New US Immigration Law Protests

[scy 0]

He should have learned his lesson?

Is it the way to treat people?

I do not drink or drive but this provision of the proposed law is outrageous!

Are we - people who are here with a visa or permanent residency- going to be permanently at the mercy of your government? Under the sword...

How can anyone in his/her right mind support this nonsense?

Are there anything similar for citizens? Do you accept the same treatment for yourself? Not for drunk driving (which I am strongly opposed to....I lost my mother in an 'accident' involving a drunk driver) , but for similar things? Let us deport citizens who did this or that. Would that be OK?

The US can not deport its own natural born citizens, but it can deport aliens, permanent residents or naturalized citizens for certain crimes. For example, the US has deported naturalized citizens who were found to be Nazi prison guards.

So yes, aliens are held to a different standard than natural born US citizens. And no, aliens should not complain about it since it is a priviledge not a right for them to come and live in the US. If they choose to commit certain crimes, then they deserve to be deported. It is harsh? I don't think so. Remember, aliens choose to come and live in the US. The US doesn't advertise or ask for them to come. If they can't follow certain US laws, they should be deported.

Deportation for commiting crimes is a serious thing that is not taken lightly. It takes a long time to be deported and aliens have the right of due process to appeal. So you can't be deported for just any crimes, only certain ones.

[internetkafe 0]

I had no idea about that. So being born in the US is a privelege? US-born citizens have more rights than naturalized citizens? That makes USA and Hitler's Germany similar in this respect. Citizenship and rights based on blood. Good thing that I learned about this.

[internetkafe 0]

Chapter 2: Who is a citizen?

Nearly 40 million Americans claim Irish descent. But if Michael McDowell pushes through his notion of citizenship based on ‘blood’, an extraordinary situation will emerge.

If you are born in Boston and both your parents lived in America for all their lives, you can still claim an Irish passport as long as you have an Irish grandmother. All you do is go to the Irish embassy and put your name on the Foreign Births Register. The embassy will give you a certificate which entitles you to an Irish passport.

But if you are born in Dublin and your parents have paid taxes to the Irish government, you will be denied.

The main reason for this absurd situation, are coded understandings.

Citizenship by blood is seen as a defence against a multi-cultural society. If you are born in Dublin, there is a chance your parents came from Nigeria and so you are excluded.

But if you are born in Boston and can trace a link to an Irish great grandmother, then chances are that you are white.

In a capitalist society, citizenship conveys certain rights. Consider for example the simple journey from Dublin to Paris. The Irish passport holder merely gets on the plane and views the journey as a no more serious than previous generations viewed a trip from Dublin to Cork.

But for the individual who is born and reared in Dublin but who is denied a passport because of blood lines, the trip becomes a nightmare.

Before entering France, they will have to produce a) a photo ID B) €35 c) a re-entry visa to Ireland d) a residence in Ireland permit e) a Garda Immigration card f) travel insurance g) confirmation of hotel booking h) a bank statement I) a letter from their employer j)two pay slips. In addition they will have to take time of work to queue at the French embassy and the Department of Justice’s Immigration and Citizenship Division at Burgh Quay in Dublin, all of which could take up to about eight hours.

And all because of an accident that their great granny did not come from Ballyporrin decades ago.

Critiques of unequal societies begin with an understanding that no one should have privileges because of an ‘accident of birth’. No one should be a king or inherit millions because of an accident of birth. Once you understand the idea of an ‘accident of birth’ you know is not fate or the will of God that assigned privileged positions in the world. And you might even start organising to change it.

The Irish constitution has plenty of conservative articles about the position of women in the home and the sanctity of private property. But its notion that citizenship is based on accidents of birth rather than mystical bloodlines is worth defending in a world that strictly categorises people according to which passport and permit they hold.

Citizenship and Passports

The notion of citizenship is an important part of the legal framework of modern states. It rests on a belief that one acquires certain rights and obligations by virtue of being a member of a particular nation. Others who are not part of this nation are excluded from some or all of these rights.

