4um: Arizona immigration law could drive (Illegal Alien) Latinos out of state

Title: Arizona immigration law could drive (Illegal Alien) Latinos out of state
Source: The Arizona Republic
URL Source: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarep ... -migrants-leaving-arizona.html
Published: Apr 28, 2010
Author: Daniel GonzÃ¡lez
Post Date: 2010-04-28 04:28:01 by hondo68
Keywords: Illegal, Alien, Invader, Criminals
Views: 4045
Comments: 295

Adriana Miranda, an undocumented immigrant, tearfully says she's leaving Arizona.

Her husband hasn't found steady work in a year. Then, on Friday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the tough anti-illegal-immigration law that will allow police to arrest illegal immigrants like her. It was the last straw. After seven years in Arizona, the family was moving.

"Yesterday, we sold our trailer," Miranda, 38, said between sobs. "We don't know exactly where. Another state."

Miranda is not alone. More than 100,000 undocumented immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years because of the bad economy and earlier enforcement crackdowns. Now, a new wave of Latinos is preparing to leave. And it isn't just illegal immigrants: Legal residents and U.S. citizens also say they will leave Arizona because they view the state as unfriendly to Hispanics.

Arizona's new immigration law is not so much about using local police to round up and deport as many of the estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in the state as possible, said state Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, it's about creating so much fear they will leave on their own.

The strategy is known as "attrition through enforcement," and it is a factor behind every one of the anti-illegal-immigration laws passed so far, said Kavanagh, a main supporter of the bill and a criminal-justice professor at Scottsdale Community College.

"That means that rather than conducting large-scale active roundups of illegal immigrants, our intention is to make Arizona a very uncomfortable place for them to be so they leave or never come here in the first place," he said. "So, rather than massive deportations, we are basically going to encourage them to leave on their own."

But Kavanagh said he is worried about legal immigrants and U.S. citizens also leaving.

"I'm concerned about legal residents who are unnecessarily leaving the state because they have bought into a lot of the misinformation about this bill," Kavanagh said.

Phoenix resident Javier Collazo, 18, a U.S. citizen who was born in California, said he is worried police may question him about his immigration status because of his appearance. He is also worried that he could be arrested under a provision of the law that makes it a crime to transport undocumented immigrants. His in-laws are undocumented, and so are several of his friends.

Kavanagh said legal residents and U.S. citizens have nothing to worry about. The law strictly prohibits racial profiling. And the transporting provision is aimed at human smugglers and other criminals, not people giving rides to undocumented relatives, he said.

"They should know that it prohibits racial profiling," Kavanagh said. "They should know that if they are transporting someone, even if they know the person is illegal, as long as they are not doing a separate illegal act, they are not going to get into trouble. They also should know that once by attrition or by enforcement we significantly reduce the number of illegals in this state, taxes are going to go down and crime is going to go down. So, it will be a better place to live for everybody."

How many Latinos may leave Arizona is unknown. But the state's economy, which has hit Latinos disproportionately hard, combined with the new law, has made living in Arizona intolerable, many Hispanics said this week.

The new law makes it a state crime to be in the country without legal papers and lets police question people about their immigration status if officers have reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally. An anti-smuggling provision makes it a crime to knowingly transport illegal immigrants.

Some immigrants said they are waiting to see if the law survives legal challenges before making a final decision. Others, like Miranda, are already packing their bags. Many said they will move to another state. Few said they will return to Mexico.

Not just illegal immigrants are leaving, and the sudden loss of large numbers of people could hurt the state's already dismal economy.

José Mendez, an economics professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, said the state's economic recovery could be hampered by the large-scale loss of workers. While wages may rise, the price of services "will definitely be higher," he said. Businesses, especially small ones that rely on those workers, will have a hard time expanding, Mendez added.

There may also be a loss of sales-tax revenue and even property-tax revenue, he said.

"They pay taxes every time they buy food at the 7-Eleven or when they buy gasoline," he said.

Mendez also said that, in the short term, undocumented immigrants tend to be a drain on public services because they have low-paying jobs and therefore pay little income taxes. But, in the long run, their U.S.-born children tend to offset those costs through higher-paying jobs and higher taxes.

"So on net, when you take those two, empirical studies have shown, they pay more in taxes than the value of services they receive," Mendez said.

State Sen. Richard Miranda, D-Tolleson, said the large-scale loss of people could hurt already fragile communities.

Miranda said he spent 2 1/2 hours Saturday walking through largely Latino neighborhoods in Maryvale and west Phoenix.

He said he met Latinos, Sikhs, Hindus, Filipinos and other people of color, the majority of them U.S. citizens.

"They are all really concerned about the new law," he said. "The stress and intimidation makes people fearful."

Phoenix resident Adamaris, a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said she thinks many illegal immigrants will leave Arizona.

"The economy is already bad here, and now with this new law ...," she said. "No, we don't want to stay here."

Adamaris, who asked that her last name not be used because she is afraid of being deported, said she plans to wait two months to see if the law survives legal challenges before deciding whether to leave.

Glendale resident John Zavala, 32, was born in Mexico City but has lived in the United States most of his life. He is a legal resident of the United States and moved from Chicago to Phoenix in 2003 because he liked the weather.

But Zavala said he thinks the political climate in the state has turned inhospitable toward Latinos. If the hostility continues, Zavala said, he will leave Arizona.

"I always carry my green card," said Zavala, a computer-network analyst. "Until this point, I've never had to use it. But from now on, I guess I will." (1 image)

I see this as a symptom of a greater cancer in this country. A cancer that could be cured if we were to repatriate every last illegal alien felon to their home country.

I don't give a damn if a person comes here legally. If they come here illegally and are rewarded for it, then that's when I have a problem. She's complaining because her illegal alien husband can't find work? Well how about getting a fucking green card, or maybe try being a citizen?

I expect illegals will congregate in one or two states and pull a mass Reconquista on us, all under consular leadership.

My bet is it will be CA, not AZ or NM or TX. I think they know better than to test Texas again. And NM isn't rich enough a property.

Court: If police ask, you must give your name

The high court rules 5 to 4 that officers can arrest people who won't reveal their identity.

WASHINGTON

US citizens do not enjoy a constitutional right to refuse to reveal their identity when requested by police.

In what may become a major boost to US law enforcement and antiterrorism efforts, the US Supreme Court Monday upheld a Nevada law that makes it a criminal offense for anyone suspected of wrongdoing to refuse to identify himself to police.

Civil libertarians see the decision as a significant setback. And it remains unclear to what extent it may open the door to the issuing of national identification cards or widespread identity operations keyed to terrorist profiling at bus terminals, train stations, sports stadiums, and on city streets.

"It's a green light to explore the bounds of how much personal information can be demanded on pain of arrest," says Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute in Washington. "It also gives a green light to perhaps the Congress to move with a national law."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, says the decision has clear implications for the war on terror.

"We know identification continues to be one of the key demands of government agencies involved in homeland security," he says. "[This decision] - depending on how broad it is - could open the door to new demands for identification."

The ruling marks the first time the nation's highest court has endorsed a provision compelling citizens to reveal information in a citizen-police encounter that may become a police investigation.

The 5-to-4 decision says that neither the Fourth Amendment's right to privacy nor the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against self- incrimination bars states from passing laws requiring citizens to identify themselves.

In effect, the majority justices say that in most cases it is no significant intrusion for police to request - and a suspect to provide - his name.

"One's identity is, by definition, unique; yet it is, in another sense, a universal characteristic," writes Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. "Answering a request to disclose a name is likely to be so insignificant in the scheme of things as to be incriminating only in unusual circumstances."

Justice Kennedy adds that if a case arises in which the furnished identity provides a key link leading to the conviction of the individual for a different crime, the court will revisit the issue.

Joining Justice Kennedy's majority opinion were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.

In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens says the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination must always shield a criminal suspect who is being questioned by police. Since police may only request the name of someone they find suspicious (under the upheld Nevada statute), that person is by definition a criminal suspect who may not be compelled to make statements that might incriminate him, Justice Stevens says.

"The court reasons that we should not assume the disclosure of petitioner's name would be used to incriminate him," Justice Stevens writes. "But why else would an officer ask for it?"

Stevens adds, "A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about a person particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases."

The decision stems from the case of Larry Hiibel, who was arrested in May 2000 after he refused a deputy sheriff's repeated demand that he produce some form of identification.

The encounter took place at the side of a road in Humboldt County, Nev. The deputy had received a report of a man striking a woman in a pickup truck. When the deputy arrived at the scene, Mr. Hiibel was standing outside a pickup truck that was parked on the shoulder of the road. His daughter was sitting inside the truck.

The deputy asked Hiibel 11 times to produce identification. Hiibel repeatedly refused, saying he'd done nothing wrong. The deputy placed him under arrest in accord with a Nevada law that permits police to detain criminal suspects for up to 60 minutes to compel them to identify themselves.

Hiibel refused to comply. He was charged and convicted of violating the mandatory identity law, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. His conviction was affirmed by a state appeals court and the Nevada Supreme Court.

In upholding his conviction and the mandatory identity-disclosure law, the majority justices also said the law only requires that a suspect disclose his or her name, rather than requiring production of a driver's license or other document.

• Linda Feldmann contributed to this report.

It's been law since 2004. What are these Illegal lovers sobbing about? Aren't they taxed enough, or is it they want a polyglot America for their white kids? (See White Guilt)

GD, please tell us all again about all those hard working illegals you see in Texas every day? I love that one :P

To me, all people are treated the same. If they are hard working, and decent folks I give them all the due respect they deserve. If they are dirt bags stealing and involved in drugs or abusing others, it doesn't matter what color they are, I treat them like the assholes they are.

Absolutely. Something I have said many times, that there are good folks and bad folks in all groups. And of course some of each quality in everyone, comes with being human. But everyone should be treated as an individual and dealt with accordingly.