Feds to file suit against AZ imigration law

[Kulaf]

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, to the extent
permitted by relevant State and local law, State and local law
enforcement officials are authorized to arrest and detain an
individual who -
(1) is an alien illegally present in the United States; and
(2) has previously been convicted of a felony in the United
States and deported or left the United States after such
conviction

That is 1252c. If you are using it you are arguing that the Feds have only authorized State law enforcement to arrest illegals who are convicted felons.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I will say this... without equal efforts towards controlling employers who make illegal immigration worth the risk to illegal immigrants, then the overall justification (protect our borders) is a little hard to swallow. Reduce the deman for illegal immigrant labor, and you'll reduce the supply of illegal immigrants. Start jailing company owners that knwoingly encourage and hire illegal immigrants, and I'd bet you'd have a drop in illegal immigration in AZ.

That said, the real answer to this is a legit guest worker program, with no lower floor on minimum wages for the guest workers.

[Kulaf]

The majority of the AZ law deals with penalties for employers who employ illegals.

2. For a second violation, as described in paragraph 3 of this
2 subsection, the court shall order the appropriate agencies to permanently
3 revoke all licenses that are held by the employer specific to the business
4 location where the unauthorized alien performed work. If the employer
5 does not hold a license specific to the business location where the
6 unauthorized alien performed work, but a license is necessary to operate
7 the employer's business in general, the court shall order the appropriate
8 agencies to permanently revoke all licenses that are held by the employer
9 at the employer's primary place of business. On receipt of the order and
10 notwithstanding any other law, the appropriate agencies shall immediately
11 revoke the licenses.

Basically they take away your right to operate your business.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Revoking businesses licenses does little to stop the practice of hiring illegals.

Jail time however....

[Ddrak]

That is 1252c. If you are using it you are arguing that the Feds have only authorized State law enforcement to arrest illegals who are convicted felons.

...for the crime of unlawfully being present in the country, yes. For any other crime they can arrest anyone as long as they apply the law equally and fairly.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

The administration's arguments that states or other localities can't be allowed to muck around with immigration policy seems to be a weak argument, given the fact they won't sue sanctuary cities, which actively try to thwart Federal immigration policies by providing a safe haven for illegal immigrants (thereby actually encouraging illegal immigration).

Arizona has plenty of ammo to use in defense of the US lawsuit, including the adminstration's practice of allowing a "patchwork" of immigration policies already.

[Ddrak]

Don't know about that. Not sure the "you didn't do it right, so you don't deserve it" argument will fly in the Supreme Court.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

The argument wouldnt be that... it would be based around selective enforcement of the law. If AZ can show that the Feds have a history of not taking proactive action when a state or locality interferes with immigration policy, then the Feds argument in that regard is weakened.

[Kulaf]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39748.html

And the brief:

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/ag/US ... 7848_7.pdf

The United States argues that S.B. 1070 is inconsistent with the policy objectives of
the executive branch. But the objectives set forth by Congress – not the executive – are the
relevant objectives for purposes of a preemption analysis. Here, Congress has directed that
Federal immigration officials "shall respond" to any State inquiry seeking to verify the
citizenship status of any individual within its jurisdiction. 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c). By its very terms,
this law presumes that State law enforcement officers have inherent authority to inquire into the
immigration status of persons within their borders. And that is precisely what A.R.S. 11-1051
and A.R.S. 13-3883(A)(5) allow Arizona to do – investigate or arrest aliens who are classified by
the Federal government as unlawful and verify their immigration status with the Federal
government.

[Ddrak]

Interesting brief. Cites a lot of district court decisions, which means the whole thing really should go to the Supreme Court in the end. The key argument seems to expand the ability to "inquire" into the ability to "arrest" and doesn't deal at all with the question of what the obligations of an AZ official would be after the Feds refuse to handle an unlawful immigrant (as described at the bottom of page 9).

I still think the Federal case is stronger.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Another thnig to consider...

The US lost almost 9 million jobs in the recession. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in the US. Lets assume 10 of the 12 million have some kind of job here. We could almost put every American back to work if they took the jobs the illegals have.

Federal unemplyment benefits are less than $300/week. A 40-hour minimum wage job will get you about $290/week.

Seems to me we could let unemployment run out, enforce illegal immigration laws and send them back to their native countries, which would open up work for Americans.

But that makes too much sense.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Of course, those illegals are creating demand for jobs through their purchases in the US. Eliminate them, and you eliminate the jobs they create by being here, and we'll still be right back at square 1 with a 10% unemployment rate. Nevermind the outrageous costs of "rounding up" 12 million people who very likely live off the grid entirely. If the employment situation fails to improve in their absence, and the action would add tremendously to the deficit, then I cannot possibly imagine how that could be a good idea.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Jaro - No... illegals don't increase demand for jobs by their being here. They don't spend a lot of money in the US. They don't purchase the homes they help build, they don't eat at the places where they do the dishes, they don't buy the orchards and farms where they work, they don't rent the houses that employ them to clean, nor do the landscaping. They send much of the money they make back to Mexico (for Mexican illegal immigrants), its called a remittance. These remittances are close to $20 billion dollars. That's $20 billion dollars not spent in the US. And that amount of money is very close to Mexico's entire oil exports, and it swallows the Mexican tourism revenue.