It is sometimes claimed that the idea of citizenship ‘had its roots in Greek thought and practice’. A thin thread is then supposed to connect this classical tradition to the medieval concept of the city burgher. According to Max Weber, the Western European cities were unique in conferring on city dwellers unique rights. Ultimately these traditions from Ancient Greece to medieval Europe are said to lay the basis for the modern idea of citizenship.

There are two problems with this idea of an unbroken Western tradition. First, there was no real concept of a nation state before modern capitalism. The landmass of Europe up the nineteenth century was broken into small principalities where people were rooted to the soil and tied to particular lords. Second, in Ancient Greece and medieval Europe, the ‘citizens’ were confined to relatively small group of property owners. It is only after the American and French revolutions that there is an idea that all citizens are equal before the law – even if those laws can be undermined and bent by the private power of wealth.

Citizenship and passports arose with the emergence of modern capitalism – and will, hopefully, disappear with the ending of that system. They are not an unchanging part of human existence.

Prior to the great revolutions, which ushered in the modern age, people were given different legal rights according to which rank they had in society. They were seen as ‘subjects’ of a particular monarch who gave out varying levels of rights to the different ranks of the population.

Passports barely existed and they had an entirely different meaning to today. They were much more rudimentary and were designed to prevent people moving about within a country or region. The main target was the ‘masterless rabble’ who might enter a new parish and become a ‘burden’ on the poor relief there. ‘Foreigners’ were defined as people who came outside a particular area. So, for example, the French National Assembly heard in 1790 that there were a ‘great many foreign mendicants ‘ taking advantage of the poor relief in Paris. The term however referred to French people from outside the city.

Capitalism needed a free labour force that was uprooted from the soil and free to move about and be hired by factory owners. It had to break down all the local barriers and the petty rules established by the aristocrats. It wanted to abolish privilege based on blood and replaced it with privilege based on money. So for all these reasons, its early ideologues created the idea of citizen rights based on adherence to the nation. The idea of the citizen was to replace the subject who was under the thumb of this or that lord. One of the first great documents of modern age comes from the French Revolution and is called a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

At first, capitalism was revolutionary – compared to the previous age of feudalism. Its early supporters railed against passports as obstacle to human liberty. Here for example is one of the cahiers –declarations- from the parish of Neuilly-sur- Marne in early 1789;

"As every man is equal before God and every sojourner in this life must be left undisturbed in his legitimate possessions, especially in his natural and political life, it is the wish of this assembly that individual liberty be guaranteed to all the French, and therefore that each must be free to move about, within and outside the Kingdom, without permission, passports or other formalities that hamper the liberty of the citizen" (emphasis added)

Citizenship itself was not defined by blood or any other mystical line of descent. The French constitution of 1793 virtually gave citizenship to foreigners – as long as they supported the ideals of the revolution. It was much later before the state managed to create a distinct nation of French citizens who were different to foreigners.

Even then, for most of the nineteenth century, passports were an irrelevancy. By the early twentieth century, one expert on passports could write,

Most modern states have with few exceptions abolished their passport laws or at least neutralized them through non-enforcement…(Foreigners) are no longer viewed by states with suspicion and mistrust but rather, in recognition of the tremendous value that can be derived from trade and exchange, welcomed with open arms and, for this reason, hindrances removed from their path to the greatest extent possible.

Arthur Cooper was a minor British cleric who made a name for himself as travel writer after walking around Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.. He noted that a passport was helpful but only for such edifying activities as visiting private art galleries, or collecting money from a local post office. He made no mention of immigration controls – for the simple reason that there were none. He also reported on a remark from the Spanish counsel who told him that ‘a passport was as much out of date as a blunderbuss’.

