Media Reaction Current Political Issue

Media Reaction Current Political Issue
Patrick Abbey
SOC/315

The border between the United States and Mexico is about 2,000-miles and has existed since the Guadalupe Treaty in 1848. This border which follows the Rio Grande river and consists of many roads and towns that join the two countries, some of which have families living on each side. For many years people were free to cross back and forth between the two countries, though there were some that were considered as high traffic and had gates that would get closed and locked between certain hours. These gate closures were initially meant to be a means to monitor goods between the countries, not allowing certain items in based on governmental controls : example the Food and Drug Administration, drugs are approved based on clinical research and a prescription is necessary that same drug elsewhere not need a prescription. With the ability to move between the countries so lax an individual could come and go between then a their will, and was not supposed to stay for a specific time without getting a Visa. The Visa was a way for people traveling in either country to show they intended to remain for a specific length of time, and could be for work, education, vacation and even to become a citizen. As people came even those who documented their intent, and their time or Visa expired or they remained and became what we call and have categorized as illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants also consist of those who are undocumented and are just not of Mexican descent. This issue is a political time bomb and focuses solely one group of people trying to provide for a give better life to their families. The political message is that these individuals are taking jobs from the American people instead of them saying they are taking and doing the jobs we are too lazy to do. We elect our congress based on what they say they can do for us to make our life easier like create jobs. The federal government has traditionally acted as the primary enforcement agency of immigration laws, and for decades it was accepted law and practice that state and local police did not enforce civil immigration law. The U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the duty of setting and enforcing immigration policy. In addition, most immigration violations are civil violations, not criminal (for example, failure to attend a removal hearing results in the entrance of a civil detainer warrant). Local law enforcement generally has little involvement with the enforcement of any civil laws.1 In 1996, Congress granted limited circumstances under which local law enforcement could engage in the enforcement of immigration law. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) created a mechanism where the U.S. Attorney General could delegate immigration law enforcement duties to local law enforcement, provided the officers underwent adequate training and entered into a formal agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. This mechanism is now contained in section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. §1357(g)) and is the origin of the more commonly used name - 287(g) agreements. 2 I used the Arizona law S.B. 1070, Governor and Maricopa County Sheriff of Arizona to form an argument or point of reference. Arizona law S.B. 1070, as amended by H.B. 2162 (S.B. 1070 henceforth), presents applied social scientists, and the public's with which they are connected, with several important issues. The core issue is that unauthorized migrants and the communities that include them (which are often heavily Latino, but also African, Caribbean, and Asian) will be subject to intensified surveillance by state and local police, and criminal arrest, detention, and penalty as consequences. Interior policing as opposed to border policing of immigrants and deportation of unauthorized people by the federal government has roughly quadrupled in the last half- decade. Such deportations are disruptive of families and communities, and should be a concern of applied social scientists even when done by the federal government. But S.B. 1070 expands this concern to the much more pervasive interaction between state and local police and immigrant-heavy communities. It constitutes a key emergence point in the diffusion of a state and local enforcement approach to immigration restriction, previously approached mainly as a federal issue. S.B. 1070 also raises the issue of the overlap in the U.S. imagination and in policing practice between Latino identity, phenotypes, and “illegalness,” even when unjustified by actual citizenship and immigration status. It signals the continuing importance of addressing migration issues, in the face of delays in passing federal comprehensive immigration reform legislation and the hidden issue of human and civil rights in border and immigration enforcement. At the same time, it is inappropriate to use the national failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform to excuse Arizona for the sorts of laws it passes and actions in some cases it tolerates. Finally, anxieties about the U.S.-Mexico border, realistic and imaginary, substantially motivated the passage of S.B. 1070, point toward the need for engagement with border issues. The law gives the police specific mandates to enforce this law. The police must make efforts to determine the immigration status of anyone they have reasonable suspicion of being undocumented, when lawfully stopping, detaining, or arresting a person, except when that would interfere with an investigation. In other words, police (given a set of subjective suspicions) must inquire into immigration status, in any sort of enforcement, with limited exceptions for investigations, even if the underlying encounter has nothing to do with immigration. Many police departments previously had policies or practices of not inquiring into immigration statuses when that was irrelevant to the violation or situation at hand. When the person is arrested under S.B. 1070, their immigration status must be determined before they can be released. An Arizona driver’s license is presumptive evidence of authorized or citizen status. Any violation that can lead to federal administrative deportation is grounds for warrantless criminal arrest in Arizona. Our country's workplace should not focus on mainstream issues, but rather focus on the job that needs to be done. The workplace should show equal respect to its employees traditions and cultural background, by providing the workers flexible or compressed work schedules during those times of cultural importance and would promote diversity. Diversity in the workplace takes everyone being included and by removing a stereotype from those in the workforce create a unified team, the headlines a black male with tattoos robed a store, is a gang member, lives near and resembles a coworker.

References:
1 See FREDERICK COUNTY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT Fighting Crime or Just Fighting Immigrants? (May 6, 2008), available at http://www.casademaryland.org/storage/documents/frederick%20report.pdf

2 See IMMIG. & NAT’LITY ACT, 8.U.S.C. § 1357(g) (Deering, LEXIS through April 2008 amendments). See also FactSheet, Section 287(g), Immigration and Nationality Act; Delegation of Immigration Authority (June 22, 2007), available at http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/070622factsheet287gprogover.htm

For a state-by-state list, see NAT’L IMMIGR. CTR., Laws, Resolutions and Policies Instituted Across the U.S. Limiting Enforcement of Immigration Laws by Local Authorities (October 2007), available at www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/locallaw_limiting_tbl_2007-10-11.pdf. U.S DEP’T OF JUSTICE, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, What is Community Policing?, http://www.cops.usds oj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36
Craig Ferrell Jr., Immigration Enforcement: Is It a Local Issue?, The Police Chief Magazine: The Professional Voice of Law Enforcement, available at http://policechiefmagazine.org.