Joe Arpaio May Finally Get His Comeuppance for Years of Arrogance
Our local Sheriff Joe Arpaio is quite a story. On the one hand, he shows a casual disrespect for civil liberties, goes on raids where he zip-ties every person with brown skin until their family can produce their birth certificate, and has tried to pin RICO charges on judges who ruled against him. He likes to haul folks off to jail whose only crime is speaking out against the Sheriff . He arrested newspaper reporters and editors who wrote critically of him. This is a man who in his paranoia invented an assassination plot (against himself, of course) and got the city to spend $500,000 protecting him. If his deputies want to see a defense attorney's working papers, they just take them. If he can't get a judge to release computer records, he has his posse storm into the County computer center and take it over at gunpoint. And don't even get me started on the Steven Seagal thing.
On the other hand, despite all this, he has been re-elected by safe margins many times, has actual groupies who fawn over him, and is considered by much of our retiree population as the last bulwark against a Mexican-immigrant-led road-warrior-style apocalypse. At most local art festivals and other public fairs, he has his own booth where he hands out his trademark pink underwear to his many admirers (he makes prisoners wear pink underwear to try to humiliate them).
Several years ago, upon losing some Federal civil rights suits, a judge ordered as part of the settlement a series of defined actions and prohibitions (e.g. Arpaio had to stop certain immigrant roundups). He ignored these orders pretty blatantly, and now is in court again. He has actually essentially admitted to civil contempt of court and is just hoping at this point to avoid criminal charges. And then it gets weirder:
An upper echelon that willfully defies the orders of a federal judge and may have committed perjury on the witness stand.
A county sheriff and chief deputy with enough chutzpah to "investigate" the U.S. Department of Justice, the CIA, and federal judges, all on the word of a Seattle scammer.
A bogus "investigation" into the wife of the aforementioned federal judge for something that's not even a crime.
This is just some of the ground covered during a four-day hearing before U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow in which Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, tried mightily to save themselves from criminal-contempt charges in the ACLU's big racial profiling case Melendres v. Arpaio.
Sheridan and Arpaio already have conceded that they are guilty of civil contempt, admitting they did not comply with Snow's December 2011 preliminary injunction in the case, which ordered the MCSO not to enforce federal civil immigration law.
The pair also have copped to defying a direct order from Snow in May 2014 concerning the gathering of thousands of videos taken by deputies, which should have been turned over to the plaintiffs before the 2012 trial in Melendres.
All that's left is for Snow to find that there's enough evidence that Sheridan and Arpaio acted willfully, so he can turn over the matter to another judge and the U.S. Attorney's Office for possible prosecution.
Yep, the best way to defend oneself against contempt of court is to... have all the other parties in court investigated. Oh yeah, and the CIA. Nothing says "mental health" like a local sheriff investigating the CIA. And don't forget, this is the same guy who used my tax money to take is cold case team and dedicate them for months to investigating Obama's birth certificate.
abe:
Considering the lawlessness displayed by our "officials", "what difference at this point does it make?"
May 1, 2015, 1:01 pmHe is tiny potatoes compared with the rest of the scofflaws.
Seekingfactsforsanity:
Illegal immigration. I wonder if the lawlessness practiced by California elected officials and other bureaucrats and the lawlessness practiced by Obama and his administration leave no other alternatives! Considering the absolute castration of border security by the feds and many state officials, maybe his way is the only way! Nobody else is doing anything!
May 2, 2015, 8:29 amDavid in Michigan:
For many of us, it comes down to either you are for "open borders" or you are not. You must choose one. That is why Joe is popular. He is "not". The rest of your rant is just irrelevant.
As a side note, I am married to a Mexican and have lived in Mexico. Put me in the "not" column.
May 2, 2015, 8:52 amskhpcola:
Warren's brand of Libertarian dogma seeks to inflict open borders on all us...damn the deleterious consequences, full steam ahead, comrade! He'll even trot out "scholarly" articles that "prove" that unlimited immigration is a boon to the economy and American culture. He's an intelligent guy, but on this particular topic, he has ideological blinders, like the rest of his pod of the Libertarian cult.