Yet the passport made comeback. The occasion was the carnage of World War 1 – the century’s first ‘total war’ when the civilian population was the target of bombings, mass conscription and propaganda to raise and undermined their morale. Each nation state drew the boundaries of its own citizenry tighter – stamped them with passports and carried through the ‘revolution in identity papers’. Most countries passed a version of the British Aliens Restriction Act 1914 that rigorously controlled embarkation of ‘non-nationals’.

It took an imperialist war to link citizenship to the carrying of a passport. Henceforth the worse fate for any human was to be on the planet without a passport.

The most remarkable thing about capitalism is that it creates amazing possibilities. Unlike any previous society, we can communicate with people all over the world. We can listen to their music, feeling their suffering during natural calaminities, join their celebrations. Yet in other ways, the world goes backwards.

Just as under feudalism the ‘masterless men’ had to carry documents which noted their rank and their relative degree of rights, so too under modern society does the passport act as ticket which controls movement and doles out various levels of rights.

An American or EU passport is at the top of the hierarchy while a Nigerian or African passport is at the bottom. The old feudal prejudices about the ‘masterless men’ becoming a burden on poor relief is now dressed in the new language of ‘welfare scroungers’. But ultimately, as the early French revolutionaries understood, it is all about restricting human liberty.

Worse, the whole thing is mystified beyond belief. In the early days of modern industrial societies, there was often some recognition that citizenship came though an accident of birth. If you were born and brought up in a particular country, you eventually got the passport. Citizenship was often based on the jus soli –as the legal experts put it – on soil, on where you were born.

But later during age of empire and national chauvinism, there was a greater emphasis on the jus sanguinis. – citizenship based on blood. When Germany was united as a state in 1866, it was carried out by the Prussian aristocracy from above. Unlike the French revolution, citizenship was deemed to be privilege granted though blood.

These hangovers from the past mean today that a Russian who never left their country but can show German descent can get a German passport – but a Turkish workers who has lived, paid taxes and swore to be a good citizen of Germany is still denied citizenship. If his or her child is born in Germany, that child will not get the passport –unless one parent is German and they swear before the age of 23 to have left behind their Turkish nationality.

Ireland does not often show the world a progressive face. But one of the ironies of partition was that citizenship was never defined in the 1937 Constitution. De Valera believed that the nation had not emerged fully and contented himself with a territorial claim over Northern Ireland. The shifting needs of our rulers led them to drop that claim as part of the Belfast agreement. But to appease Northern nationalists, they agreed to copper-fasten the right of anyone born in Belfast or Derry to Irish citizenship by introducing the new Article 2.of the Constitution. They did not figure out the wider consequences at the time –and are now frightened the measure could lead to a more multicultural society.

Hence the moves to bring Ireland into line with the more restricted history of passports being issued through the bloodline of parents. It will be claimed that this is the more ‘modern’, more ‘European’ way of organising citizenship. But, as we have seen, it arises from the legacy of the worst side of European history – that of war, chauvinism and mysticism about blood lines.

1 G. Delanty, Citizenship in a Global Age ( Buckingham: Open University Press 2000) p. 11

2 M. Weber, Economy and Society Vol 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978) Chapter 16.

3 J. Torpey, The Invention of the Passport (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000) p. 22

4 S. Castles , Ethnicity and Globalisation (London; Sage 2000) p. 190.

5 Torpey, The Invention of the Passport p. 111.

6 M. Haynes, ‘Setting the limits to Europe as an ‘Imagined Community’ in G.. Dale and M. Cole (eds) 7 The European union and Migrant Labour ( Oxford: Berg, 1999) p. 28..

From Citizenship and Racism: The case against McDowell's Referendum by Kieran Allen

Edited March 27, 2006 by internetkafe

[Fischkoepfin 1]

HR 4437, Sec 606 states that any alien committing a DUI will be detained until the DHS has decided how to proceed. While illegal aliens will be deported no matter what, there's nothing in the bill that could stop DHS from deportation.

Here is section 606 of H.R. 4437

SEC. 606. REMOVING DRUNK DRIVERS.

