Thousands of Hispanics fleeing Arizona

[Beowulf]

Obviously not, Mrs Indignant.

I was under the impression that they weren't immigrants but temporary workers.

I apologize if that came off snarky, I was genuinely puzzled that you didn't know that. The US does not have a "temporary worker" category, or a guest worker visa, or anything of that nature. There is a student visa, which may or may not permit working, I'm a little hazy on the particulars of that one.

For at least a couple decades some people have lobbied for a guest worker/temp worker category as a possible solution to the illegal immigrant problem. At least we'd have a better idea who's here and where, they'd have a legal status and (this is my opinion) it might reduce some of the more egregious abuses of these people. But it's been a strict no-go. Legal immigration in the US is set up with the idea that if you come here you intend to do so permanently (with some even saying that if you don't become a citizen once you're eligible you should be kicked out - not an opinion I share). Hence, the other term for a legal immigrant: "permanent resident" which, I believe is actually the official term.

You're a little off on that. There's the H-1B and L-1 visas, which can be used by to reside in the US without gaining permanent residency, and work in the US. However, they're for skilled workers (H-1B requires a Bachelor's degree or equivalent).

[Broomstick]

Well, OK, I stand correctly on that - I'm not an immigration expert.

[The Yosemite Bear]

H1B is for college students, ex-terns mostly, (your supposedly doing work to advance your major.) We used to get a lot of them up here in the summer and winter months until the crackdown of a few years ago. (as in we used to get ski instructors who were from south america and studying sports medicine or were on athletic scholarships, or getting people who were working on a business degree getting work at the hotels. Now we are currently limited to people with culinary degrees working here. Funny thing we have a lot of American citizen overseas workers right now. (people from the Phillipeans, Gaum, Marianas, P.R. etc who are either from one of the places owned by the US (all buth the first mentined), or have at least one american parent (Shroomland)

[phongn]

H1B is for college students, ex-terns mostly, (your supposedly doing work to advance your major.) We used to get a lot of them up here in the summer and winter months until the crackdown of a few years ago. (as in we used to get ski instructors who were from south america and studying sports medicine or were on athletic scholarships, or getting people who were working on a business degree getting work at the hotels. Now we are currently limited to people with culinary degrees working here.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the F-1 student visa with work authorization? Students can't get an H-1B.

[madd0ct0r]

Am I right in assuming that minimum wage in Arizona ($7.25) is barely enough to live on?

And also taking the pretty damn simplistic assumption that illegal immigrants swell the workforce and thus depress wages at the bottom (depending on how many companies will employ them) as they don't have the same legal protection to minimum wage, and are probably pretty desperate for work.

So the only way minimum wage can be ensured (for the good of the general, legally working poor) is to prevent companies from employing illegal immigrants, in this case, by removing them from the state.

Direct effects I'd predict
- it'll hurt unscrupulous business owners.
- general cost of labour, and average cost of labour should both rise
--- This hurts most business owners, but is good news for the poorest workers.
--- Or those business are now uncompetitive and go bust, jobs lost until wage returns to previous low level.

- a large amount of human suffering is caused, this should be costed.
---Further costs applied due to legal workers leaving due to harassment, feelings of harassment or because family members are forced out. Knock-on effect at slightly higher levels in the economy.

- Extra police cost due to enforcement? Stopping and searching every 'suspect' takes time.

It's going to be interesting to watch.

[General Zod]

Am I right in assuming that minimum wage in Arizona ($7.25) is barely enough to live on?

Depends on what part of Arizona you live in. Some dinky town is going to be cheaper than downtown Phoenix, though you're almost certainly going to have to get a roommate in order to get by.

[eion]

Depends where you are in Arizona. Let's take a town I lived in, Sierra Vista in Cochise County.

If you've got even a single dependent, you're fucked.

It gets even worse if you go to a big city like Phoenix.