May 2, 2015, 11:42 amskhpcola:
To some leftists, nothing needs to be done. All is proceeding as it should...the destruction of American sovereignty and culture. It's what these people desire.
May 2, 2015, 11:44 amfrankania:
Well, if people immigrating to the USA could NOT be given any tax-supported benefits, then the ones who entered would have to be productive enough to survive, or they would have to leave again. Right? I crossed the border into Mexico in 1988, and have produced enough to support our family here with no welfare from the Mexicans. We love it here!
May 2, 2015, 5:22 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Warren, the best thing about your post is how it exposes the mindset or his supporters. Everything else, the incompetence and the corruption, is irrelevent. It's only about those illegal immigrants.
May 2, 2015, 5:47 pmmesocyclone:
I vote for Joe, even as I dislike some of his behavior. His stand on immigration is remarkably sane, and most of us who live in Arizona (other than Coyote) can see right before our eyes the damage that uncontrolled immigration is doing.
Besides, as long as I have been in AZ (40 years), there has usually been at least one fascinating political character. Life would be boring without them. For the last 10 or so years, Arpaio has fit the bill (he's been around longer, but wasn't as interesting for a while).
May 2, 2015, 7:49 pmRaymondbyEllis:
I want a Sheriff that does the job well. I don't want a huckster that panders. Whether his stand on illegal immigration is sane or not, that's just one small part of the job and it's not even his job, it's the job of the Feds. Look at what Warren wrote, add the 400 cases of sexual abuse dropped under his watch in El Mirage and surrounds, add how he always blames others (well, until he's in federal court and then a federal order "drops through the cracks").
I've lived in Arizona for 45 years, my wife for 55+, both Republican, and we couldn't vote for him the third time. He's a huckster that panders to what he thinks you want to get him elected. He uses his subordinates as pawns to go under the bus for him. He's now in federal court and he can no longer hide.
I no more find him no more entertaining than Huey Long.
May 2, 2015, 8:20 pmSamWah:
Well, it's SUPPOSED to be the fed's job, but they're not doing it.
May 3, 2015, 8:40 ammesocyclone:
I think Arpaio does the job very well. He's been there a long time, so of course there will have been failures under him.
But, look at the positive. He runs a fabulous citizen posse program. There are many different posses, who do work ranging from law enforcement to disaster relief to search and rescue, and do it well. Many members are firearms qualified, and his procedures cause them to go through the same firearms training as LEO's. I think this is a great addition to our society.
His tent city is a brilliant idea. It saves vast amounts of money while making prison what it should be: punishment. My only beef with it (and it is a big one): prisoners held pre-trial are kept there, and they shouldn't be punished because they haven't been convicted.
Arpaio is in federal court for doing what should be done: enforcing the law effectively.
May 3, 2015, 11:47 amherdgadfly:
"Nothing says "mental health" like a local sheriff investigating the CIA. And don't forget, this is the same guy who used my tax money to take is cold case team and dedicate them for months to investigating Obama's birth certificate."
So if Sheriff Joe doesn't investigate suspicious activity within the CIA, who will? General Holder, the has-been, perhaps? Government agencies wouldn't do illegal gunwalking like the ATF, right? And securing prisoners with wrist ties is somehow illegal now - just like pink prisoner uniforms and sleeping perps outdoors in tents.
As for Barry Soetoro's birth certificate - the real one has never been seen by the American public, so the so-called "birthers" remain with their legitimate concern unresolved.
Thank you, Warren, for highlighting all the strawman misdirections put forward about your sheriff.
"Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." ~Acton & Dystel
May 3, 2015, 12:36 pmMatthew Slyfield:
You miss the point. Even if his investigation of the CIA actually turned up legitimate misconduct he wouldn't have jurisdiction to do anything about it, making the whole investigation a waste of taxpayer money.
