Phoenix Blog

this dump truck is older than tonka..and his reasoning resembles the grumpy old man that pulls his shotgun on the school kids that walked on his lawn...

Finally you admitted it in print Stephen! Thank you.

Stephen Lemmons writes:

"I'd rather my tax money go to educate some Mexican kid whose parents risked life and limb to get here, instead of the progeny of ... [lots of derogatory racist remarks removed]"

Herein lies the rub. Stephen and his ilk(like Dennis) rather spend our tax money on people from other countries, here illegally, than on hard working Americans many of which are struggling just as hard to make a life for themselves in their OWN country.

Not only does that make you anti-American, it makes you a supporter of illegal immigration. Not, an open borders advocate, an actual vocal supporter of illegal activity.

I'm glad you've actually come out and admit it, that you are anti-American and that given the chance, you would turn your back on your own country to help people from Mexico break our laws.

I guess this means that the New Times supports illegal immigration and the breaking of federal laws. What's next? Federal drug laws? Federal gun laws? What other Federal laws would the New Times like to encourage people to disregard?

And don't give me that "just looking for a better life" crap. Federal drug smugglers are just looking for a better life too, they were just as poor until they started using illegals to mule meth across the border. Should we ignore those laws now too so that those Mexicans can live a better life on the backs of Americans Stephen?

I don't think its totally imperative to think all of AZ's Sheriffs are remotely similiar to one-another. I never heard of Sheriff Dipshit of Pima County until now. There is one Sheriff in AZ who isn't in the same league as arpaio and Dipshit of Pima County. I'm talking about Sheriff Joseph Dedman Jr. of Apache County. He's probably the only "sane" Sheriff we have in the entire state of AZ.
What we really need is more nonwhites as Sheriff, like Dedman Jr. Who runs his Sheriff office with professionalism. Also, I nearly forgot about Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County who is nothing compared to arpaio. We definately need more Sheriffs like these men--Babeu and Dedman Jr.

Another trailer park hillbilly opens his mouth and has nothing to say.

Y'know, I understand from the strange year I spent writing for New Times back in the 80s the need to give everything an edge. But I'm not sure exactly what I have done to deserve the description of "self-important pooh bah of the local Fourth Estate." Is it my reporting that you seem to find reliable enough to quote? The fact I've been doing this job going on four decades and happen to know a thing or two about digging up news? Or you don't like my style of questioning folks? Or my beard? I know I shouldn't be picking a fight with someone who gets to spout his opinions across the World Wide Web on a 24/7 basis. But, geez, would it have made your comments about what I reported Sheriff Dupnik said any less relevant to leave out the personal attacks? Grow up!

Obviously, in the wake of all the recent mass shootings nationwide. What poses a grave and dire threat to our law enforcement officials isn't really illegal aliens, instead its the sick racist white extremists of the lunatic fringed right. There was 2 shootings over the course of this past weekend. One in Florida, the other in Alabama, both of which involved white supremacists like the ones resembling the mug shot above. The only real difference despite them sharing the same skin color, is that the recent mass killings on law officials like the dickwad in the photo, is done by xenophobic klan-like extremists, many of it relates to anti-government/anti-law rhetorical dogmas, generally associated with natavists/white supremacists.

If you think illegal aliens are doing all the mass shootings, well you really must be a fucktard to begin with.
Under the Obama adminstration, there is no doubt, that the mass killings on law enforcement officials by white supremacists will durely continue.

Illegal aliens don't concern me, its the neo-Nazis and the WN movement. To whom, they're killing cops at an alarming rate.......

Hey CooperG,

In my comment I don't mention Welfare OR Medicare, so I don't know where your blowhole was going with that one. But, since we're on the topic, let's list some things illegals do get:

- Free Public Education(primary AND secondary)
- Free Health Care through Emergency rooms(not available to U.S. citizens for free.)
- Illegal Aliens are Medicaid Eligible for programs like:
SSI
Food Stamps
WIC
Free School Lunches

-Free legal representation and free room and board in U.S. prisons and jails(taxpayer supported.)

So don't go telling us that illegals don't get some of the citizen funded benefits because clearly they do.

They are a drain on our social services and that's a fact.

I think you're the anti-American racist who hates anyone who's a citizen.

To Learn to Read

Illegal Aliens are only eligible for three of the programs you listed, WIC, education, and lunches.

And they pay for the wic, education and lunches thru every time they buy something they pay taxes too.

Not to mention some people who dont have papers do their taxes. I have very close family members who do so. Have seen them put their check in the mail to go out to Uncle Sam, who doesnt want them here.