The big problem with JUST deporting illegally hired workers is that there is such a surplus of undocumented labor that the companies don't care if their employees are deported, they'll just hire more. Sometimes a backroom agreement will set a quota for the number of workers deported each week with the understanding that the arrests will take place at the employees house, not the workplace, and that no raids will take place of the company.

A good way to stop companies from hiring undocumented workers is to establish a secure work eligibility card that can be identified as genuine as easily as an ID being used to purchase liquor and to harshly punish (fines, jail time, seizure of personal and corporate assets) any employer who hires undocumented workers.

I just don't know where you draw the line. Does a 14 year old kid need a work-ID before he can mow lawns for his neighbors? Your dogsitter?

[General Zod]

Depends where you are in Arizona. Let's take a town I lived in, Sierra Vista in Cochise County.

If you've got even a single dependent, you're fucked.

It gets even worse if you go to a big city like Phoenix.

The big problem with JUST deporting illegally hired workers is that there is such a surplus of undocumented labor that the companies don't care if their employees are deported, they'll just hire more. Sometimes a backroom agreement will set a quota for the number of workers deported each week with the understanding that the arrests will take place at the employees house, not the workplace, and that no raids will take place of the company.

A good way to stop companies from hiring undocumented workers is to establish a secure work eligibility card that can be identified as genuine as easily as an ID being used to purchase liquor and to harshly punish (fines, jail time, seizure of personal and corporate assets) any employer who hires undocumented workers.

I just don't know where you draw the line. Does a 14 year old kid need a work-ID before he can mow lawns for his neighbors? Your dogsitter?

I'd draw the line at whether or not the persons are making a profit off their labor. Someone having a neighborhood kid mow the lawn or move furniture for them probably isn't making any money. On the other hand if they're having a kid pick fruit in fields, that's another story altogether.

[hunter5]

Depends where you are in Arizona. Let's take a town I lived in, Sierra Vista in Cochise County.

If you've got even a single dependent, you're fucked.

It gets even worse if you go to a big city like Phoenix.

The big problem with JUST deporting illegally hired workers is that there is such a surplus of undocumented labor that the companies don't care if their employees are deported, they'll just hire more. Sometimes a backroom agreement will set a quota for the number of workers deported each week with the understanding that the arrests will take place at the employees house, not the workplace, and that no raids will take place of the company.

A good way to stop companies from hiring undocumented workers is to establish a secure work eligibility card that can be identified as genuine as easily as an ID being used to purchase liquor and to harshly punish (fines, jail time, seizure of personal and corporate assets) any employer who hires undocumented workers.

I just don't know where you draw the line. Does a 14 year old kid need a work-ID before he can mow lawns for his neighbors? Your dogsitter?

It will be unlikely to be required for the 14 year old mowing lawns as that work is temporary and the kid is working for themselves. The dog-sitter it depends on if they are a registered buisness or just you paying your neighbor 50 bucks to watch your pets. I do agree we need to make it harder for companies to want to hire illegals, and make the penalties harsh for violators.
Your worker ID card certainly has merit and should be able to work. I heard a similar idea a while back about hiring people from other countries. The idea is simple we set up temporary worker companies (these can be either public or private). These companies set up an office in a foreign country for applicants to sign up and be hired. If a company in America needs workers they contract one of these temporary worker companies to hire workers. The foreign workers get temporary worker passes and go off to the work site. The American company that contracts them does not pay them but pays the temporary worker company who then in turn pays the workers. Once the job is done the foreign workers return home.

[eion]

The issue is if you leave a large enough loophole for "independent operators" as would naturally be done for the 14yo lawnmower, the teenage babysitter, etc. you run the risk of allowing larger companies to continue to employ undocumented workers by classifying them as something other than employees.

-A landscaping company doesn't hire anyone, it "rents" equipment to independent operators and operates a job listings board.
-A Farm pays a bounty for each orange picked

Corporations are very good at exploiting any loophole in a law. I think your point about only targeting those that derive revenue from the hiring is a good one. Limiting the requirement to those holding a business license should cover most of the contingencies I can think of. Increased penalties and enforcement of laws forbidding operating a business without a license should close the gap even more.

