there are people from other countries who have been waiting for many years to become a citizen.....it's not right that illegals from mexico getting are special treatment....

my wife had to follow the necessary steps to become a citizen...no reason why others can't....

once the borders are sealed....i would then round up whoever i can & deport them asap.....then tell them that they have to follow our laws & apply for citizenship the right way.....

there are many people who are vocal about giving these illegals citizenship & other benefits.....but i believe they are in the minority & most don't vote.....the voting majority want a strong immigration policy.....& if these asses in gov't. fail to listen to the people...they will be voted out of office (except of course kennedy...he never will be voted out of office)....there will be a very large turnover in gov't....

 

[AR182]

here is something that i think is promising...

April 14, 2006

Path to Deportation Can Start With a Traffic Stop

By PAUL VITELLO
While lawmakers in Washington debate whether to forgive illegal immigrants their trespasses, a small but increasing number of local and state law enforcement officials are taking it upon themselves to pursue deportation cases against people who are here illegally.

In more than a dozen jurisdictions, officials have invoked a little-used 1996 federal law to seek special federal training in immigration enforcement for their officers.

In other places, the local authorities are flagging some illegal immigrants who are caught up in the criminal justice system, sometimes for minor offenses, and are alerting immigration officials to their illegal status so that they can be deported.

In Costa Mesa, Calif., for example, in Orange County, the City Council last year shut down a day laborer job center that had operated for 17 years, and this year authorized its Police Department to begin training officers to pursue illegal immigrants ? a job previously left to federal agents.

In Suffolk County, on Long Island, where a similar police training proposal was met with angry protests in 2004, county officials have quietly put a system in place that uses sheriff's deputies to flag illegal immigrants in the county jail population.

In Putnam County, N.Y., about 50 miles north of Manhattan, eight illegal immigrants who were playing soccer in a school ball field were arrested on Jan. 9 for trespassing and held for the immigration authorities.

As an example of the uneven results that sometimes occur in such cross-hatches of local and federal law enforcement, the seven immigrants who were able to make bail before those agents arrived went free. The one who could not make bail in time, a 33-year-old roofer and father of five, has been in federal detention in Pennsylvania ever since.

"I took an oath to protect the people of this county, and that means enforcing the laws of the land," said Donald B. Smith, the Putnam County sheriff. "We have a situation in our country where our borders are not being adequately protected, and that leaves law enforcement people like us in a very difficult situation."

Other local law enforcement officials expressed similar frustration at the apparent inability of the federal government to stem the rise in illegal immigration. It is a frustration they say has been growing in the last few years, and is now reaching a point of crisis.

During that time, a number of coinciding trends may have added to the sense that there has been a breach in the covenant between the local and federal authorities, according to interviews with immigration officials, police and advocates. These trends include a housing boom that attracted growing numbers of illegal workers, especially to distant suburbs and exurbs, where federal resources are especially thin; an apparent stagnation in the size of the federal immigration police force, which has remained at about 2,000 for several years; and increasing local opposition to illegal immigration, again, especially in the suburbs.

George A. Terezakis, a Long Island immigration lawyer, said that in his practice, he had seen a trend. "The heat is definitely getting turned up. Not just on criminals, but against people I would consider charged with relatively minor offenses: Having an invalid driver's license, a fake Social Security card. A person with a job and a family can end up sitting in jail for months, and then being deported."

Federal statistics do not measure the number of immigration arrests and deportations that occur because of local intervention. Officials with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the roughly 160,000 illegal immigrants deported last year represented a 10 percent increase over the year before ? and a national record ? but they could not say how many had been referred by the local authorities.

Until fairly recently, it was viewed as inappropriate, even unconstitutional, for the local or state authorities to be involved in the enforcement of federal law. In Los Angeles, the police still operate under an internal rule that says "undocumented alien status is not a matter for police enforcement." Similar policies apply in San Francisco and New York City.

But that may be changing, partly because the local authorities have decided to play a more active role and partly because of an unabashed call from the federal government seeking help from states and localities.