As for free health care thru the Emergency Room, false, they are charged for their visit. My uncle had to pay a HUGE medical bill, when he got in a car accident. He had to pay for the ambulance as well.

As fo SSI??? Your joking right? Research what you type before you type it.

My point is, maybe you dont have family members that are illegaly in the country. I do, sure call Sheriff Joe, I dont really care. But by having family members in this country illegaly I know that alot of the benifits that people claim that illegals receive is simply not so.

"Howie Fischer" wrote:

"I'm not sure exactly what I have done to deserve the description of 'self-important pooh bah of the local Fourth Estate.' Is it my reporting that you seem to find reliable enough to quote? The fact I've been doing this job going on four decades and happen to know a thing or two about digging up news?"

Well, in Mr. Lemons' defense, it seems to be a fairly widespread characterization. Here's one slightly less kind:

"First, it wasn't a Red Star reporter, it was Fisher from Capital Media Services. He pimps himself out as a private contractor and submits stories and various papers run with them."

http://regulus2.azstarnet.com/comments/index.php?id=218118

My dictionary defines "pooh-bah" as "A pompous ostentatious official, especially one who, holding many offices, fulfills none of them". This may or may not be a clue to Mr. Lemons' obscure and mysterious allusion. By the by, Mr. Fischer, what are your connections to the Goldwater Institute? You seem to be near and dear to them, or at least listed in an "About Us" submenu at their website.

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/expertview.aspx?id=268

Just by looking at his foto above. I feel like I'm living in the past. In another time in děja vü as if I'm in my grandparents shoes 50 years ago. The pic has many different words to describe his era, many not so positive--which includes bigotry, racism, klans men, Bull Connor etcetera. It was a dark time for all of mankind, when white supremacists like the retrograde shown in the foto above. Running amok, spreading fear and hatred at everyone who didn't resemble a virulent backstabbin' hick like him or even a Jethro Bodine. I'm sure our grandparents(or even our parents for that matter) will have horrible flashbacks to those tough times when everyone hated them saguaro KKKrackers, simply by just taking one glance at that foto above. It must be a post-traumatic experience for them.

And finally to TommyC1, I agree.

Racism is alive in AZ especially in Maricopa County. It is truly sad when the right wing nuts get all the play in the press and people who does good, doesn't get played. If the moron who write on this site would take a minute to put them in the shoes of whom they critize, they might be able to understand but I forgot, that would take a brain. For all of you who sprout hate out of your mouth, in the words of Sgt Palmer: shut up, just shut up. For guys like Finally (maybe you're a girl) and a coward (can't put your real name or maybe it is Clarence);please tell you are losing your mind because of the undocumented people because you have to have a mind to lose it. Amen.

"Mark" wrote (in two separate posts):

"There is obviously a problem with illegal immigration...I am thoroughly anti-arpaio, but I am also not in favor of illegal immigration (from any country). I have yet to see many intelligent answers to the problem."

I'm going to answer your question, fully and explicitly, but first, why is illegal immigration "obviously" a problem?

The annual quota for LEGAL immigration is set absurdly low: in 1924, when the population of the United States was vastly smaller than it is now, more than 57,000 Germans per year were allowed, by law, to enter legally. In 2008, with the U.S. population vastly larger and thus able to absorb a greater immigrant influx, the number of legal immigrants permitted annually from Mexico was less than half of that, at roughly 26,000.

But, assuming for the sake of argument that it is a problem, there is one obvious solution.

It isn't a border wall, since the U.S. border with Mexico is 2,000 miles long, and a border wall can be climbed over, dug under, smashed through, blown open, detoured around, or -- and here's the irony -- simply walked through at checkpoints. That's right: all you need to get into the U.S. from Mexico for the day (say, to a U.S. border town) is a border crossing card. Once in, you can then simply fail to return, and adopt a new identify using false papers.

Even a magical wall won't stop that, unless you're prepared to eliminate all tourism, work visits, educational visits, and family visits by Mexican citizens into the United States. In 2008, 6.2 million LEGAL visitors from Mexico visited America, but that DOESN'T include visitors to border towns (as on day excursions):

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/2009-04-12-visitors_N.htm

Some studies have estimated that 40 to 50 percent of the roughly 12 million (lowball estimate) illegal aliens in the U.S. came here LEGALLY but overstayed their visas.

So, for all these reasons, in addition to the expense and manpower required to construct and properly oversee such a wall, a wall is inadequate.

Obviously, arresting a few dozen day laborers every few months a la Uncle Joe Arpaio doesn't begin to make a dent in the "problem" of half a million illegal workers in Arizona alone.