May 3, 2015, 2:47 pmMatthew Slyfield:
"Arpaio is in federal court for doing what should be done: enforcing the law effectively."
Considering he has lost every time he has gone into federal court, your definition of "effectively" is screwed up.
May 3, 2015, 2:50 pmPhantom_Phlyer:
Elections have consequences.
May 3, 2015, 6:40 pmmesocyclone:
No, the federal definition of how law can legally be enforced has deteriorated badly. When Arpaio is hassled for targeting Latinos, during a time of unprecedented invasion by same, something is wrong and it isn't Arpaio.
May 3, 2015, 7:03 pmMatthew Slyfield:
So, that doesn't change the fact that he has accomplished / enforced exactly nothing in the federal courts.
He has consistently lost in the federal courts. Your idea of what constitutes effectiveness is whacked.
May 3, 2015, 7:21 pmmesocyclone:
His job is not to win federal court cases. His job is to combat crime and perform other functions for the citizens of Maricopa Country. Hence your criteria of what constitutes effectiveness is irrelevant.
May 3, 2015, 7:37 pmdonald:
I am not sure that the debate should digress into immigration or a stance on a particular politicized law. It's the method of enforcement. If he is enforcing the laws within the law, then kudos. Even if it is stretching them from time to time without breaking them. But for example If he is stealing taxpayer money to fund his own private (ie has no legal consequences or jurisdiction) investigation into Obama's birth certificate, then he is a thief of our money. as far as people go on saying that the ends justify the means or that at least he's doing "something" to solve a problem. Once again. Within the law.
May 4, 2015, 6:39 amI am sure that the death star had very little immigration problems and was always nice and clean. but that doesn't make Vadar a saint for running a tidy Death Star.
herdgadfly:
No - I did not miss the point, because I can plainly see that the President's media cover automatically hides his transgressions while Sheriff Joe is criticized at every juncture and the liberal opposition sues him for almost anything that he does.
Contrast that with the clusterf*ck execution of Jose Guerena by Pima County Sheriff Dupnik's swat team wherein the ex-marine was killed in a shower of 71 bullets fired in seven seconds - 22 of which struck Guerena. The Sheriff's officers were somehow found to have acted judiciously despite claiming to have seen muzzle flashes from an unfired rifle. $3.4 million later (from Pima County taxpayers) and Democrat Sheriff Dupnik was off the hook.
The Arpaio investigative panel reinforced the earlier findings that the president went to great lengths to hide his birth records using digitally-altered documents to make it appear that he was born in Hawaii. Investigations such as this do not always result in trials or convictions since many turn out to be dead ends. Pursuing cold cases is a popular pastime these days but only Arpaio wastes taxpayer money on fruitless investigations and by not building expensive jails and by using public transportation to move his prisoners. Don't use wrist ties, Sheriff Joe, but you can invade homes and shoot occupants.
May 4, 2015, 9:49 amano333:
Assuming there are only two sides to this debate is infantile. Plenty can be done to secure the borders without resorting to Arpaio-esque authoritarianism and retaliation tactics...
May 4, 2015, 10:10 amNehemiah:
If the CIA did a home invasion without a warrant, the local police would be obligated to arrest the persons involved. Official misconduct may or may not be illegal, however, behavior that breaks state or local laws should be handled by local law enforcement.
May 4, 2015, 11:19 amNehemiah:
Well said.
May 4, 2015, 11:26 amDavid in Michigan:
I may SEEM infantile but you sir are naive. "Plenty can be done.....". Possibly you intended to say "COULD be done". That makes more sense. But the fact is that FEW things ARE being done to secure the borders. Meanwhile south of the border, the Mexican Government policy is to assist illegal immigrants from Guatemala and other central american countries to get to the border. I kid you not.
And least you think I am picking on "Latinos", the ILLEGAL immigration of Chinese, Arabs, and many other nations is also out of control. NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT EITHER. It's almost like a government policy to open the borders .......... (that is sarcasm).