(a) In General- Section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)) is amended by inserting `, including a third drunk driving conviction, regardless of the States in which the convictions occurred, and regardless of whether the offenses are deemed to be misdemeanors or felonies under State or Federal law,' after `offense)'.

(B) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act and shall apply to convictions entered before, on, or after such date.

It modifies the definition of aggravated felonies to include a person convicted of drunk driving for the third times. I don't see how a person that's been convicted of drunk driving three times accidentally commit drunk driving. He should have learned his lesson with the first conviction. And if he continues to drive drunk then that's willful negligence and he derserves to be deported. In most states, a third drunk driving conviction means a felony conviction.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/dui/felony.htm

In your post you made it sound as if an alien who ran a red light could be placed in federal detention. This is not the case with H.R. 4437. There are a lot of reasons to protest against H.R. 4437, like how it criminalizes overstay, how it redefines the definition of alien smuggling, and how it does not provide more money for USCIS. But I don't think anyone should be protesting against H.R. 4437 because it criminalizes habitual drunk driving.

Any alien who has been convicted of drunk driving three times deserves to be deported. That alien has shown no regard for the lives of others and do not deserve to live in the US.

I was referring in my last post to 606 (3) (e):

Driving While Intoxicated- If a State or local law enforcement officer apprehends an individual for an offense described in section 237(a)(2) and the officer has reasonable ground to believe that the individual is an alien--

`(1) the officer shall verify with the databases of the Federal Government, including the National Criminal Information Center and the Law Enforcement Support Center, whether the individual is an alien and whether such alien is unlawfully present in the United States; and

`(2) if any such database--

...

`(B) indicates that the individual is an alien but is not unlawfully present in the United States, the officer shall take the alien into custody for such offense in accordance with State law and shall promptly notify the Secretary of Homeland Security of such apprehension and maintain the alien in custody pending a determination by the Secretary with respect to any action to be taken by the Secretary against such alien.'.

This is wrong regardless of the offense and there is no way to predict how it will be applied by an individual police officer. The problem here is not drunk driving but the ease with which the bill criminalizes immigrants for offenses Americans would get of the hook.

But you're right, it's somewhat pointless to make this argument, considering that in the current bill it only applies to DUIs, but once you start criminalizing offenses like this one there's no way to predict what's next.

Edited March 27, 2006 by Fischkoepfin

[Mand 1]

From Citizenship and Racism: The case against McDowell's Referendum by Kieran Allen

That book was published in 2004...it's now 2006.

[thndrdancr 0]

I keep seeing this over and over, where people say to come into the country the legal way. Well, let me ask a question, becuz I am really dumb on this.

If you dont have relatives here to petition for you, and you are not eligible for work or school visa's, what process DO you use to come legally, or is there even one?

Myself, have no idea WHAT should be done, its just so overwhelming, and I seem to kind of see both sides of the issue. My hubby's country is becoming more and more unstable, and I have no idea how to tell him how to get his uncles, nephews, etc, here legally, as people keep suggesting. Any ideas?

[Niphredil 0]

I keep seeing this over and over, where people say to come into the country the legal way. Well, let me ask a question, becuz I am really dumb on this.

If you dont have relatives here to petition for you, and you are not eligible for work or school visa's, what process DO you use to come legally, or is there even one?

Myself, have no idea WHAT should be done, its just so overwhelming, and I seem to kind of see both sides of the issue. My hubby's country is becoming more and more unstable, and I have no idea how to tell him how to get his uncles, nephews, etc, here legally, as people keep suggesting. Any ideas?

I think you will find, most people will be referring to the Lotto, and not an actual sponsored relative. The lotto allows anyone a chance to come into the USA who do not fit under any other guidelines (relatives, work, religious, sport, celebrity, etc).

I've tried it before, and it is just that, a lottory. They stick your name on the computer and it randomly picks names. Yuck.

[Fischkoepfin 1]

I keep seeing this over and over, where people say to come into the country the legal way. Well, let me ask a question, becuz I am really dumb on this.