[Broomstick]

Am I right in assuming that minimum wage in Arizona ($7.25) is barely enough to live on?

Correct.

I will note that that is the Federal minimum wage. Some states have a higher minimum wage. For example, the minimum wage in Indiana is $7.25, but in Illinois it is (if I recall correctly) $8.00. Needless to say, those Hoosiers living near the Illinois border eagerly seek work on the other side of the state line.

While a state is free to set a higher minimum wage, no state can have a minimum wage below the Federal level.

And also taking the pretty damn simplistic assumption that illegal immigrants swell the workforce and thus depress wages at the bottom (depending on how many companies will employ them) as they don't have the same legal protection to minimum wage, and are probably pretty desperate for work.

Yep, yep, yep, and yep.

The rest of your assessment I would say is also correct.

[Broomstick]

The issue is if you leave a large enough loophole for "independent operators" as would naturally be done for the 14yo lawnmower, the teenage babysitter, etc. you run the risk of allowing larger companies to continue to employ undocumented workers by classifying them as something other than employees.

-A landscaping company doesn't hire anyone, it "rents" equipment to independent operators and operates a job listings board.
-A Farm pays a bounty for each orange picked

Corporations are very good at exploiting any loophole in a law. I think your point about only targeting those that derive revenue from the hiring is a good one. Limiting the requirement to those holding a business license should cover most of the contingencies I can think of. Increased penalties and enforcement of laws forbidding operating a business without a license should close the gap even more.

Except that operating a business without a license is the only thing keeping MY head above water right now. I get around it by exploiting loopholes (for example, I don't work in Griffith, Indiana, which explicitly requires you to have a business license to mow lawns - which applies just as much to your 14 year old neighbor as a professional landscaping company - but I do operate in townships that don't require a license for someone such as myself, who employs no one else.) I've looked into getting a business license - the cost would wipe me out. Force people like me - who, yes, are independent operators on the low end of the totem - to get a business license and you'll have us all in homeless shelters in short order.

Should I point out that I'm a born citizen and I am paying all applicable taxes on my business income?

I think your intent is to do the least harm, but pushing the most marginal people out of the workforce because they can't afford to shell out for a business license for every little municipality around isn't, in the end, going to improve things much. Maybe you need to crack down on those hiring other people - including your hypothetical company renting equipment to independent operators and listing a job board - but leave single operators alone.

[Master of Ossus]

No, that's what they were doing before. Now they have passed a law that makes it a seperate crime under Arizona law and subject to jail and fines in Arizona prior to being deported by the federal government.

No, it doesn't. The "fine" is for failure to present an ID upon request. That is entirely separate from the issue of illegal immigration because each requires the government to show an element that the other does not.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how people are up-in-arms about this law because they claim it's unconstitutional. I think it's debatable. It skirts inside the clear bounds of the law, and if I were the judge and didn't know anything more than I do, I'd say it was constitutional.

What's NOT debateable is that some of the reactions of various cities to the Arizona law ARE unconstitutional. For instance, Oakland, LA, and Berkeley, and also San Francisco (though theirs is closer--it's a non-binding government resolution) governments have "boycott Arizona" campaigns. These campaigns absolutely, undoubtedly and undeniably violate the Commerce Clause, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Contracts Clause, the Takings Clause, and probably a half dozen others that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

[Questor]

What's NOT debateable is that some of the reactions of various cities to the Arizona law ARE unconstitutional. For instance, Oakland, LA, and Berkeley, and also San Francisco (though theirs is closer--it's a non-binding government resolution) governments have "boycott Arizona" campaigns. These campaigns absolutely, undoubtedly and undeniably violate the Commerce Clause, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Contracts Clause, the Takings Clause, and probably a half dozen others that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

Not that I'm agreeing with the idiotic boycotts, but how is a city saying that it won't give business to a contractor or sub-contractor based in Arizona a violation of the commerce clause? My guess is that a most this is an issue for Jerry Brown as Attorney General as it might violate lowest bidder laws.

