Posted on 01/14/2003 8:01:56 AM PST by JackelopeBreeder
Grijalva invites Ashcroft to see vigilante 'justice'
ARIZONA DAILY STAR; Tuesday, January 14, 2003
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva stepped up his campaign to crack down on vigilantes Monday by inviting Attorney General John Ashcroft to come to Southern Arizona to see the threat they pose to border security.
The Tucson Democrat told Ashcroft in a letter that the federal government's silence on the issue is "seen as giving official sanction to this racist movement, both by the perpetrators and victims of vigilante 'justice.' "
Ashcroft's voice, Grijalva added, "is needed now to make clear that private armed groups claiming law enforcement powers have no role in patrolling our border with Mexico."
Last week, shortly after he was sworn in, Grijalva called for a federal inquiry into the vigilante groups that have formed in response to the thousands of illegal immigrants who make their way across Arizona's border every year.
What makes you think I can't handle it? You start with a false assumption about my motives, and then throw a hissy fit. And then wonder why you are on the receiving end of insults. I have simply said that I am opposed to illegal immigration and the current wink-and-nod approach at all levels of government towards such. You in turn go out of your way to insinuate that I therefore am opposed to immigration in general.
There are hundreds of solutions and have been discussed at length here and other places. Thinking up solutions is NOT THE PROBLEM. The problem is the government, as they are aiding and abetting this crisis.
I don't think you quite grasp the situation hutch. The government has no desire to stop this invasion of millions. None.....Zero.....Nada........IF they had any desire at all, it would have been done decades ago.
The quick (and deadly) solution of militarizing the borders, is scary, and has no possible end in sight, the moment we think we have things under control and stand down, the ants will come again. It's like taking an over-the-counter cold remedy, you're still sick; you're just too medicated to notice; and as soon as you stop taking it, you feel like crap again.
I think there is room for fair debate here - I have concerns about using the military on the border, but we should try to make it much less porous. It doesn't need to be airtight, just a point where many more potential illegals are caught then the current sieve. Oh, and BTW, having a couple of private border patrol groups trying to spot illegals is hardly militarization - it instead is as much of a political statement as anything.
We need to seriously curtail the welfare entitlement programs, for everyone too, not just illegal immigrants.
I don't think anyone here would disagree.
We need to limit State assistance to anyone believed to be here illegally to:
· Emergency medical services
· Emergency temporary shelter
· Transportation to the border.
So Luis is on the same page as I am here. And I imagine that the guys in American Patrol would agree wholeheartedly. So where is YOUR beef here?
We need to challenge the current interpretation of the XIV Amendment in Court, a well-organized, well-financed challenge seeking to eliminate "anchor babies". We need to severely fine and/or prosecute employers found guilty of knowingly using illegal alien help. We need hard time for smuggling, and manufacturing and/or distribution of falsified legal identification documents...hard time, not Fed time.
I think just about everyone here would agree.
We need to increase the technological abilities of the INS and the Border Patrol, and improve their efficiency.
Something the border patrol groups are trying to demonstrate by purchasing technology with their own money and attempting to demonstrate that it can be effective on the border.
I think we should offer incentives to American manufacturing firms looking to set up shop overseas, to build in Mexico, and not China. Mexico needs to co-operate with some internal reforms, and by relaxing some laws. If we are about to help a nation grow economically, I want it to be the one right next door to me, not the one who has nukes trained on me.
A fair point, and one open to honest debate.
We should also bring back the Bracero program, it's a win-win.
I think it would need a serious overhaul, but it's a good debate as well.
Any individual caught in the U.S. illegally should be deported, and not allowed to return to this country, for any reason, for life. But I also think that if we find someone who has been here illegally for fifteen years, working, not breaking laws, setting roots, and otherwise being a model member of the community, we need to give them special consideration, and try thinking out of the box for a kinder solution.
This is probably the thorniest subject - because in the end you are also rewarding lawbreaking. But this point is open to debate, especially if the parties can openly express their opinions without being called racist.
So what gives? Tom Tancredo is hardly differing with what Luis proposes - Luis says anyone found here illegally should be deported, and Tancredo is saying just that - yet you seem to say the two are on different pages. Maybe if you get your own opinions on this matter in better order, you could hold a better debate, instead of just flinging SPLC nonsense to get the other side pushed out of the debate...