May 4, 2015, 5:11 pmmarque2:
The Federal government can steer cases to judges that are sympathetic to government causes. He shouldn't have lost all the cases.
May 4, 2015, 8:24 pmJohn O.:
>Elections have consequences.
Yes they do.
May 4, 2015, 11:04 pmJohn O.:
All this Arpaio love makes me sick... Sick in the mind to run for Niagara County Sheriff, here in Western NY, so i can start my plan of ridding the county of all those rude and entitled Canadians who come here to buy stuff. They trash our parking lots by leaving their used clothing everywhere. Don't get me started on the ripped up cardboard boxes they leave behind from the rent-an-address place.
America for Americans and to hell to them bilingual, maple syrup drinking, hockey fighting, curling throwing, metric Canadians!
Serious this is what you sound like when you complain about Mexicans living in the Southwest.
May 4, 2015, 11:21 pmskhpcola:
...
May 5, 2015, 1:35 pmacornwebworks:
"The Arpaio investigative panel" did *NOT* "reinforce the earlier findings that the president went to great lengths to hide his birth records using digitally-altered documents to make it appear that he was born in Hawaii."
There have been ZERO findings that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii. There have only been loony-toons using each other's bogus claims to "prove" that their *own* bogus claims are "true".
Did you have a problem with John McCain being born in Panama City...NOT in the Panama Canal Zone US territory? Of course not. Yet the record is clear and McCain himself admits he wasn't born in the Canal Zone. And how about Ted Cruz being born in Canada? And, until recently, holding duel citizenship?
You know darned well that your issue with Obama is that he's Obama. He's got a funny name (including the middle name of Hussein). That he went to school in Indonesia for a while when he was little...a school that is NOT a madrassas, no matter how desperately folks like you want to believe it's true. And he's not Muslim, either. But he's black. Oh gee, darn.
He hasn't taken our guns away from us, has he? He hasn't imposed martial law, has he? And he *still* hasn't used as many executive orders has George W. Bush. Oh gee, darn. But, I know, I know. We're supposed to wait until the end of his second term at which point you're probably convinced that he'll try to make it so that term limits go away or make himself permanent president or some other such nonsense. Ah yes. And when it doesn't happen? You'll proclaim it was through the efforts of looney-toons like you. Yeesh.
May 7, 2015, 10:31 amRaymondbyEllis:
Two thumbs up. And, no, I don't like Obama, but it's over the policies. I wasn't too happy with George either.
Whether Obama went to a school that could be called a madrassa or not is a non-sequitur. Drawing from personal experience, the only church I can say I was "raised" in was LDS but I'm hardly a Mormon. About all it left me with is a sense for distorted, anti-Mormon bigotry. Obama may have the same for Islam.
One quibble though, it isn't the quantity of executive orders, it's the quality, the nature of those executive orders that's important. Not weighing in on Obama vs. Bush, just that the quantity isn't a measure.
May 7, 2015, 6:46 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Ah the Jeanne Dixon fallacy, only seeing the positive. Don't take that as being a nasty attack on you, but you listed two things the Posse and Tent City, and on the latter you acknowleged one of the problems with it. A problem over which Sheriff Joe has no problem. There are more, diet being one.
And no prison or jail isn't solely for punishment, if you want to decrease the cost to society then rehabilitation has to be part of it.
I think his court testimony where he tried to excuse himself from implementing a federal court order is telling: it fell through the cracks (earlier, he blamed the Feds for not properly training his deputies and him on what is racial profiling, after a court detailing it, it then fell through the cracks). A federal court order to a very effective Sheriff fell through the cracks? Henderschott was another crack, the 400 sexual abuse cases unexamined in El Mirage and surrounds was another crack, the 90,000,000+ that went elsewhere was another crack, how many cracks need be listed.
Here is what Joe is: a consummate politician well schooled in using demagoguery. His two biggest campaigns: illegal immigrants and people who are cruel to animals. His technique when in trouble: divert attention. You can place a bet he'll grandstand on a heartstring issue within weeks of another trouble.