"The untold story of immigration law is that there are just not enough federal immigration officers to enforce the immigration laws we have," said Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who as a counsel in the Justice Department worked on several cooperative agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies.

"The only way our programs can work is with help from local law enforcement, and we're expecting to see that happening more and more," he said.

To make that happen, law enforcement officials have increasingly been looking to a federal statute, the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act. It allows the local and state authorities to reach agreements with the federal immigration and customs agency to train their officers ? in a four-week crash course ? to be virtual immigration agents, able to conduct citizenship investigations and begin deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants.

The law went nearly untried in its first five years on the books. Then Florida had 60 state agents and highway officers trained in 2002, and Alabama did the same for about 40 state troopers in 2003. In the next two years, the Arizona corrections department and the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties in California each had a few dozen officers trained.

Indicating a new sense of urgency, though, 11 additional state and county jurisdictions have applied to enter the program in the past year alone, according to a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Michael W. Gilhooly. He would not specify which they were, but public officials in Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona and about a dozen additional counties in California, Texas and North Carolina have publicly expressed interest in the program.

Local officials involved in these initiatives say they are mainly targeting hardened criminals in the immigrant population ? people like gang members and sexual predators who have been the recent target of sweeps by federal immigration agents.

But many of those affected by the new home-grown vigilance are immigrants arrested for minor traffic violations, or charged with unlicensed driving, possession of forged green cards and other offenses that are virtually synonymous with the undocumented life, say immigrant advocates and lawyers.

In Springfield, Mo., for example, a furor erupted recently when a star player on the high school soccer team, Tobias Zuniga, was arrested and jailed after a routine traffic stop because he admitted to the officer that he was an illegal immigrant. Officers at the Christian County Jail notified immigration agents, and Mr. Zuniga, an 18-year-old senior, was held for a weekend before being released on bail.

"He was stopped for having excessively tinted windows," Tom Parker, the father of a friend and classmate of Mr. Zuniga, said in a telephone interview. "And he spent three nights in jail with drug dealers." Mr. Zuniga faces deportation hearings this month.

 

[AR182]

Federal immigration officials, however, maintain that the vast majority of illegal immigrants detained and deported are people convicted or charged with serious crimes. There are simply not enough immigration agents to respond every time a suspected illegal immigrant is arrested for driving with an invalid license, said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Daniel W. Beck, the sheriff of Allen County, Ohio, 100 miles northwest of Columbus, said calling immigration agents is no guarantee of action.

"When people drive without licenses, when they are in this country illegally, it's really a right and wrong issue. I will arrest them," Mr. Beck said. "Unfortunately, by the time a federal agent gets here, they are sometimes already bailed out of jail."

But Marianne Yang, director of the Immigrant Defense Project of the New York State Defenders Association, a lawyers' group, said a recurring problem for immigrants, legal and illegal, is the high bail set for them if they are arrested, no matter how minor the crime.

"What we see in the increasing collaboration between local authorities and I.C.E. is situations where a person would normally be released in his own recognizance, and instead is held on high bail," she said of the agreements with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The arrests of the men playing soccer in Putnam County in January might illustrate that phenomenon. Sheriff's deputies went there in response to a complaint about safety by the administrator of the elementary school, which was in session as the men played.

Mr. Smith, the Putnam sheriff, said deputies arrested the men that day only after they refused the school administrator's request for them to leave. They were charged with criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor, and a Brewster village judge set bail at $1,000 for seven of the eight. Bail for the eighth man, Juan Jimeniz, a roofer, was set at $3,000 because he was not able to provide his home address.

Mr. Smith said federal immigration agents were called to the jail because deputies suspected the men were illegal immigrants and "because we are trying to uphold the law for the citizens of this county."

When they arrived, seven of the men had made bail and Mr. Jimeniz, who was not able to pay his bail, was taken by the immigration agents to a federal detention wing of the Pike County Jail in Hawley, Pa., where he has remained since, fighting deportation.