Russell Pearce's pride and joy, the Legal Arizona Workers Act, is a weak joke. It has only one possible sanction: remove Arizona business owners' licenses; but in order to do so the law requires that Arizona businesses "knowingly hire" illegal aliens and that is difficult to prove.

The law requires employers to use E-Verify but does NOT specify ANY criminal penalties for failure to use E-Verify; rather, its use is presumptive evidence of obedience to the law, IN THE EVENT that legal action is taken against the company. Less than 6 percent of Arizona employers have signed up for E-Verify so far. The number of prosecutions in Maricopa County, since the law took effect more than a year ago: zero.

Furthermore, the new law will result in an explosion of identity theft cases, as the old method of simply inventing fictitious Social Security numbers won't fool E-Verify if and when it is used.

So, if you can't keep people out, and can't arrest them all through random traffic stops, the obvious solution is to eliminate demand by making sure they are not hired or legally hireable.

How do you do that?

First, ALL job applicants have to have some sort of identification indicating naturalization status.

Second, that identification has to be resistent to fraud.

Third, employers must have some means of checking the genuineness of that identification against a federal database, since local databases are insufficient where a population of workers is mobile.

Fourth, employers need to be required, by law, to check that database for all new hires against the identification proferred by job applicants. The standard is not "intent" (what's in your heart) but whether you performed the check before hiring. The government will keep a record of checks, but also issue a kind of digital receipt to employers which is proof (in case of error or accident on the government's end) that a check occurred. Employers are responsible for keeping a copy of this digital receipt for each employee, and each such receipt is specific to a single employee.

Fifth, since law is only half of the equation, an enforcement budget must be approved which provides for enough inspectors to conduct surprise examinations of the workplaces and records of a significant percentage of employers -- enough to create a credible deterrent -- beginning with sectors and companies known or suspected of relying more heavily on illegal alien employees.

This "solution" presents some problems.

First, do we really want to eliminate 12 to 20 million workers from the U.S. economy in one fell swoop? What would be the economic effects of such a policy?

Second, the solution presumes the existence of a form of identification both necessary to obtain work and adequate to resist fraud, in conjunction with databases kept by the federal government. This may be objectionable to some libertarians (small "l").

Third, the checks would have to be funded either by businesses or by taxpayers. Since the checks must be conducted systematically for ALL new hires, that represents a considerable outlay.

Fourth, the enforcement budget would also be large: if only 10 percent of all employers are to be audited by inspectors comparing physical workplace employees with database reports, in order to create a credible threat of sanctions, a vast workforce of well-funded inspectors would be necessary in order to do this on a timely basis: and the latter is important since LONG backlogs weaken the threat of credible enforcement.

Fifth, in order to do all of this, the opposition of small and large business owners would need to be overcome. Most campaign finance funds at the federal and state level don't come from $5 out of pocket individual contributions: they come from wealthy individual and organized donors. At one time in America, 40 percent of the workforce was unionized. At present, excluding government workers, less than 10 percent is unionized. Unions get lobbying and political donation funds from dues. Business owners (wealthy individuals) and corporations get lobbying and political donation funds from profits. So, to be politically feasible, you have to overcome opposition from the business lobby.

I have another idea, but I'm not sure you would call it a solution since it doesn't acknowledge a problem with Mexican immigrants. Also, I'm not sure you would like it, because it involves more open borders, empowered unions, progressive taxation to adequately support public services, adequate tax enforcement, especially at the upper end, and even more radical elements. Brrr! Doesn't THAT just send chills down your spine, Arizona?

P.S. Regarding the percentage of Arizona employers who have signed up with E-Verify so far, the figure of less than 6 percent came from a University of Arizona study as reported in the Arizona Daily Star in December, 2008. (The new law took effect on January 1, 2008.) Note that the number of new sign ups for E-Verify since the law passed is even weaker than at first glance: in July 2007, before the law even took effect and before it had passed court challenges, most of those employers were already signed up.

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/271160?popup=false

'No more citizenship for anchor babies."

That includes anglo-Europeans of various stripes.

"I say no more medical care without proof of citizenship and CASH."

Many natavist asswipes don't really carry "proof of citizenship" because they believe they'll get an easy pass, simply because they lacked melanin in the skin, despite being a hirsuted man-ape, with poor hygienic capabilities(e.g. shave, shower, do your laundry etc) And as far as "CASH" is concerned, its apparently obvious, that natavists rarely carry "CASH" as well, just by looking at them from head to toe. When they actually do have "CASH" on hand, its no more than $20 in his stinkin wallet.

"People wait hours in the emergency room that is filled with illegal aliens[sic]."