If you dont have relatives here to petition for you, and you are not eligible for work or school visa's, what process DO you use to come legally, or is there even one?

Myself, have no idea WHAT should be done, its just so overwhelming, and I seem to kind of see both sides of the issue. My hubby's country is becoming more and more unstable, and I have no idea how to tell him how to get his uncles, nephews, etc, here legally, as people keep suggesting. Any ideas?

I think you will find, most people will be referring to the Lotto, and not an actual sponsored relative. The lotto allows anyone a chance to come into the USA who do not fit under any other guidelines (relatives, work, religious, sport, celebrity, etc).

I've tried it before, and it is just that, a lottory. They stick your name on the computer and it randomly picks names. Yuck.

There are also strings attached if you win the lottery. Even if you win, you need to have highschool education, basic knowledge of the English language, and ideally have learned a trade or hold a college degree. A friend of mine won, and I was amazed at what he had to go through.

Not that it matters, as the House Bill discussed above aims to eliminate the lottery. Other ways to legally immigrate are by finding a job, or if the situation in the home country is truly unstable - according to immigration officers and the DOS - then you can also try to apply for asylum, which gets increasingly harder though.

[choji 0]

Any alien who has been convicted of drunk driving three times deserves to be deported. That alien has shown no regard for the lives of others and do not deserve to live in the US.

Two classes of drunk drivers?

Because with a slight modification it would read:

Any person born on US soil who has been convicted of drunk driving three times deserves to be deported. That person born on US soil has shown no regard for the lives of others and does not deserve to live in the US.

Do you now see what you are suggesting? The perfect two class justice - one for "us" and one for "them".

Edited March 27, 2006 by choji

[scy 0]

Any alien who has been convicted of drunk driving three times deserves to be deported. That alien has shown no regard for the lives of others and do not deserve to live in the US.

Two classes of drunk drivers?

Because with a slight modification it would read:

Any person born on US soil who has been convicted of drunk driving three times deserves to be deported. That person born on US soil has shown no regard for the lives of others and does not deserve to live in the US.

Do you now see what you are suggesting? The perfect two class justice - one for "us" and one for "them".

It's not two class of justice. It's additional burden on the alien once he has been convicted of a serious crime. Everyone who is accused of a crime is afforded the same due process and rights, regardless of whether that person is an immigrant or a natural born US citizen. However, once that person is convicted and he completes his sentence, and if that person is an immigrant, he can be deported. This is the way things work. The US government choose to put an additional burden on immigrants to be of good moral character. The US government and by extension the voters of the US want immigrants to behave. The US government don't want immigrants who are criminals. I think it's reasonable to assume that no country wants to house immigrants who are criminals. If the immigrants don't want to follow the laws, they are welcome to leave the US.

There has always been a separation of rights for US citizens and non-citizens. US citizens can vote, work for the federal government, apply for certain public assistance, and run for public office. Those things are denied to non-citizens.

[Chicken_Little 0]

He should have learned his lesson?

Is it the way to treat people?

I do not drink or drive but this provision of the proposed law is outrageous!

Are we - people who are here with a visa or permanent residency- going to be permanently at the mercy of your government? Under the sword...

How can anyone in his/her right mind support this nonsense?

Are there anything similar for citizens? Do you accept the same treatment for yourself? Not for drunk driving (which I am strongly opposed to....I lost my mother in an 'accident' involving a drunk driver) , but for similar things? Let us deport citizens who did this or that. Would that be OK?

Yes, that is very much the way to treat people. They SHOULD learn their lesson after one offense. Why should the US tolerate people who are morons and have no regard for anyone else? No one accidentallly drinks and drives. It's a concious choice. No one HAS to drink and drive. I'd support the US if they wanted to deport US born people who drink and drive. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who drives drunk deserves whatever happens to them. I have no sympathy for them.

And US-born citizens do NOT get "off the hook" for drunk driving. They have consequences too.

