Stoning the Good Samaritan
by KevinMarch 27th, 2006
The House GOP has passed a bill that would severely punish people who provide any help to illegal immigrants that could be construed as helping them “come or remain” in the country. The language is pretty broad, and I don’t notice a medical or legal exemption. In other words, if you give a glass of water to a dehydrated little girl as she crosses the border; if you are a church that allows illegal aliens into your homeless shelter; if you help a battered woman avoid her abusers; if you transport people out of the desert to a hospital or homeless shelter; if you treat illegal aliens with compassion or simple human decency, this bill makes you a felon and gives you a mandatory five year prison term.
This bill is viciously and needlessly cruel. It creates a situation in which people have to put their freedom at risk to treat illegal aliens as if they where human beings. It creates a class of untouchables in this country — people that law abiding citizens cannot aide, no matter how dire their circumstances, without becoming criminals. This bill is vicious for the sake of being vicious. The sponsors and heir supporters hate illegal immigrants and they hate the people who would help them, so they turn the latter into unpersons as far as the law is concerned (the bill also allows indefinite detention, removes judicial review of visa decisions, and empowers federal agents to deport anyone they find within a hundred miles of the border that they suspect is in the country illegally) and do everything they can to punish the decent people who try to help these people when they need help to survive. It is hateful, mean, and unchristian.
There was an enormous rally in Los Angeles over the weekend to oppose this bill. The police — whose estimates are generally low — estimated at least 500,000 people demonstrated. Several of them had signs displaying some version of the sentiment “Republicans Hate Latinos”. At least for the case of the Republicans who support this bill (which does not include, to his credit, George Bush), it is hard to argue with that sentiment.
Categories: Politics |
Just in case kevin’s statement that GOP passed the bill misleads someone, 38 dems voted for the bill. If they all vote against it, the bill is defeated by 20 votes.
Yes, Ted, you are right — the GOP introduced the bill, got it through conferences, put it on the schedule, the vast majority of Dmeocratis voted agaisnt it, but its a truley bipartisian measure.
Here’s the thing — when the alrge majority of one party is for something and the large majority of the other party is agaisnt that same thing, then only the most pendantic of people — or people looking to pretend that there is not difference between the positions of the parties as a whole — would believe that the first party is not, in fact, the party that supports the thing.
Another thing. In case anyone believes the line about being convicted for offering a glass of water to a little girl, the pertinent part of this bill deals with people conspiring to smuggle deported aliens, convicted of a felony, back into the US. Since my description is a bit of an oversimplification, the actual text is included below for anyone who cares. I’m not for or against this bill, I’m just very much against anyone intentionally misrepresenting the truth.
HR 4477 (Bill Kevin refers to)
SEC. 205. MANDATORY SENTENCING RANGES FOR PERSONS AIDING OR ASSISTING CERTAIN REENTERING ALIENS
(b)(1) Any person who knowingly aids or assists any alien violating section 276(b) (Ted adds: see below) to reenter the United States, or who connives or conspires with any person or persons to allow, procure, or permit any such alien to reenter the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, imprisoned for a term imposed under paragraph (2), or both.
Existing law:
Sec 276. [8 U.S.C. 1326]
(a) Subject to subsection (b) any alien who-
(1)1/ has been arrested and deported, has been excluded and deported, or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion or deportation is outstanding, and thereafter
(1)2/ has been denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed,or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding, and thereafter
(2) enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States, unless (A) prior to his reembarkation at a place outside the United States or his application for admission from foreign contiguous territory, the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reapplying for admission; or (B) with respect to an alien previously denied admission and removed 3/, unless such alien shall establish that he was not required to obtain such advance consent under this or any prior Act, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a), in the case of any alien described in such subsection-
(1) whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of three or more misdemeanors involving drugs, crimes against the person, or both, or a felony (other than an aggravated felony), such alien shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both;
(2) whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony, such alien shall be fined under such title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both;
(3)4/ who has been excluded from the United States pursuant to section 235(c) because the alien was excludable under section 212(a)(3)(B) or who has been removed from the United States pursuant to the provisions of title V, and who thereafter, without the permission of the Attorney General, enters the United States, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, and imprisoned for a period of 10 years, which sentence shall not run concurrently with any other sentence; or
(4)5/ who was removed from the United States pursuant to section 241(a)(4)(B) who thereafter, without the permission of the Attorney General, enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States (unless the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reentry) shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both.
For the purposes of this subsection, the term “removal” includes any agreement in which an alien stipulates to removal during (or not during) a criminal trial under either Federal or State law.
kevin,
concerning your comment above, I agree. However, what you wrote in your blog was “The House GOP has passed a bill. I pointed out that it was passed by a combination of both parties. If this is being pedantic, so be it.
Ted
No, it is disnegenous. Your comment is designed to make it appear that both parties supported the bill, when that is obviously and patently untrue. It would be like saying that the Dmeocratic Party did not support the origianl PATRIOT act because one member voted against it.
As for your accusations that I was lying: read the words you copied Ted (and I linked to) A little girl who comes across illegally is the very definition of Section 2) of the origianl law. And whatever they say the intent is, the bill makes no exceptions that I can find for hummanitarian work. In fact, if you had followed the links, you would have seen that several charitable organizations ahd the same concerns, and the GOP sponsors promised to make changes and then did not.
Whatever you would like to believe, the law as written allows for just what I wrote to happen.
If you find an illegal immigrant in distress, take him to the local police station. They will give him all the water he needs. If he is sick they can get him back to his home country for treatment. Which part of “illegal” do liberals not understand?
For completeness, here is the roll call. The bill was supported by 87.9% of House Republicans (203 for, 17 against, 11 abstentions), and only 17.8% of House Democrats (36 for, 164 against, 2 abstentions). Put more starkly, the bill was opposed by 81.2% of Democrats, but only 7.4% of Republicans.
So maybe Kevin should have mentioned that a small number of Democrats supported the bill — for the purpose of condemning them right alongside the GOP — but you’re picking nits here. This is clearly a GOP initiative, widely supported by the GOP and widely opposed by the Democrats (and, as Kevin points out, the President).
By the way, you’re wrong, Ted. It was 36 Democrats, not 38.
If you will run the numbers, you will see that the bill would not have passed without democrat votes. It would have been defeated if only 203 republicans voted for it.
I’m glad the Republicans are finally doing something about illegal immigration. It’s way past time.
The rallies in support of illegal immigration and the wholesale breaking of immigration laws may have a postive impact. A backlash may result when lawmakers and common citizens see the complete disregard that the illegal immigrant supporters have for our laws. There can be no doubt now what they want and they are showing an ugly side that many have kept hidden before. Hopefully, lawmakers will become even stricter and more resolute in their determination to stop illegal activities.
What will we see next? Will we see a rally by other criminals demanding fewer cops so they can get away with their crimes?
kevin: “Your comment is designed to make it appear that both parties supported the bill”
My comment wasn’t designed. It merely stated the facts (which, thanks to tgirsh, it appears I had slightly wrong). If you think stating cold, hard facts in a very simple way is designing something, then we will just have to disagree on that.
kevin: “As for your accusations that I was lying: read the words you copied Ted (and I linked to) A little girl who comes across illegally is the very definition of Section 2) of the origianl law”
Unless I misunderstand the law (not entirely out of the realm of possibility) I think you are wrong here. The bill refers to people violating section 276(b), which clearly describes previously deported aliens with convictions.
tgirsh, you have demonstrated a good legal mind. What is your opinion here?
I’m wrong. Sorry, Kevin, I apologize. The links I followed refered to Section 205 as the dsisputed part of the bill (this is the text I inserted above, and it refers to deported aliens).
Section 202 deals with all aliens, and is very onerous.
Again, I was wrong, and I apologize.
Ted:
Without having read the bill, if the summations I hear are true, it’s terrible. Contrary to what Fred likes to say, I agree that illegal immigration is a serious problem; it’s just that I don’t think this will help solve the problem.
I’ve been saying for a long time that if you want to do something meaningful about illegal immigration, you’d start cracking down on employers with heavy fines and jail time for employing illegals. that’s why they’re coming here in the first place — for the work. If you start cracking down on the people who are supplying the work, then you can start to make progress.
Think of it like the drug problem — if you want to do something about drug abuse, you can go after the users, or you can go after the dealers. Going after the dealers has much more impact. And like the drug problem, nothing you do is ever going to completely eliminate it.
Ted
No reason to apologize — it was an honest mistake, and one easy to make, and I compunded it by misreaidng which section you had posted. I was thinking I was reading the one I had been concentrating on, section 202, and you were talking about 276.
As for the comments about the number of Dems voting for the bill, yes, those are facts, but in the context of the conversation it very much appeared as if your intent in quoting them as to suggest that the measure was bipartisian in nature. And I do not think that any reasonable definition of bipartisian could include this bill for the reasons Tom and I have already stated.
If that wasn’t your intent, then I apologize for misunderstanding you.
kevin: you are more than kind. peace.
tgirsch: I hear you, but I think it gets complicated when you get to implementation. In order to prosecute an employer, you need to prove an employee is illegal. Once that is done, the person would have to be deported, yes? So, a consequence of meaningful employer prosecution would be a meaningful increase in the number of illegals deported. Are you willing to accept that?
Also, is it the illegals who come here and obtain jobs and support themselves the most critical aspect of this problem? I’m not convinced it is. And of course the employers in question are mostly small businesses, so that isn’t going to play well either. To meaningfully penalize them will put a lot of them out of business, resulting in all employees becoming unemployed.
Notwithstanding all that, I agree that if you reduce the number of jobs available, you will reduce the number of illegals coming into the country (but probably not the number already here - other than through deportation).
“Once that is done, the person would have to be deported, yes? So, a consequence of meaningful employer prosecution would be a meaningful increase in the number of illegals deported. Are you willing to accept that?”
Very good question. I don’t know how else to solve the problem, though. As long as employers are either allowed to hire illegals or are only given a slap on the wrist, nothing in the world will stop people form coming across.
Ted:
So, a consequence of meaningful employer prosecution would be a meaningful increase in the number of illegals deported. Are you willing to accept that?
Yes, provided the illegal in question gets a fair hearing, etc. Especially when you compare it to the status quo, wherein the illegal is deported and the employer gets away with a slap on the wrist.
And of course the employers in question are mostly small businesses, so that isn’t going to play well either.
I don’t have much more sympathy for a small employer using unfair advantages to get ahead than I would for a large employer doing the same.
To meaningfully penalize them will put a lot of them out of business, resulting in all employees becoming unemployed.
At the risk of sounding Libertarianish, this is one of those instances where I actually do believe that the market would provide. Assuming the business wasn’t a failing one, somebody else (preferably a reputable employer) would step in and fill the market gap left by the bad employer going out of business.
Not in all cases, but in most. And after a few high profile shutdowns, I suspect other businesses would start to clean up, and new businesses would be far less likely to succumb to that method of cheap labor and tax avoidance.
Of course, there will always be some who game the system, and some who fall through the cracks. But that doesn’t mean we ought to make it easy for them.
Damn, now I’m on the repugnicunt side???? All I know is that it makes me want to puke. All of those demonstrators who are “undocumented” workers demonstrating for their American rights, and carrying Mexican flags. You’re not American just because you broke the law and illegaly entered the country. You show you’re real intentions by carrying the wrong flag.
What don’t you understand about “illegal?”
Just for the record, I’d have opposed this bill in its current form. If you can find anyone more Republican than me…go ahead.
We do need to do something about immigration though, and here’s what should be done:
- Illegal immigration should be a felony. It’s a crime, plain and simple.
- Immigration is currently a confused paperwork storm, and should be made simpler and less stupid. It should be more accessible and easier.
- We need to start accepting way more people than we do now. Our ag sector depends on it, and if we tag these folks we can track them well enough so they don’t pose a threat. Currently, they’re just wandering around with no ID. We could keep a good-sized pool of about 2-3 million special worker cards out in circulation and this would all go away.
…oh, and…they should all shut up while we figure out what to do with them. We’ll come up with something good enough, but I’m getting tired of hearing them complain.