I said it in this post and I’ll say it again. What you are doing is disgusting. Why would something wrong done by person A reflect on any other person but himself? Would you do the same thing if the person who did it was black or Italian or from Cleveland? So now a reason to keep them Mexicans out is that they drive drunk and kill people? This is truly despicable.
let’s stop fooling around. The vigilantes are using this as a flimsy excuse for their activities. The reason given was that the government won’t do it so we have to do it. When that is pulled apart then they start talking about all these other reasons which are just smokescreens and covers for their real reason.
Congratulations on once again missing someone’s point in a really huge way.
My point was NOT just generally, “Who has a dog in this fight?” I was responding to Gus. Here’s his post again, since the thread has rolled over.
So, Gus is saying only the people who are willing to employ a Mexican in their place of business, or otherwise put their money where their mouth is, should be entitled to express an opinion as to whether immigration, legal or otherwise, is a good or a bad thing.
And here you are, with your admittedly tragic yet completely irrelevant story about Your Friend Mike Who Was Killed By A Drunk Alien.
So you missed both my point and Gus’s point. According to Gus’ definition, you do NOT have a dog in this fight, unless you’re managing a Burger King somewhere.
Pay attention, willya?
No I simply advertised that the impact of illegal immigration has a very personal impact on my life.
The illegal in question was not Mexican… Any more brilliant ones.
My wife happens to be Mexican, I don’t have a problem with Mexicans. I have a problem with illegal entry and pansy ass treatment of criminals in general. I do not wish for anyone to get hurt. Nor do I believe the ranchers are under any moral or legal requirement to tolerate people crossing their land without permission. The ranchers are not creating the conflict, the people who enter they country and their land illegally do. If the illegals were not crossing their land there would be no conflict.
Maybe I’m just stupid and IANAL but when I read the stautes on trespassing I got the impression that it is considered trespassing only if you are knowingly entering someone’s property and refuse to leave.
So in this huge expanse of desolate country how does someone know whether it is private or public property? And if a rancher comes upon someone that has wandered onto his property it still isn’t considered trespassing unless he asks them to leave and they refuse. From what I have read of the modus operandi of these vigilantes, they don’t ask. They are using the “trespassing” excuse to legitimitize other motives like racism. I don’t think it requires a genius to figure that out. When they start holding meetings with the KKK in attendance and recruiting people from all over the country then how can anyone claim it is some poor rancher trying to stop people from walking across his property?
>> No I simply advertised that the impact of illegal immigration has a very personal impact on my life.
The story is completely irrelevant to this thread. And that is not the effect of “illegal immigration”. If the person would have been a leagl immigrant would you say it was the effect of legal immigration? If the person would have been black what would you have said?
CBEscapee, said it best. They are using the “trespassing” excuse to legitimitize other motives like racism
You are correct. They are simply allowing the proper authorities to make that call. We don’t get to pass sentence.
And many mobsters get busted for income tax evasion. Being in country illegally is a crime, if it takes trespass to get law enforcement involved and it so happens that they are illegals, sorry. Kinda like if I got pulled over for expired registration tags on my car. Once the officer pulls me over and I show him the sticker I just picked up but have not applied its all cool. If he does a quick warrant check he finds out I have a $10,000 warrant I still go to jail… All I was doing was driving to the store…wasn’t hurting anyone…
If a civil rights group wants to have fun maybe they need to go have a camp out in the desert and go for a little hike through barnetts property so they can sue him for false arrest if he steps out of line. Better yet include and undercover border patrol officer or two.
If they act in a legal fashion without violating any laws pertaining to citizens arrest under the circumstances who cares if it is the KKK or the ACLU. If they get their jollys seeing people get shipped back…fine. If I like gassing puppies and volunteer at an animal shelter putting dogs to sleep, who cares.
I care who the vigilante is, since I am not the right race. :mad:
I can not beliebe you just said that!
Right now, illegals are being found shot execution style. The authorities are not amused. Guess who are they suspecting?
And locals are not amused either:
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/special03/articles/1218vigilante18.html
Even the Republic, hardly a liberal newspaper, had this to say:
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/opinions/articles/1219thur1-19.html
Sorry, but where do they get the right to detain these people at gunpoint when they aren’t trespassing according to the law? Maybe a sympathetic district attorney could prosecute for something like false imprisonment.
In this case the officer has *probable cause * to pull you over. Someone walking across the desert doesn’t constitute probable cause.
That might be a good idea. But you know all people within the borders of the USA are guaranteed due process regardless of citizenship. So accordingly the illegals should have the same rights.
That’s a very revealing analogy. I tell you what…if you were my neighbor and I found out you liked gassing dogs my kids certainly wouldn’t play with yours.
LOL DDG… But, see the word ONLY I bolded above. I get called for this all the time when I just ask, who here has been there? or whatever. 