"He has no criminal record," said Vanessa Merton, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Pace University Law School, which represents Mr. Jimeniz. "He is a roofer. He is supporting five children."

"There is no way you could describe his detention as anything but haphazard, random and completely arbitrary," she said.

Mr. Kobach, the former Justice Department official, said "unevenness has been endemic to the nature of immigration enforcement in recent years."

But efforts by local and state authorities to pursue illegal immigrants, he said, are at least in part, "an effort to deal with that unevenness."

 

[moe777]

i agree with most of what you guys are saying.....

the border has to be sealed......i like the idea of a wall.....i'm even willing to pay a special tax to get this built.....

we are a country of laws.....

it is against the law to hire illegals.....companies that hire illegals should be fined a certain amount per illegal.....no matter the company.....these companies hiring illegals & paying them below minimum wage so that these companies can have a higher profit margin is appaling....

kosar.....i disagree with you about not doing anything to people who are defying our laws.....& some of them are even bragging about it....ie...the priest in l.a. is a perfect example of this....... we all have to follow the law including priests, social workers & everybody else who is acting against the law.....we have anarchy if people don't follow the law.....

i heard that there are people from other countries who have been waiting for many years to become a citizen.....it's not right that illegals from mexico getting are special treatment....

my wife had to follow the necessary steps to become a citizen...no reason why others can't....

once the borders are sealed....i would then round up whoever i can & deport them asap.....then tell them that they have to follow our laws & apply for citizenship the right way.....

there are many people who are vocal about giving these illegals citizenship & other benefits.....but i believe they are in the minority & most don't vote.....the voting majority want a strong immigration policy.....& if these asses in gov't. fail to listen to the people...they will be voted out of office (except of course kennedy...he never will be voted out of office)....there will be a very large turnover in gov't....

here in the tri state area ,i know quite a few bussiness owners and am one myself,not one of these illegal workers make less than minimum wage.in construction or landscaping the 50 or so mexicans at one pickup spot get no less than $8 an hour,and the good ones get $10.the ones that work n the resturants start at $6,and with some experince make between 7 -10 an hour.the days of paying $5 an hour are long gone around here.

 

[AR182]

here in the tri state area ,i know quite a few bussiness owners and am one myself,not one of these illegal workers make less than minimum wage.in construction or landscaping the 50 or so mexicans at one pickup spot get no less than $8 an hour,and the good ones get $10.the ones that work n the resturants start at $6,and with some experince make between 7 -10 an hour.the days of paying $5 an hour are long gone around here.

moe....

first i'm surprised that contractors in the tri-state area are hiring illegals....

i have friends who worked in the construction field in nyc & as an ins. broker i wrote a fair share of policies for contractors who did business in nyc & found that the unions/mob controlled who was to be hired.....there would have been a lot of problems with a company if they hired non-union people.....

i listened to smurphy (he is very wise) & have watched lou dobbs whenever i get the chance.....

here is a transcript of yesterday's show about the effects of hiring illegals in the construction field & other fields...


DOBBS: The abundance of cheap foreign labor in this country right now is pushing wages lower for millions of middle class working Americans. Despite President Bush's insistence that our economy is robust, wages for highly-skilled middle class workers are falling across the country as the White House, big business and assorted special interests pursue cheap labor agendas.

Bill Tucker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The stories are many, willing employers in need of willing employees. But if labor is tight, shouldn't wages rise? They're not.

A recently completed technical study, in fact, found just the opposite in high-tech fields. Starting salaries adjusted for inflation of computer engineers with masters led the fall, down 14 percent over the last five years. Electrical engineers and computer scientists fared only slightly better.

JOHN MIANO, PROGRAMMERS GUILD: We have a huge influx of low-wage workers coming into the technology fields which are holding back wages and which are causing employment problems for U.S. workers.

TUCKER: The impact goes beyond wages. On online job sites, employers are very direct in specifying that they have jobs only for H1-B workers, going so far in some cases as to require that they be from a specific location.