When there is a failure, it's the fault of someone else. It's everybody else until on the stand, which is why he uncharacteristically caved into Snow's demand that money come out of his pocket. Going on the stand is not the venue for a demagogue. I voted for him twice, and then saw him for who, what may be better, he is.
May 7, 2015, 7:25 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Do you mean Americans of hispanic ethnicity by "targeting Latinos"?. Better hope he doesn't go after the illegal Canadians, Europeans, Aussies, and Kiwis. So many people, so many pretext stops.
I left out Asians.
Racial profiling isn't okay, it's not legal. Doing it means operating illegally, or to use the euphemism of government "unlawful".
May 7, 2015, 7:41 pmmesocyclone:
I didn't make an exhaustive list and I'm not going to bother. He's done a bunch of good work. If you choose only to focus on the negative, then you are the one in fallacy.
Joe is, as you say, a skilled politician. I have had several conversations with him, and it was clear that I was in the presence of a master. His demagoguery doesn't fool me, and it shouldn't be held against him. He is damned right about illegal immigrants, and I am really glad he raises a stink about it.
I don't think Joe is perfect. He has defects, such as an inadequate respect for the rights of the innocent.
I am for Joe, on the balance. Balance... that's a useful thing. Try it.
May 7, 2015, 7:45 pmmesocyclone:
Profiling is simply the use of statistics to optimize the resource utilization. The US has a phobia about it and a whole industry of profiling-phobics.
Joe profiles. Good for him! It is the Hispanic illegal immigrants who are *by far* the biggest problem in Maricopa Country. Yes, if you profile illegals, some legals get a bit of discomfort. That's part of the price of living in a society, because no policing is perfect, but we are facing an invasion of unprecedented proportions. The should be glad they don't live in WW-II, or they'd be forced to march across the border, US citizens or no.
May 7, 2015, 7:48 pmRaymondbyEllis:
If we together made an exhaustive list, we may both be surprised. No plus no minus, nothing. Zero, Zed, a Nada. In other words, a need for a new Sheriff.
" He has defects, such as an inadequate respect for the rights of the innocent." Which is what in law enforcement? Good law enforcement? Rhetorical questions.
"His demagoguery doesn't fool me, and it shouldn't be held against him." A demogogue is a manipulator of people's emotions to further his goals. What a demogogue does is keep you thinking emotionally rather than analytically, and that should be held against him.
Balance is a useful thing. Keep your finger off the scale.
May 7, 2015, 9:01 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Yeah they are, just poorly or ineptly. And that's because we keep thinking the solution is just more law enforcement.
Look at the frigging map. One continent, two first world nations and one 2nd-3rd. What would you expect? what would you do if you were a Mexican, worry about hurting American feelings? How about helping Mexico, through an agressive US economic policy, into the 1st-2nd world? Look at it analytically, not emotionally.
If we try to do it by political bullying we will fail. We've being doing that south of our border for too long and it has failed in the long term. Yes, we have no bananas, and yes we are bananas.
May 7, 2015, 9:12 pmacornwebworks:
I totally agree with you about the importance of the quality/nature vs. the quantity of executive orders. I have to admit, though, that I occasionally wonder how many significant ones Obama would have issued had Congress actually tried working with him from 2010 on and, as a result, compromised just once in a while. Oh well. I'll never know :-) But I sure miss the old across-the-aisle days.
May 7, 2015, 9:33 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Now that's a nice phrase "the use of statistics to optimize the resource utilization".
So other Americans should pay the price for what you want? It's all good because you aren't paying the price they pay.
In WWII, we imported Southern labor (bracero). " they'd be forced to march across the border, US citizens or no." And now we know ye. Marching US citizens out of the country because of their ethnicity, what an American concept.
Oh, wait, we interned American citizens in WWII because of their nationality/ethnicity. And then from that very group we got one of the most ferocious and decorated American fighting forces in the European campaign..
Santayana.