I never say, “They are the only ones who” nor do I ever imply that. I am truly curious about what people do. ( who is yelling the loudest so to speak? ) I wonder why people think that is what I am asking? / Saying? I do not pay as much attention to children no matter how intelligent they are compared to someone who has / is doing something.
:: Untested virtue is meaningless. ::
This whole border thing is really silly IMO. ( not saying hurting people is right, just that it does not stand alone, it is in line with a lot of mistakes that have been going on for a long time and we, IMO, keep trying to fix the wrong end of the dog. But I digress. ) But we have it going on. If I was actually trying to make a difference and lived there or was helping immigrants or adopting orphans or sending money or volunteer teaching, well, yeah, I think my opinions should carry a bit more weight in a place like the SDMB but it does not. ::: shrug :::
The World is Round,
It is Not Fair,
It is Just Damn Round !!!
Gus, this thread is not “do you support illegal immigrants”, nor is it “choose between the illegal immigrants and the vigilantes”. This thread is about whether vigilantes are a good idea. I think they are not a good idea and that, furthermore, experience tells us they are generally a bunch of racists playing with guns. Now, what am I supposed to do with that? How do I put my ass where my mouth is? Go out and preach in the desert?
This is ludicrous. You can’t just “sponsor a Mexican.”
I do work visas for a living. Employment-Based Immigration 101: you can’t just create a job to employ a foreigner; the job has to be one that would have existed anyway, and (in a nutshell) be a job that in practical terms you are unable to fill with an (already here and legal) U.S. worker. There are thousands of pages of Federal statue and regulations dispersed throughout INS, the Dept. of Labor, various state labor departments, and the IRS on this and related subjects. The vast majority of employment visas are for people coming to fill positions that require the bare minimum of a bachelor’s degree, and all but a few employment-based green cards fulfill that prerequisite, too. I’d wager that very few of those wading across the Rio Grande have bachelor’s degrees. If they did, Mexico is a member of NAFTA, which provides free movement of people, not only goods; if they could get U.S. job offers in one of the numerous fields for which NAFTA provides for employment visas, they’d have much better options than paying a coyote to rip them off.
Besides, most of us (I’d wager) don’t directly employ anyone beyond the occasional babysitter, so it’s a silly comparison in any case.
CBEscapee, the barbed wire fences are a big hint.
Could there be a linguistic barrier here? Often the rancher speaks English, the immigrant speaks Spanish, and nobody knows what the other is saying. If you have to cross a barbed wire fence to get on someone’s property, however, that’s usually a sign that you’re not supposed to be there.
lel, there may be barbed wire or there may not be barbed wire. It does not matter much for the purposes of this discussion. If people are entering the country illegally, that is a minor point anyway. The point is that, it is not a good idea to have self appointed vigilantes defending the country’s borders. Yes, people do illegal things all the time, especially if they think they can get away with it. That does not mean it is a good idea, or even legal, for private people to go out there and usurp law enforcement roles.
In DC there are parts where there is drug dealing and it is public and notorious. The police, for whatever reason, do not stop it and the neigbors are sick and tired of it. And yet they do not go out there and take justice into their own hands and if they did they would probably get into more trouble. What they can do is organize orange hat patrols and observe what’s going on and use walkie-talkies to keep groups in touch and call police if they see a crime committed.
Let us stop concocting scenarios where a vigilanet is justified. They are not justified and they are out there looking for trouble and causing trouble. The country does not need them and does not want them. They are self appointed saviours and they are not needed.
5 pages and still going strong. Excellent.
- Does anyone have a problem with citizens guarding private property? Not talking about groups of racist vigilantes, with evil on their minds, going and ‘enforcing the law’ on public ground. I am wondering if anyone has a problem with private citizens guarding private property?
- If someone does have a problem with private citizens guarding private property, then where does liabilty lay? When a group illegals perishes out in the boonies from dehydration, and they happen to have done so on private property, is it the landowners fault? If illegals damage fencing (a felony in Texas, mind you), who pays for it?
Robert, did you actually read any of the previous five pages? We’re not talking about “citizens guarding private property”–we’re talking about “citizens taking it upon themselves to guard public property”. The land in question is public land, like land in the national forest, that is leased by the ranchers. It isn’t “private property”, it doesn’t belong to them, they have no right to guard it.
And, they aren’t leasing it in the sense of having the legal right to keep people off it–they have to allow backpackers, picknickers, campers, birdwatchers, wildlife photographers, etc. etc. etc. to use it, as it is recreational-use and Bureau of Land Management land. It’s public land, not private property.
All the ranchers get for their lease is the grazing rights–they have the right to run cattle on the land.
That’s all.
You didn’t actually read and comprehend the story linked to in the OP, did you?
Um, you mean this article?
The article about various groups setting themselves up to guard a public international border, on public land?
Yeah, I read that. And I comprehended it. What’s your point?
Do some research. Ranch Rescue states on their website that they only carry out operations (some of which are to repair fences destroyed/damaged by illegals; Its not all armed patrol) on private land. Not public, but p-r-i-v-a-t-e.