If misery loves company, the engineers need look no further than the construction industry. Overall, construction wages last year were actually one penny lower than hourly wages in 1965, when the wages are compared using constant dollars. It was a finding that surprised even the researcher.

ALAN TONELSON, U.S. BUSINESS & INDUSTRY COUNCIL: I was struck by the fact that after this enormous housing boom that we've had, certainly since the late 1990s,** that wages in the -- in the construction industry, which, as we keep hearing is a major user of illegal immigrants, are no higher than they were 40 years ago.

TUCKER: A study done last year by the University of North Carolina found that the use of illegal aliens in the construction industry cut labor costs by a billion dollars in 2004. And wages in the hospitality industry have been similarly flat during the last five years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: It's very simple. A large labor pool, available labor pool is what keeps wages down. And it is worth remembering in this debate on immigration reform, what is of the keenest interest to corporate lobbyist is not your paycheck, but getting legislation that expands that available pool of labor -- Lou.

DOBBS: If these numbers aren't -- is just straightforward evidence to everyone in the United States Senate and the United States Congress about the direction of appropriate legislation, I can't imagine what would be. It is utterly unbelievable to me that these senators stood up Thursday last, a week ago, and said, you know, we're going to have great reform legislation here, and even said they had voter security. And yet not a dime was put into appropriations, into the budget process, asked for by this administration, which was talking about border security, not a dime for border security of any kind, not for the Border Patrol, not for Citizenship and Immigration Services, not for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


this doesn't affect me......but if it did it would get me sick !!

 

[gardenweasel]

I think the first thing should be to secure the borders and not allow them to continue to come in. We can deal with the ones who are already here later in a reasonable and cost effective way. Not just something to secure a few votes and cost a fortune.

stevie...we don`t agree very often...but,that was fricking brilliant....short..to the point.....not a word to few...or to many...common f-cking sense...

fricking sublime.....

you`d think that ONE congressman...on either side...would get it...

if the political will is to assimilate the ones that are here,fine...first,
shut off the water...fix the leaks...then hack out the details...



well said..

 

[AR182]

thought this was going to happen...the az. republicans are trying to show that napolitano is weak on immigration......

Ariz. Gov. Vetoes Criminal Immigrant Bill

Apr 18 11:08 AM US/Eastern



By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press Writer


Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have criminalized the presence of illegal immigrants in Arizona, citing opposition from police agencies that want immigration arrests to remain the responsibility of the federal government.

The proposal would have expanded the state's trespassing law to let local authorities arrest illegal immigrants anywhere in Arizona, the nation's busiest illegal entry point. Congress also had considered criminalizing the presence of illegal immigrants in the country.

In a letter to lawmakers, Napolitano said she opposes automatically turning all immigrants who sneaked into the state into criminals and that the bill provided no funding for the new duties.

"It is unfortunate that the Legislature has once again ignored the officials who are most directly affected by illegal immigration and instead has passed yet another bill that will have no effect on the problem but that will impose an unfunded burden on law enforcement," Napolitano wrote Monday.

Supporters said the bill would have given Arizona a chance to get a handle on its vast border problems by providing a second layer of enforcement to catch the tens of thousands of immigrants who slip past federal agents each year.

Republican Sen. Barbara Leff of Paradise Valley, who proposed the bill, said the governor has painted herself as tough on illegal immigration by declaring a state of emergency at Arizona's border, but has taken little action to back up her rhetoric.

"I don't think the governor wants to do anything about this problem," Leff said. She said the bill would have been a means to detain illegal immigrants until federal agents can pick them up.

The Democratic governor, accused by her Republican critics of being soft on immigration, has vetoed other immigration bills from the GOP- majority Legislature within the past year, including a proposal to give police the power to enforce federal immigration laws.

While immigrants provide the economy with cheap labor, Arizona spends tens of millions of dollars each year in health care and education costs for illegal workers and their families. An estimated 500,000 of the state's population of about 6 million are illegal immigrants.