[Andrew J.]

Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

Gravity. None of these boycotts will ever amount to much, and the limited resources of the Justice Department are better served elsewhere.

[Master of Ossus]

Not that I'm agreeing with the idiotic boycotts, but how is a city saying that it won't give business to a contractor or sub-contractor based in Arizona a violation of the commerce clause?

Because, in aggregate, local and municipal contracts have an effect on interstate commerce, the benefits of this sort of behavior are clearly outweighed by their burdens, and the city and local governments are deliberately using their mechanisms to discriminate against another state. That's precisely the sort of thing that the Commerce Clause has been read to prevent.

My guess is that a most this is an issue for Jerry Brown as Attorney General as it might violate lowest bidder laws.

... Or the US District Attorney, or anyone else involved in federal law enforcement.

Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

Gravity. None of these boycotts will ever amount to much, and the limited resources of the Justice Department are better served elsewhere.

I guess we disagree as to the degree of the harm, here. IMO, massive and deliberate violations by literally dozens of local governments of multiple constitutional provisions is an important issue for the Federal government to address, particularly since they're spending these oh-so-valuable government resources in determining whether or not Johannes Mehserle violated Oscar Grant's civil rights.

[ShadowOfMadness]

Why is enforcement of immigration exclusively a federal matter? Is the state not permitted to prosecute crimes within it's own jurisdiction?

More to that matter; why is the Obama Administration suing AZ over it's immigration stance, and not Rhode Island?

If we used the same standard, they'd have to sue sanctuary cities which openly let people flout federal law.

Politics. Its a recent Republican victory that he has plausible grounds to sue over. He would not be 'playing the game' if he didn't.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

Because he doesn't want to be the modern political equivalent of the people who turned fire hoses and dogs on civil rights protesters. A living symbol of oppression and racism.

[Kanastrous]

Why isn't the Obama administration cracking down on these unconstitutional government acts?

Because he is after all a professional politician, and applying the principle consistently does not serve his political ends. Hey, sure, I voted for the guy, but I still knew what I was voting for.

[Broomstick]

^ This.

Obama may have been born in Hawaii and may have gone to Harvard, but his political birthplace is Chicago, Illinois where politics is a dirty, corrupt, and very vibrant game. That doesn't mean Obama is a bad man (doesn't mean he's good, either), but it does mean he can wheel and deal with the best of them.

[Master of Ossus]

Because he doesn't want to be the modern political equivalent of the people who turned fire hoses and dogs on civil rights protesters. A living symbol of oppression and racism.

You're right. Forcing the government to operate without ignoring the constitution would make him a "living symbol of oppression and racism."

And as for the point about politics, that's all well and good, but he's sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution. That ought to be much more important. Suing Arizona and not bringing suit against the other governments is childish, short-sighted, discriminatory, and hypocritical. These people whining about the Arizona law being unconstitutional are just using "unconstitutional" as a front for pushing their political agendas. They're not at all concerned about the Constitution, provided that they get what they want.

[Broomstick]

Either that, or the administration has made a decision to go after Arizona first, then deal with the others. After all, you can't do everything at once.

Or they hope that by overturning the Arizona law they eliminate the reason for the other states' boycotts and thus avoid the hassle, cost, and animosity of multiple other lawsuits.

[Kanastrous]

And as for the point about politics, that's all well and good, but he's sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution. That ought to be much more important.

There's the way things ought to be, and there's the way things is.

C'mon, you live here, you know these things.

[Soontir C'boath]

And as for the point about politics, that's all well and good, but he's sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution. That ought to be much more important.

There's the way things ought to be, and there's the way things is.

C'mon, you live here, you know these things.

Right because we should not expect any better than the status quo.

[Kanastrous]

Not unless you're doing something specific and effective to improve it, no, you shouldn't.

Maybe not even then. But that may be pessimism talking.