Fully 10% of the entire Mexican popultion lives in the US illegally. You ok with that? They take up jobs and send the large portion of the cash back to Mexico instead of spending it here and stimulating the economy. You ok with that too?

See... that $20 billion they send to Mexico is $20 billion we don't have to deficit spend to get. That money can be injected into the US economy. Also, by pushing the Mexicans back into Mexico and making them compete for jobs in their own country we get cheaper Mexican goods. By allowing massive illegal immigration into the US we artificially inflate the price of goods that Mexico sells to the US by taking 10% or more of the Mexican workforce. If the Mexicans had to compete more fiercely for jobs, it would drive down wages and eventually drive down the cost of exports to the US. America is shootng itself in the foot by allowing unchecked illegal immigration.

[Partha]

Jaro, you're absolutely correct. In Texas alone, their government did a study that showed that illegals added 17.7B to the economy of Texas, because they eat and buy cars and rent houses and shit.

This has been another episode of 'Watch Embar Pull An Argument Out Of His Ass'.

[Ddrak]

The thing is, most illegals will be working for substantially less than the minimum wage, working for cash in hand and not getting any other sort of benefits from their employers (which is why employers use them). To use Americans you have to significantly increase the costs of business for those employers which, as Embar has noted previously, is likely to either drive them out of business or significantly increase the cost of living for everyone else.

Sending all the illegals home is simply not a rational option. Figuring out some sort of guest-worker program is about the only thing that's likely to do any good and even then something will have to be done to reduce the sticker shock for employers as they are forced to come into line with minimum wage laws.

Dd

[Kulaf]

I wonder if anyone has ever done a causality study between the rise in illegal workers versus the stagnation of American wages.

[Kulaf]

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/back504.html

� By increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent.


� Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent.


� The 10 million native-born workers without a high school degree face the most competition from immigrants, as do the eight million younger natives with only a high school education and 12 million younger college graduates.


� The negative effect on native-born black and Hispanic workers is significantly larger than on whites because a much larger share of minorities are in direct competition with immigrants.


� The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status.

So it is the effect of a larger number of workers willing to work for low wages that supresses wages in general and significantly affects lower income minorities.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Jaro, you're absolutely correct. In Texas alone, their government did a study that showed that illegals added 17.7B to the economy of Texas, because they eat and buy cars and rent houses and shit.

This has been another episode of 'Watch Embar Pull An Argument Out Of His Ass'.

Link please...

Because the report I read says net outlays for illegal immigrants cost Texas almost 4 billion per year.

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?p ... search2859

[Ddrak]

I have no doubt that adding a bunch of people willing to work for low wages drops the general wage levels but I wish that study Kulaf linked hadn't brushed off the idea that cutting off 10 million cheap laborers would hurt businesses as "obviously wrong" without any sort of meaningful discussion.

The money for the alleged increase in wages if you kick out immigrants has to come from somewhere.

In any case, you really couldn't expect much better from CIS whose entire stated mission is to reduce immigration into the US.

Reading Embar's piece, FAIR's worse than CIS in their anti-immigration stance. Of course they're going to publish one-sided studies.

Remember, both of these studies are sourcing census data looking for correlations between immigration and wages. The problem is correlation does not mean causality. In fact, you could equally argue the opposite direction in any correlation argument (that decreasing wages results in higher immigration due to more jobs being available at pay levels non-immigrants won't accept).

As a counterpoint, Greenspan said "There is little doubt that unauthorized, that is, illegal, immigration has made a significant contribution to the growth of our economy." in his 2009 Senate testimony. Similarly, there's plenty of studies out there that show the US would be significantly worse off had it not been for the low cost of the illegal workforce.

Partisans from both sides will happily pull studies out that prove the results they assumed from the beginning.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Jaro, you're absolutely correct. In Texas alone, their government did a study that showed that illegals added 17.7B to the economy of Texas, because they eat and buy cars and rent houses and shit.

This has been another episode of 'Watch Embar Pull An Argument Out Of His Ass'.

I think I found the source of Partha's report. And it absoultey doesn't say what Partha has conveyed. Partha most likely didn't link it because it doesn't back his claim. You see, there's the issue of how much immigrants cost the state as well. Thngs like social services, uncompensated health care, burdens on the police and justice system, education... Partha didn't net out the costs.

The report has been critizied as flawed becasue even though it captured some costs, it didn't capture all the costs (it left out the cost of education). What the report concluded was that illegal immigrants provided only a net benefit of $20 million. But again, the cost of educating illegals and the childrenof illegals was left out of the calculation. That cost is estimated at about 4 billion.

http://www.mnforsustain.org/immg_costs_ ... s_fair.htm

If you add the cost of education back into the equation, the net effect to Texas for illegal immigrants is 3.5 billion dollar cost. Note the link is from a pretty leftist organization.

And heres a link to where Partha might have pulled his number from... and whos pulling an argument from where?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01552.html