Exactly. Does anyone think the American Patrol guys are out there in the desert just for fun? I can think of a million other things to do other than walk around in the desert looking for illegals and risk getting shot at by coyotes or drug runners. But the point is, governments at all levels have abdicated any acknowledgement, let alone responsibility for, this issue. Instead, they use coy code words and lash out at anyone who points out the verbal absurdities hurled at the public on a daily basis. The actions of American Patrol are a protest to bring attention to the matter, and, like many protests, draw attacks from those who benefit politically from the status quo. So until the politicians get a wake-up call, there is little point in debating what we'll do about the problem, because they refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem.
He's a classic liberal democrate, when confronted with facts and truth, he pulls the race / xenophobe / name calling card.
There are existing INS procedures to seek asylum for people afraid of forced abortion persecution - I know this area quite well, because two good friends of mine are immigration lawyers. That is a far cry from deporting an illegal here for economic reasons, be it from Mexico or Ireland.
However, you also said you did not favor Tancredo's approach - which is very much in line with what Luis states, other than Luis did not mention the right to pursue asylum if persecution as abortion is feared upon return. So I'm really not sure why you are opposed to Tancredo but in favor of what Luis says.
Now the Canadians DO have the RCMP, which I have always thought of as an upright outfit, many cuts above those Mexican police forces upon whom I have unfortunately chanced to encounter. Also, the Canadians do not seem to have the mordida bribe philosophy engrained in their border agents and policemen. There being so many fewer Canadians than Mexicans, and the country seemingly being so much better run and organized, has apparently lulled me into a false feeling of security about the Northern border. I do realize it is much harder to patrol, with thousands of miles of roadless woods, trans border lakes and rivers, etc. In fact, I dare say it it is little changed and probably less secure than it was in Grandfather's day, when he was known to cross into Canada by boat, foot, and truck, to secure medicines from Scotland, Ireland, and France (alcohol-based) for desperately sick neighbors.
Now about the PRI. That party is the Party of the Mexican Constitution of 1910, which IMHO, is the cause of much dysfunction. Unless our Mexican neigbors ditch this Marxist document and decide on key issues like private property and official religious freedom and the rights of churches, etc. etc. they are going to get nowhere no matter which party is in power. Also, the whole machinery of a heavily centralized government is and will remain in dirty PRI hands. It is much the same in the US, where the Democrats held power for so long that in most government agencies, the workers are all Democraps who survive any change of government and who can throw many monkey wrenches into any thought of reform.
Oddly enough, Mexicans and Canadians do have one incredibly annoying trait in common: that is their "intellectuals," all seem to carry on as if they were denizens of some Left Bank Café in the Paris of the late 1930's. Of course admiration for Karl Marx, socialism and anti-american-capitalism are de rigueur with this type of thinker. Fox seems free of this taint, but his cabinet surely ain't.
Uh, first of all, the thread in general is not about this subject, this is your personal subject within the thread, and that personal subject has NOTHING to do with border groups trying to identify illegals crossing into private land. Having said that, unfortunately asylum cases are highly political - a given administration will often factor their own geopolitical views into the asylum process and direct the INS accordingly, the Elian matter being the classic example. So the Bush Admin is both pro-life and pro-China, which tend to cancel each other out as to geopolitical considerations (I don't like it, I'm just calling it as I see it). So the best approach here would be to petition Congress to amend asylum law to give strong consideration if the alien in question would be subject to forced abortion upon return - otherwise, it is subject to INS, and hence political, discretion.
An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals had earlier said Xu Ming Li and Xin Kui Yu were ineligible for asylum. In an opinion filed Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
The 9th Circuit is the most liberal circuit court out there, and IMO they are so pro-abort that they do not see a problem with a woman being forced to have one, and therefore they do not consider such to be persecution. Likewise, I doubt the Clinton Admin, between their pro-abort stance and their pro-China stance, would have directed the INS to give special consideration to such cases. So work to change the law to clearly define forced abortion or sterilzation as persecution that must be considered as grounds for granting asylum.
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