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Arizona H-1B Workers Advised to Carry Papers At All Times
dcblogs writes "In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday on Arizona's immigration enforcement law, H-1B workers are being advised to keep their papers on them. About half of all H-1B visa holders are employed in tech occupations. The court struck down several parts of Arizona's law but nonetheless left in place a core provision allowing police officers to check the immigration status of people in the state at specific times. How complicated this gets may depend on the training of the police officer, his or her knowledge of work visas, and whether an H-1B worker in the state has an Arizona's driver's license. An Arizona state driver's license provides the presumption of legal residency. Nonetheless, H-1B workers could become entangled in this law and suffer delays and even detention while local police, especially those officers and departments unfamiliar with immigration documentation."
Your other license and registration please.
You never expect irony, do you?
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@iyfwrestling
You know, they could be Russian mafia or that guy from Wikileaks.
Somehow, I doubt it.
You mean like the work authorization card that you are supposed to carry ANYWAY?
...not to be too facetious here, but how often does someone from India or Russia sneak in over the Arizona/Mexico border?
Seriously - this state law was built to stem the tide of one particular group of people. Forget your position on it and all, but consider that Montana certainly has no such laws, even though it borders a different nation as well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
When will we realize that immigrants, "legal" and otherwise do not cause problems but rather raise the standard of living for -everyone-?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm a mid 50's white guy. I always keep my passport with me when I travel through Arizona. One never knows. From a distance, at night, I may be suspected of being a Canadian.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
As someone who doesn't have US citizenship but who lives and works in the US, creating businesses that have hired hundreds of people (including plenty of H1-B holders) I have an alternate approach; I shall simply be avoiding Arizona as much as possible. I shall not be holding any group meetings there, I'll see what I can do to avoid conventions there or transfers through PHX and they can kiss goodbye to any prospect of my opening offices there. I'm probably too white to actually be harassed under this law but that doesn't make it any less disgusting to me.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
I'm pretty sure that non-citizens were required to carry "registration" papers with them before. But hey, not everything gets enforced...
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1304
(e) Personal possession of registration or receipt card; penalties
Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
Hyperom.com
why states enact these laws other than pandering to their geriatric neoconservative constituents and ginning up a scapegoat for high unemployment rates.
Good people go to bed earlier.
These numbers are for illegal immigrants with a criminal record. Not illegal immigrants in general. It says nothing about the rate of arrests for the general population.
Many states have implemented "must identify" laws, which state that you must identity yourself (correctly) to a policeman when asked. Depending on the state, you're also required to correctly answer other questions, such as "what you are doing there, where did you come from, where you are going".
These laws were brought to the attention of the supreme court, which stated flatly that these laws were constitutional so long as no proof of identity was required. Short of an arrest, police cannot demand proof of ID just for being in an area. (I don't believe that proof of license to drive a car on the highway has been addressed directly.)
With this new ruling, states can pass laws that allow police to detain anyone who cannot prove their identity, on the theory that they *might* be illegal immigrants.
The "must identify" laws effectively did away with anonymous meetings and anonymous protest. The police can simply wait outside any meeting and ask the participants their names as they leave.
Now they can demand proof of ID as well.
The right to peaceably assemble anonymously, the right to be in public anonymously, the right to protest anonymously is gone.
I'm from Russia, and I was stopped at Arizona when I was there to see the Grand Canyon, I was originally on a business trip to California but had several free days. I'd been asked for papers when I was stopped by a police officer for riding a bicycle on sidewalk.
I didn't have my passport with me so a police officer offered to drive me to my hotel to fetch it or to drive me to the police station to check my identity there. I'd chosen to be driven to my hotel, I have a valid B1/B2 visa so it was not a problem for me.
Javol, Heir!
It is getting like cold war Europe or occupied France and kind of like an old style Soviet republic too.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
You need to be careful with being quiet too. At least in my state (Texas), refusing to provide your name, date of birth, and home address if you've been arrested and the officer has asked it of you is considered an additional offense. Several other states criminalize refusing to provide your name even before you're arrested.
Okay, so the immigrant workers are going to carry their papers. And many of the illegal ones, or at least the smart ones, will carry forged papers - at least ones good enough to pass cursory inspection.
But what about the native-born citizens? Not everyone has a driver's license (or an Arizona license - would my Virginia driver's license count as "proof of citizenship"?), and I highly doubt citizens will be carrying around their birth certificates or anything - after all, they're not immigrants, why should they be concerned about an immigration law.
This is basically carte blanche for the police to harass anyone, and non-immigrants are going to be surprisingly affected.
In any case, I'm now mentally filing "Arizona" next to "East Germany", because both require me to have my papers in ordnung (and because both are effectively in the past - E.G. literally, Arizona figuratively).
So, you can prove you're a citizen by carrying no papers? :-)
That's what's always impressed me about these laws -- in theory, citizens need not carry papers, but if you don't, how does that "discussion" with the cop usually go? Of course *I* don't have to worry about this, I'm a fat old white guy. It's obviously discriminatory, it's intended to be discriminatory, and it's understood to be discriminatory. If *I* (and my kids) had to carry papers around all the time or risk arrest, I'd be furious. But I'm supposed to be okay with the law, because I'm white, so "we all know" that won't happen to me, it's only a problem for "other people". Bleah. This law has to go.
So Canada will let anyone smuggle themselves into the country and allow them to stay however long they want?
No, but we tend to do more cost/benefit analysis on programs than do our American friends. If illegal immigration is costing Canada one billions dollars per year then it doesn't make sense to spend 3 billion building a fence (these are just made-up numbers to make a point). Certainly criminals are deported, but some illegal picking apples in the summer and shovelling driveways in the winter is not likely to get much attention focused on him because it's cheaper to let him stay.
Or maybe being white non-hispanic will be a sufficient proof of my citizenship?
Apparently not: "A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver's license with him under Alabama's new law targeting illegal immigrants"
"Papers? What the fuck, man, I was born in East LA!"
I don't really see what all this whining is about. My dad did not become a US citizen until after I graduated from high school and he had a resident alien card in his wallet next to his driver's license. His citizenship was delayed for a long time due to processing backlog. In that interim period though it didn't seem to be a big deal. Why is this hard?
Oh, well then. Let me explain it to you.
You see, there's this famous expression "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" which means, essentially, sometimes actions which are well intentioned have negative consequences.
If you look narrowly at, well, just about anything you can spin it as a good thing. It's sometimes difficult to see the effects that something has on the global population, or society at large.
You see, even though the law is aimed at illegal immigrants, and only applies to illegal immigrants, it's pretty certain that a lot of legal citizens will have their rights violated because of this law.
Rights which we have enjoyed and held dear for many years.
If you take the trouble to see what effect this law will have on everyone, you realize (as does every other "whiner" on this thread), that the supreme court has just thrown out one of our most cherished rights, and hastened this country into the decay of fascism.
I assure you, this is something worth whining about.
Look at the crime rates in the border states and you'll find their crime rates are climbing like mad
You are being feed BS. There are no "crime rates climbing like mad".
"According to FBI statistics, violent crimes reported in Arizona dropped by nearly 1,500 reported incidents between 2005 and 2008."
If any police or military officers are being shot, it has to do with an unwinnable drug war, not immigration, even among our citizen gang bangers as well as our non-citizen ones.
In California, medical marijuana legalization has taken much of the wind out of drug gang profits, violent crime has also dropped dramatically.
As has previously been stated time and time again, racial profiling just doesn't work. If we concentrate on Mexicans, then they will just start sending Caucasians across the border.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I still don't understand why States need to enforce federal laws.
If the federal government doesn't want to enforce laws, that's because they have a reason to - no need for states to get involved in international affairs.
(The answer is: Americans want illegal immigration to continue)
Because most of the law enforcement and other government services that are expended because of illegal aliens happen at the state and local levels. It's easy for the federal government to be lazy here because the federal politicians get the support for looking the other way AND they're not the ones bearing the burden of it. You might as well ask why a heavily-polluting industry doesn't want anti-pollution laws to be enforced.
And no, most Americans don't want illegal immigration to continue. I know a very vocal minority likes to portray their view as representative of the general population but it isn't. The only ones who benefit from it are: big businesses who like paying lower wages, the Republican candidates they tend to sponsor, and Democrat candidates who score points with their base by pandering to the Hispanic minority.
Most people are not majority shareholders in large corporations. Most people are not Republican federal politicians receiving campaign contributions. Most people are not federal Democrat politicians receiving votes from well-meaning but stupid people who feel good about making everything a racial issue only because they happen to be on the privileged side of this particular one.
The vast majority of Americans gain nothing from this at all. The legal American citizens who live in places with large illegal alien populations not only fail to gain, but lose a lot. They lose in the form of lower wages, higher crime, language barriers, and money leaving their local communities because it's being sent to relatives in foreign nations. When it turns out they don't want to be exploited like this, they're told about how "racist" they are for not liking it, just to add some insult to injury. They're pretty damned tired of it. Do you blame them? Those legal American citizens are the hosts, while the federal political machine that benefits from this is the parasite.
They're politically fighting back at the state level because they have no voice at all on the federal level. They can't outclass the corporate sponsorship on the Republican side. Meanwhile the Democrat party will never give up its obsession with dividing people by race because playing various racial/ethnic groups against each other is how they get many of their votes. So the people are taking the options that are still available to them. All you are seeing here is that the people are better represented in state and local governments than they could ever dream of being in the federal government. This is nothing new.
Again, do you blame them? It's all easy to play armchair critic and forget that this is a direct response to a real problem.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I hate to break the news to ya, but it ain't just poo little Paco coming to work that's crossing the border,
On behalf of us conservative, middle-class, white Americans [1]: kiss my ass. "Poor little Paco" is some dude who wants a better living for his family. You don't get to blithely throw that baby out with the bathwater. Dismissing concerns about "those poor little brown people" is a giant "screw you" to everyone who's ever emigrated to America.
we are talking dope dealers,
...who wouldn't be an issue if we dropped this stupid War On Drugs,
human traffickers,
...who are heavily involved with the same drug warlords our insane policies have made rich,
some really serious scum are crossing that huge leaking sieve of a border as well.
...but fortunately they constitute a tiny portion of border violators. Your little link listed, what, 10? 20? people killed by illegal immigrants. They'd call that a busy week in Chicago (no, really: unlike you, I actually looked up the numbers).
So we have a few tens of millions of decent people who want to work hard at good jobs to send their kids to the schools they themselves didn't have. And then we have a few thousand who want to get rich off the drug laws we've almost custom-tailored to those ends. Ruling out the crime of illegal immigration itself, I'd wager that the crime rate among those immigrants is no more than equal that of natives in similar economic classes. I'd make a side wager that it would be less, as tight-knit communities self-police to keep the limelight off themselves, and because an illegal immigrant making $X is likely to feel much less poor than a native making the same amount.
So in short, you ought to be ashamed for writing off "poor little Paco", as though his desire to live better is no big deal. There are a lot more of him than there are of the scary drug kidnapper straw men you've used to justify your racist assholishness. You, personally, are the reason that the Republicans don't completely own the Latino vote. Their conservative culture would be a near-perfect match for the Republican platform if you could get over your squeamishness and quit driving them away.
[1] I'm still a fiscal conservative, but I couldn't abide by the social hyperconservatism of the current Republican party. I'm not gay and the occasional mai tai is the hardest drug I get near so it's not like I was feeling personally oppressed. It's just that I stopped feeling the need to tell other people how to live. You, too, can get over the "Rush says it so it must be right!" mindset and start enjoying the world around you. It's not nearly as scary as rightwing talk radio would lead you to believe.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It isn't that...I mean AZ isn't overrun by conservatives...but they ARE being overrun by illegals, and the toll it is taking on crime, overburdened schools, hospitals and other state/city services is immense.
From the polls I've seen, this kind of law, holds widespread support by the majority of the whole state....as it does in many border states that are having to deal with this...something other states can't comprehend since they're not wearing the same shoes.
It IS a major problem, and the federal govt. is not enforcing the laws on the books. If you could stop the flood of people coming in, and then revamp the immigration system...well, it would help.
I don't think the majority of people have a problem with legal immigration, but it has to be monitored and metered. The unbrideled flow of illegal people in the country is taking its toll on the system, and it isn't fair to the many thousands of people from all over the world, trying to wait in line and come here to become US citizens properly, with all the rewards and obligations that entails, including important requirements such as proficiency in English...something important to integrating into the larger American culture, rather than isolating into small communities cut off from the larger culture and population.
On the high level, presidental level, sure, it is all political...but if you had to live and deal with the situation that border states with Mexico are having to deal with...you'll find it cuts largely across both political ideals with regard to support for securing the borders and doing something about cutting the flow of ILLEGAL immigrants flooding those states.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Most staple foods in the US are mechanically harvested.
The ones that can't be (notoriously, strawberries), are specialty crops.
Illegal immigration does not bring the price per bushel of wheat down in any noticable maner. What is allready obscenely cheap to produce compared to manually picked crops, when you count only total laborers involved. (A single farmer plows, irrigates, sows, fertilizes, and sprays insecticide on a huge plot of land. Several people show up to harvest, only because it takes several drivers to haul the crop off, and because many hands make lighter work, and more fields can be harvested PER DAY. Compare to strawberries, which take DAYS to harvest one field.
You don't get "cheap food" from illegal labor. You get cheap luxuries from illegal labor.
On one side the Liberals declare that people entering the USA, even illegally, should be considered as "legal", so long as they do not make trouble
I've literally never, in my entire life, heard any self-described "liberal" say this. Never. You're setting up a false dichotomy so you can make it look the problem is being caused by both sides.
It isn't.
This is entirely a right-wing issue, and the flames of racism are being fanned entirely by so-called "conservatives".
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The problem is that despite all the yammering about skilled vs unskilled labor, the ability to withstand manual labor in the summer sun all day long is very much an acquired skill, one which a lot of legal workers don't have, and no about of screaming at unemployment recipients will magically imbue it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They broke federal law by illegally entering our country.
A man looks at a line on the map and thinks, "on this side, my children go to poor schools until 3rd grade and then start a lifetime of manual labor. They'll have no more than I. On that side of the invisible line, they go to good schools and maybe work hard to become a doctor." Then he steps over the line. Yeah, that's just a hair's breadth away from slanging 'caine with a gang.
The fact that you think this is how humans reason about morality says a lot more about you than it does our new visitors.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm an Arizona citizen and your summation matches how I see reality here.
Growing up industries like plumbing and other construction trades were a viable option for un-educated people but not anymore. Personally I feel that big corporations (and even not so big companies) use illegal immigrants just like pre-civil war farmers used slaves. I wish we could solve the real problem driving it: corruption in Mexico.
> What about Obama's Immigration Directive ?
So what exactly do you think a child who is being brought into the US illegally by his/her parents should do in their situation? Run away? Snitch on their own parents? What if they're too young at the time to even be aware of the illegality of their crossing, or it's repercussions? Hell, some of those kids don't even know they're here illegally until the government launches into a deportation.
And then what? They're supposed to go back to a country where they have no ties, may not remember, and may not even speak the language? Leave the only home they've ever known because of something their *parents* did when they were children?
You people are just sick. Whatever one might think the policy should be on adults who cross the border illegally; to oppose the Dream Act, or its replication in Obama's recent directive, isn't just morally repugnant. It's inhuman and sadistic.
Imagine all the people...
Illegal immigration is not causing higher crime. Arizona's crime rates are down since immigration increased - in line with the rest of the country:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/03/nation/la-na-arizona-crime-20100503
There is some ugly stuff going on, but saying illegal immigration has increased the the crime rate is simply false.