There's a typo in your puny juvenile piece. What you probably meant to type is--
"Snow birds" or "senior citizens". I've visited a lot of hospitals throughout the valley and saw nothing but older white folks from
Sun City and arpaio supporters.
As usual, you just a robot. You merely say what a typical dimwitted cow-poke usually says. Like a sandland zombie, you're infected with a tard-spasm where your mind halts at age 12. From there, you're incapable of learning anything, much less the truth.

"No Social Services for Illegals" wrote:

"Free Emergency Care = Going to the ER for all medical care, giving false identification and never being able to be billed. Fraud. People wait HOURS in valley emergency rooms that are filled with illegal aliens."

It's obvious that you're all worked up about something you have no personal experience of. See, first of all, emergency rooms have something they call "triage". That's where patients are sorted according to the seriousness of their medical emergencies, with the most pressing cases being handled first. If anyone goes into an emergency room for ordinary medical care (say, a check-up) they are the ones who would be waiting hours.

Second, strictly speaking, emergency rooms are not required to give non-emergency medical treatment to anyone, regardless of naturalization status. So, if they are doing so, in the hope of collecting large bills from someone (whether private citizens, private insurance companies, or the government) that's a question you might want to take up with them.

Third, a false or fraudulent ID doesn't necessarily or even typically mean a false local address: even illegal immigrants have to deal with various kinds of bills and receive other mail.

Fourth, any refusal to pay for emergency medical services which an illegal alien can get away with, a native born citizen can also get away with. So again, you have no argument.

Fifth, most of those who use emergency rooms for non-emergency purposes are legal citizens with public medical insurance. See my recent comment on this subject.

Regarding faking IDs, it's hard to fake biometrics (e.g., a digital thumb-print). People give an index-finger print all the time when they cash checks at banks (or when they open an account). Again, civil libertarians might have some problems with this.

Just a Social Security number check, however, would weed out all the cases where the number doesn't exist or where the name and/or date of birth doesn't match the one on record. And being required to specify place of birth or some other key but obscure bit of personal information, when applying for a job, would also weed out a lot of false IDs even if they were stolen (assuming this info is placed on record so that it can be verified). There are really plenty of ways to make an ID system resistant to fraud, with or without the use of biometrics.

It might be helpful to see a scenario that would have been impacted by this heavy-handed (and unconstitutional) tactic. I have one such example. Even though it wasn't Arizona, the conditions would be applicable for schoolchildren in the same situation.

First a little background. I am a U.S. citizen from birth. In 2005 I married outside the United States. My wife and stepchildren have not ever violated U.S. immigration law, nor would they be considered as anything out of the ordinary to delay or hinder processing.

Starting the immigration process right at the time of our marriage, my wife and stepchildren were finally lawfully admitted to the United States in 2007 (I was able to expedite our cases a little because of a looming military deployment). They entered on K-3 (spouse of a U.S. citizen) and derivative K-4 (minor stepchild of a U.S. citizen) visas, which for all of the defined relationships, are still a "non-immigrant" visa. Their purpose is to permit lawful presence (although without work authorization or the ability to get a Social Security number) while the final immigrant petition is decided.

A side note of the K-3/K-4 "non-immigrant" visas is that if I were killed while on even my military deployment, my wife and stepchildren would lose their "qualifying relative" and become removable from the United States...

We enrolled the kids in a school district where I had been paying property taxes through eight years, despite their "non-immigrant" status and lack of Social Security numbers (my wife was also luckily able to get a driver's license without an SSAN too). They had foreign citizenship, and while on valid visas, had a comparable status to that of just visiting the United States. If asked by law enforcement (are children truly legally culpable for their actions anyways?) they would have to say they had no "Legal Permanent Residency" or U.S. citizenship, and neither did one of their parents.

Eight months after my family was lawfully admitted on K-3/K-4 visas, they finally gained Legal Permanent Resident status (with abilities to be work-authorized and have a Social Security number). My military unit had mobilized four months before that, and it was over two years after I had initially filed any immigration paperwork. Imagine if we would have had to have Social Security numbers to enroll or gain any benefits from our local public school system during that time as well.

That is what is being proposed here...

The Illegal immigration march is opening the door to many others whose rights have been violated in Maricopa County, AZ -- the innocent sitting in Arizona's jails and prisons.

To the Women, Mothers and their Children, who have been oppressed in this state, we are fighting to save you and your children.

Join us at the Arizona State Capitol on June 27th

FREEDOM MARCH FOR THE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED
being held nationwide at all the State Capitols

http://www.freedommarchusa.org/default.htm