May 7, 2015, 10:12 pmRaymondbyEllis:
But Congress passes the laws, they can even override a President's veto. The Executive isn't the law making branch, and for damn good reason, would you want one man making the laws? Unfortunately the Executive branch, through it's departments promulgating regulations (the ICC was the grandfather), and through Executive order has become a quasi-legislative branch. It shouldn't be that, but it has become that.
So if Congress doesn't compromise with the President, the President has no choice but to solve by Executive order? That's not the system that we are taught in civics. The President has his powers, the Congress theirs, and SCOTUS theirs.
Personally, I think the National Park system should have been from Congress first, instead of by Executive order first.
May 7, 2015, 11:00 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Yep, so are civil infractions (like speeding) and misdeamenors. All small potatoes. Or did you mean that we should ignore the guy you like for the guys you don't?
May 7, 2015, 11:22 pmA scofflaw is a scofflaw, but Arpaio should have a pass because he hasn't passed the threshhold of sufficiently big enough?
RaymondbyEllis:
Yeah, Mexico just pats their butts when they enter the southern border of Mexico. I kid you not, I've read accounts of how the Mexican government strips them of their possessions, and either puts their butts in prison or ships them back to Central America. The Mexican government is harsher on illegals than we are, and no they don't think Central Americans are kin. They don't think South Americans are kin either. Just like we don't think Europeans are kin that get a free pass to run through are nation.
Your sarcasm was wasted, not all of them were brown and none of them come from a nation bordering on ours. You can't build a wall to stop it, good luck. How high the wall?
You have to remove the reason for people in the rest of the Americas to come here for a better life. What I can't understand is that there are at least 4 nations fitting the American European prejudice: Canada, USA, Brazil, and Argentina. Chile may be a 5th. Yet Yanks can't see the Americas for what they are, an untaped powerhouse of resources and human potential/
The population of SA is 414 million. The population of NA is roughly 522 million. If the Americas could form an economic union, don't confuse that with the EU attempt to make an economic and political union, there would be no comparison in the world, either in earth resources or human potential. It's a no brainer that USA economic policy, with a gentle hand, should be focused on the Americas. Problem is we have always been heavy-handed in the Americas.
I just don't understand, other than we've bullied the rest of the Americas, can't understand why they just can't speak English, and that we've always looked elsewhere.
May 8, 2015, 12:53 ammesocyclone:
You don't read too well. In order:
1) Other Americans often pay the price for things we want, as we pay the price for theirs.
2) I didn't advocate marching the citizens out, as you would know if you paid attention.
May 8, 2015, 10:35 amacornwebworks:
Well, I have to disagree with you on this. Well, for the most part :-)
Executive orders have been around since George Washington. (Look at how many the Roosevelt presidents issued!!) Plus Obama isn't using them any more inappropriately than any other president. You've got to keep in mind that presidents cite which specific laws they're acting under unless they are issuing an order based on powers given to the President in the Constitution, so it's not like they're making new laws (well, they're not supposed to be :-)
And, if they aren't acting under a specific existing law or rights given the office by the Constitution, the courts can (and do) overturn the order. Plus Congress can override such orders as well, so it's not like Congress is powerless in the face of a presidential executive order. So there *is* a system of checks-and-balances regarding executive orders! And it works!!!
Now, you're absolutely right that Congress shouldn't *have* to compromise with the President. I totally agree with you about that, and apologize for not being more clear about my point. But they should at least be willing to CONSIDER compromising with one another...and that includes one another in Congress. Don't you think?
There have been good and bad wide-reaching executive orders. I remember when Ike issued the EO that desegregated public schools. (I was too young, though, to remember when Truman integrated the military.) I also remember when Obama issued an EO revoking GWB's EO that restricted public access to presidential papers.
Unfortunately, FDR used an EO to remove Japanese-Americans from their homes and businesses and place them in "internment camps" during WWII. I find that disgusting.
