Stop with the incredulous bullshit. You offered a distinction for the traffic stop where pot was involved–the “cop has a recourse, he can sit in a court of law and say something like, ‘his car reeked of weed’ or ‘we was swerving, slurred speech, and reeked of booze.’” I explained, since you apparently require a boatload of explanation, why that distinction is meaningless. Stop pretending you didn’t write what you did.
Personally, I don’t know if this law will be effective or not. I’ve said as much in other threads. It may turn out to be the most toothless, piece-of-shit legislation ever passed in the history of the great state of Arizona. But that’s none of my business. Arizona can decide what laws serve them best. I merely react with amusement when the continuous chorus of factual errors erupt. When someone states something that is factually wrong, I like to help him out with the straight dope. I’m terrific that way.
ETA: But I do not rule out that there will be no end of illegal aliens who, like their criminal brethren in other arenas, helpfully provide the means for their own arrests. I suspect there will be lots and lots of righteous arrests.
Bricker’s solution was to ask people on the street, and then hope they incriminate themselves.
Do we see where we are going with this? What reasonable suspicion would the Feds have? Or are they just asking people at random and hoping they confess?
If they are just hoping for confessions, what’s the fucking point? How long would that be a successful program?
[quote=“Stratocaster, post:359, topic:548345”]
How is this materially different from doing so during a traffic stop, if reasonable suspicion existed?
[QUOTE]
What reasonable suspicion?
Are you referring something other than, “or you here illegally?” and hoping for a confession?
Do you see why I keep asking about reasonable suspicion? You have mentioned it TWICE as if there is more than just hoping people confess.
Fuck, we could make this a lot easier. You know those truck weigh stations on the highway? Instead, put up a sign that says, “Illegal immigrants must report to weigh station.”
People are stupid, they’ll just roll in, and get arrested.
Dude, criminals incriminate themselves, by the boatload, every day. Seriously, they are not the students of logic you seem to think them. You are acknowledging the examples of the guys who lets the cop search his trunk, and simultaneously ignoring what that implies. People do and say stupid shit when the cops are questioning them. These criminals will as well. Why wouldn’t they? Why do you cling to the fiction that this law somehow applies to the one tribe of criminals who will behave with calm, sane self-preservation under the pressure of police questioning?
The culture of this country does not and has not required us to carry our papers with us at all times. I’m, frankly, astonished that it is conservatives who desire the nation to go in that direction. Land of the free, indeed.
That ship sailed a long time ago. It is mandatory in every state to carry a license with you everywhere you drive. You have to provide your social security number for employment and medical treatment. We’ve always carried papers that verify who we are.
The United States is a nation of immigrants but that doesn’t make it the worlds doormat. We have a right to limit the number of people who come into the country and by default that means we should be able to hold everybody to account.
Nonsense. I am not legally required to carry any papers with me unless I am performing an action that requires them. You and yours would like that action to be the mere fact of my existence, and that is not and has never been a part of the culture of this nation.
Illegal immigration is not a disease that requires that cure.
All of the examples you gave are optional, and I’m actually more than a little dubious that you have to provide identification for medical care. Just walking around? No ID required.
I’m certainly not suggesting that we should have open borders and allow anyone in for any reason. I’m suggesting that Arizona’s solution erodes the rights of everyone, citizen or not.
So it’s a requirement of your job, and if you didn’t have that job you wouldn’t have that ID? Doesn’t sound like a National ID Card to me. Actually, from your vague description, sounds like a military or retired military ID to me.
Do you understand that a huge number of arrests happen every week because police ask a driver for consent to search, and he gives it, even though he doesn’t have to and even though he knows he has contraband hidden?
Why do you believe that illegal immigrants will become savvy enough to simply assert their rights when all the civics classes and ACLU “Know Your Rights” pamphlets are ineffective in helping the people from question #1?
You’re incredulous that simply asking stopped drivers if they’re a citizen or legal resident will produce reasonable suspicion, but the proof that it wll is in the fact that the analogous questions to drug smugglers reliably produce arrests, even after years and years for the “word to get out.”
I know you included a smiley, but to answer the point… undoubtedly some that are arrested are under the influence of their own products, but that by no means accounts for all or even most of these kinds of arrests. And I used drugs as an example, but there are plenty of other examples, guns being the most common after drugs. Plenty of folks are arrested for “felon in possession” of a firearm after giving permission for the police to search the car, KNOWING they had a firearm in the car. And I assure you they weren’t somehow under the influence of gunpowder when they did it.
No, certainly, I agree, I’m not arguing your point. In fact, I find very little to argue with you from a legal mechanics viewpoint of the law if it stands or from the results it would provide in the real world. (I mentioned in an older thread that the change in the law from “contact” made me feel better about it. I also mentioned that I still thought it was bad law, and that I hoped it was overturned.)
My disagreement, as I’ve recently mentioned, is with the concept (that I’m fairly certain you do not hold) that we should all feel free to show our papers at any time for any reason because, well, we just should. This is, frankly, not a position I can be talked out of. This has little or nothing to do with the technicalities of the law, and hence I’ve stayed out of this thread until recently.
Yes, that was my question. Setting the jurisdictional issue aside, might someone with unquestioned jurisdictional power be able to discern reasonable suspicion? Can anyone even speculate that such a scenario exists? Or are these similarly pointless laws (for those across the border already), from your perspective, even when administered by the Feds?
How about any of the ones Bricker provided? Let’s say that one of these unique criminal masterminds, atypical in their ability to avoid self-incrimination, has a bad day and lets slip something along the lines of what Bricker provided as examples. Or it’s the one dumb illegal alien, the guy who slipped through quality control. Just pretend. Given your position on those arrested or convicted, what’s the material distinction with checking someone who has created a reasonable suspicion on that rare, rare occasion it occurs?