[choji 0]

The US government choose to put an additional burden on immigrants to be of good moral character.

Should not everybody in the/a country be of a "good moral character"?

To place the burden solely on the shoulders of those who not happened to have been born in the country in question (in this case this being the USA) is a bit - odd.

What would the next step be?

I see interesting possibilities: not speak English - deport them.

Not watch the Fox news channel - deport them.

Not eat fast food - deport them.

Not be white Christians - deport them.

Not drive huge gas-guzzlers - deport them.

As I said - the possibilites are endless.

Your argument just does not fly.

[Chicken_Little 0]

The US government choose to put an additional burden on immigrants to be of good moral character.

Should not everybody in the/a country be of a "good moral character"?

To place the burden solely on the shoulders of those who not happened to have been born in the country in question (in this case this being the USA) is a bit - odd.

What would the next step be?

I see interesting possibilities: not speak English - deport them.

Not watch the Fox news channel - deport them.

Not eat fast food - deport them.

Not be white Christians - deport them.

Not drive huge gas-guzzlers - deport them.

As I said - the possibilites are endless.

Your argument just does not fly.

Um...yes it does. The hypothetical instances of deportation you give are laughable. They are not crimes. Drunk driving IS a crime. Can't you see the difference?

The US cannot deport natural-born citizens simply because it can't be done. However, if they can deport those who they ALLOWED to enter their country, because they are being idiots and showing utter disregard for the inhabitants of the country, why shouldn't they?

Murderers have been deported in the past. No one would dare to say THAT is a bad idea, and frankly, drunk driving is almost as bad. Driving after drinking shows a total disregard for human life.

You cannot compare eating fast food and driving drunk. It just doesn't work. I think in fact, that it is YOUR argument that "just does not fly".

I really don't understand why anyone would have a problem with deporting three time drunk drivers! I mean, it isn't even as though the government is suggesting deportation following one offense. It's following THREE offenses of the same crime. Therefore, the greencard holder has the ability to avoid deportation. It's up to them. It's THEIR choice whether or not the drive drunk. Therefore, if they get deported for three instances of drunk driving they only have themselves to blame.

[scy 0]

The US government choose to put an additional burden on immigrants to be of good moral character.

Should not everybody in the/a country be of a "good moral character"?

To place the burden solely on the shoulders of those who not happened to have been born in the country in question (in this case this being the USA) is a bit - odd.

I don't understand why you find this odd. Every single sovereign country on this planet gives natural born citizens more rights than those who immigrates from another country. A country can choose who it admits as immigrants. A country can not choose who is born within its borders.

What would the next step be?

I see interesting possibilities: not speak English - deport them.

Not watch the Fox news channel - deport them.

Not eat fast food - deport them.

Not be white Christians - deport them.

Not drive huge gas-guzzlers - deport them.

As I said - the possibilites are endless.

Your argument just does not fly.

You advance fanciful arguments. While some of the liberties in this country are being eroded in the name of national security, we are very far away from the things you propose. There will be a lot of bloodshed before a person is deported on the basis of his religion, ethnicity, or language.

There are laws like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution that explicitly protect certain inalienable rights like freedom of religion, speech and expression. As soon as the voters of this country feel that the government is taking away the basic protections of their liberties, they will vote the government out or revolt. This has happened before and can happen again. Although I would doubt that you and I will see a revolution in our lifetimes.

Rightfully or wrongfully, immigrants have additional burdens to overcome in order to come and live in this country. And I'll say it again, no one asks the immigrants to come and live in the US. Immigration is a priviledge. This country, like any sovereign country can choose who it admits. If you feel that US laws are too strict on immigrants, you should consider mobilizing to change the laws.

[Kovil 0]

What is the consequence for a US born if he/she is caught drunk driving 3 times?? I hope it is of a very severe consequence similar to deportation. Believe what everyone may but there is always a stricter treatment to new immigrants. That is how the world works.