Now, I admit to shaking my head about some claims about Obama's executive orders. My gosh. Some sites say he signed over 900 of them in his first term, which is utter nonsense! Of course, what they were REALLY referring to was how many EOs regarding emergency powers were in effect during his first term...no matter which president actually issued them...and they go back over 50 years to include *ALL* presidents starting with JFK!!! (Apparently these "900" folks think Obama was issuing executive orders from the womb :-)
By the way, here is a list of Obama's EOs. As you can see for yourself, they most certainly aren't even close to being all bad :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders_13489_and_above
Have a great weekend!!
May 8, 2015, 1:09 pmDavid in Michigan:
Well Raymond, aside from the fact that I heard with my own ears the PSAs on Mexican TV urging Mexican citizens to help expedite illegals from Central America get to the U.S. border, there is also this:
"Updated: Wed, Jul 23rd 2014 @ 12:00 pm EDT
Earlier this week, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan
president Otto Perez Molina held a joint press conference to formally
announce a new program that will allow Guatemalan citizens to legally
travel through Mexico in their effort to enter the United States
illegally. Guatemala is one of three sending countries accounting for
most of the illegal aliens coming across the U.S.-Mexico border during
the ongoing surge. The agreement grants Guatemalans 72 hours of legal
status while they make their journey to the U.S.
The "Southern Border Program to Improve Passage" will increase the
number of border checkpoints along the Mexico-Guatemala border, provide
medical care, and offer Guatemalans a Regional Visitor's Card. The card
grants Guatemalans enough time to make the trek to Mexico's northern
border.
The program will also offer protection and financial assistance for unaccompanied minors who attempt to make the journey."
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/mexico-guatemala-cut-deal-to-allow-more-illegal-immigrants-to-flood-into-us
How you like me now???
May 8, 2015, 4:13 pmRaymondbyEllis:
1) That's just obvious. We do that as a society, whether knowingly or by the invisible hand. But when government does it, it's going after a class or race ignoring that the Bill of Rights is about individuals. But society should never pay for what you want as an individual. Should I explain that?
2) But you should. All change in this country has come first from the people in this country, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. SCOTUS doesn't create court cases to rule on.
You ignored all else in my comment. So maybe you don't read too well either.
May 12, 2015, 6:37 pmRaymondbyEllis:
You have a great next weekend.
And for that weekend, think of these questions. Are executive orders okay because we agree with them? Are they okay because they result in some good? And the final, if executive orders are in anyway legislative, should they happen?
May 12, 2015, 8:29 pmRaymondbyEllis:
Okay, I'm a few years back when Mexico thought Central Americans might stay in their 2nd/3rd world country, and they were really harsh on Central Americans at that southern border. I have to applaud the Mexican Government in decreasing the cost on them and putting it on the US, the actual destination of those Central Americans.
It's not their problem unless the Central Americans want to stay in Mexico. And again, Mexicans are not in cahoots with Central Americans to "hurt" the USA; Mexicans no more see Central Americans as kin than Americans see Mexicans as kin (language isn't that great a tie, especially when Spanish varies like English. I mean do you understand "my jandals caught on a judder bar whilst I was going to the dairy for mincemeat"?)
May 12, 2015, 8:47 pmDavid in Michigan:
Guatemala holds a large population of Mayans. So does south Mexico. (The Mayan homeland is transborder to modern country borders). So it depends on what part of Mexico you're referring to when you say that "Mexicans no more see Central Americans as kin.......etc". And speaking of kinship, look at the ruling class in Mexico. Pretty darned European looking......
May 13, 2015, 11:48 amThe U.S. has served as a safety valve for excess Mexican population since the Bracero program was ended more than 50 years ago. Give it up. You know nothing about Mexico or the mass migration from the south.
RaymondbyEllis:
I just remember Mexico Mayan - Yucatan. I would agree with you that Mexican Mayans would likely have kinship with Guatemalan Mayans. But that's not all, or a large part, of Mexico in any way.
IIRC (I looked at the Spanish race structure a few agos, remnants still exist today) about 6-8% of Mexicans identify as European Mexicans, after that I lose track. