by Eric Martin
Why, it's almost as if they're trying to stoke irrational fears of the "other" for political gain:
Last year gave us death panels and granny killings, but compared with the nonsense justifying the immigration crackdown, the health-care debate was an evening at the Oxford Union Society.
Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been "essentially flat for the past decade." For example, "In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes." The Pima County sheriff reported that "the border has never been more secure."
FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago — yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is "the worst I have ever seen." President Obama justifiably asserted last week that "the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years," yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be "fit for the psycho ward" on the basis of that remark.
Without question, illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels are huge problems. And there is a real danger that the alarming and growing violence in Mexico could spread north. But beyond anecdotes — the slaying of a rancher and the shooting of a sheriff's deputy — there is no evidence that it has.
Yet there is McCain — second only to Brewer in wrecking Arizona tourism — telling NBC, ABC and CNN that Phoenix is the "No. 2 kidnapping capital of the world" behind only Mexico City. "False," judged Politifact, tracing McCain's claim to a dubious report by ABC News in February 2009. Law-enforcement agencies generally don't track kidnapping statistics, but experts said rates are far higher in various Central American, African and Asian countries. Reports of kidnapping in Phoenix, meanwhile, are declining.
Clearly the type of rampant crimewave that would necessitate a new law that provides legal cover to an insidious form of racial profiling. Or something.
(villa)
the slaying of a rancher and the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy
White men. That’s your problem right there.
This tack from McCain and Brewer completely baffles me. I understand it serves their interests to stoke fear of brown people with funny accents. That motivation I get. What I don’t get is this:
I’m left wondering if they’re too stupid and short-sighted to realize that they’re basically telling would-be tourists “don’t come to Arizona, it’s incredibly dangerous”–or if they don’t care as long as it’s politically useful.
To me it embodies the contemporary Republican trait of sacrificing the long-term good for short-term political gain.
Given the choice between the greater good and reelection, politicians usually choose the latter.
So Brewer and McCain are basically just Marge Schott and Mr Magoo blindly shooting off their mouths for some harmless short-term political advantage so they can fend off the Blue Meanie end of the Republican Party threatening from outside of town?
Right.
No, they are Vichy Republicans handing over the Jews to the Nazi Party. They are Polish mayors pointing out the Jewish ghetto to the calm, malignant filth in their Party cooling their heels in the motorcycle sidecars, considering the logistics of the local railroad spurs.
They are a couple of loudmouth cowards in the second row of the lynching party, pussy whipped by the fascist Tea Party, too cowardly to either yell “Stop” to the lynchers or to at least help fashion the noose, but they’re happy to help drag the victims to the hanging tree, hoping their dumba@s howls will be drowned out by the rabble mob and not remembered.
They are cowering sidekicks to the Liberty Valances in their “Party”, horsewhipped into submission to help destroy all that is decent.
Bullies require violence against them. It’s the only response they underatand.
Scalp them.
Fear of the Other is a staple of politicians who have nothing constructive to offer because it works. I have a snowbird friend who is absolutley convinced that her home in Arizona is threatened by hordes of illegals engaging in criminal activity. Absolutely a certainty that she will vote a straight Republican ticket this fall.
But the thing is she always votes straight Republican. So this fearmongering works with her. The question is will it work with independents?
@ John Thullen
A Liberty Valance reference! Do you take the Jimmy Stewart or Lee Marvin side?
Since the bullsnit in AZ is so beyond any rational comment or understanding, you are the guru of this thread as so many others.
John Wayne’s
IIRC, in a recent poll Arizonans were four times more concerned with dusky people gobbling up government services than them engaging in criminal behavior.
Ronnie’s Cadillac driving welfare queen recycled.
Remember that thousands (if not millions) of babies are sacrificed to Satan every year in the US without them showing up in the crime statistics. The Evil One is simply good at erasing the traces of these crimes. It’s clearly the same with all those illegals (and don’t forget they spread leprosy like wildfire).
It occurs to me to wonder, how does someone who is a citizen (and therefore not required, at least in theory, to have “papers”) prove that they are a citizen? I mean, even after they are picked up?
Pretty easy if you are naturalized, of course. But suppose I were a guy named Jose Silva. My family had been in California since the Mission days, and so been citizens for generations — probably longer than most of those in Arizona. But, having grown up in the ’60s, I learned Spanish in high school as a gesture of solidarity with farm workers or something.
So, I’m visiting Arizona because I wanted to see the Grand Canyon. And I’m chatting with some friends of the same age in Spanish. That’ll get me picked up, of course. Did I mention that I was born while my father was stationed at Pearl Harbor? And, as we all know, a Hawaiian birth certificate is not valid to prove citizenship….
The built-in stupidity of this law, not to mention that of the politicians ranting in favor of it, simply boggles the mind.
Lazy posting of info, Eric. You cherry-picked Dana Milbank’s cherry-picked article, to denigrate SB 1070 and spin your unfounded POV that illegal immigrant crime in Arizona is no big deal: distortion by omission.
Did you read the full article at the Arizona Republic site Milbank linked to? There were other viewpoints expressed in it, shedding light on the skimpy murder and rape statistics in the border town mentioned, putting them in perspective.
Further down in the article the Nogalas Police Chief interviewed says this:
And if you had bothered to look at the Arizona Republic’s website, where they evaluated possible outcomes when SB 1070 goes into effect, you would have seen this: “The upcoming enforcement of SB 1070 has already caused many illegal immigrants to flee Arizona.” And this:
And you would have seen this too:
Which would have pointed you to this:
What? Arizona police have been questioning criminal suspects about their immigration status BEFORE the Governor pushed to extend the policy statewide? And it was in fact reducing serious crime significantly? Gee, what a surprise.
Kidnapping, by the way, was of epidmic proportion in Phoenix, because of illegal immigration and human smuggling by illegals. The investigators from the Arizona violent crimes bureau quoted in the KTAR article estimated that the 359 kidnappings reported represents just one-third of the total that were taking place in Phoenix, which means there could have been a thousand or more. If you want to quibble over whether or not Arizona is second in the world in Kidnapping, or third or tenth, be my guest.
From your KTAR article
n the past year, there were 359 kidnappings in Phoenix, and not one was legitimate involving a truly innocent victim, said Mark Spencer, head of the union which represents more than 2,500 Phoenix police officers. He said all the kidnappings were connected to illegal immigration and the numbers may represent just the tip of the iceberg.
To take the result of misguided border policies which reward polleros and label them as a crime like kidnapping which is then taken to demand even more misguided border policies is something I would expect from the original idiot, though I suppose the evil twin would exhibit the same lack of intelligence.
If I had read a partisan website I would have seen unsupported claims in defense of a preferred policy?
Wow.
What partisan website? What unsupported claims?
Do you mean the article you posted from Dana Milbank, which indeed is partisan, reflecting your Liberal slant on the Arizona Law?
Or do you mean the claims I referred to from the Arizona Republic, the same newspaper that provided most of the data Milbank referred to, and you hyper-linked to above?
The Arizona Republic is a liberal newspaper — it recently printed a front page editorial criticizing SB 1070 — Are you now claiming that source, the one you linked to in your post, is unreliable?
Or is it just the kidnapping statistics I linked to at KTAR? If so, the Arizona Republic also confirms those numbers HERE
“Phoenix police anticipated a drop in kidnapping reports in 2009 compared with the previous year, though with 302 filed through November, the numbers haven’t decreased significantly”… Detectives said the vast majority of the city’s extortion-related kidnappings are tied to drugs and human smuggling. Phoenix Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement investigators say they have dismantled dozens of small gangs involved in kidnappings and home invasions, which led to a small drop in the overall numbers.”
So the only beef you really have with the ‘claims’ is that they contradict your assertions and conclusions. When in doubt, disparage the source, right… and I’m guessing your next step on the yellow brick road of denial will be to block this post as you’ve been blocking my other recent posts …
“We’re Off To See The Censor, The Wonderful Censor At Large, tra la, tra la, tra la..”
“So, I’m visiting Arizona because I wanted to see the Grand Canyon. And I’m chatting with some friends of the same age in Spanish. That’ll get me picked up, of course.”
Not unless you drop your trousers and moon the spectators or pee into the canyon or yell loud enough to echo off the canyon walls “Death To America!”
And they certainly should haul your ass off to jail if you don’t have any identification of any kind with you, or anyone with reliable ID who can vouch for you. And if you get lucky and it’s a lady police officer she might even sing to you as she hauls you off to jail:
Sorry, JJET, but the police are required to check on anyone with whom they have contact (which appears to mean anything from the sort of behavior you suggest down to someone asking for directions or waving to them on the street) and where they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be illegal. Not allowed, but required.
If you think a couple of Hispanic guys speaking Spanish doesn’t qualify as reasonable grounds for suspicion, you must live in a different universe. Which still leaves the question, how does a natural born citizen go about proving citizenship? And how long does it take, and what is acceptable as proof? (I admit that the Hawaiian birth certificate was a bit of sarcasm. But the question of how to prove you were born here in any kind of quick fashion remains.)
And they certainly should haul your ass off to jail if you don’t have any identification of any kind with you, or anyone with reliable ID who can vouch for you.
Because not carrying your ID is a crime. Actually, this should solve a number of problems- many homeless people and ghetto people don’t have IDs, so we can just dump the whole lot on Mexico.
On May 21 [2008], officers were given the authority to question criminal suspects about their citizenship status and contact federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents if they suspect a suspect is in the United States illegally.” Subsequently crime decreased significantly
I was going to explain the whole causation-correlation thing, but then I see you’ve posted this:
Phoenix police anticipated a drop in kidnapping reports in 2009 compared with the previous year, though with 302 filed through November, the numbers haven’t decreased significantly
Apparently asking Hispanics for their IDs reduces crime, except when it doesn’t.
*
[Link fixed – Ed.]
wc: “Because not carrying your ID is a crime.”
It is if you’re an alien.
Section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [8 USC 1304(e)], a provision that has been “on the books” for decades, requires every alien 18 years of age and over to “at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession” the “certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card” issued to him or her by DHS. The registration document is usually Form I-94 for nonimmigrants, or Form I-551 “greencard” for lawful permanent residents.
Here’s the exact citation:
INA § 264(e)
If you have a problem with that law, take it to the Supreme Court.
“Apparently asking Hispanics for their IDs reduces crime, except when it doesn’t.”
Tunnel vision?
The rates for crime (including kidnapping) dropped in 2008. And the rates for violent crime continued to drop in 2009.
more:
The kidnapping rates may not have dropped for various reasons, independent of the efficacy of the increased scrutiny Arizona police have been applying to the immigration status of those people stopped for LEGAL purposes. First, the rates only reflected REPORTED kidnappings, which police calculate may only represent 30% of of the total; therefore if even a slightly higher percentage of kidnappings are being reported, that would skew the numbers.
And let’s Obama-ize the statistics: if police weren’t actively following the increased scrutiny policy, the Crime rate undoubtedly would be higher, in the same way unemployment would be higher without government stimulus.
Less Illegals = Less Crime. And to insinuate otherwise is absurd.
Thank you, Growler Bloke/JJsEvilTwin/PhillyCheeseSteak.
“Thank you, Growler Bloke/JJsEvilTwin/PhillyCheeseSteak.”
That’s because you blocked me under Jay Jerome
And you missed 3 other alter-egos…
But I’m not Growler Bloke; he’s an independent entity
Just think of me as the blogging equiv of a less talented Tracy Ullman…
When the love letter, do you still remember? The plot of the story is me!!!!!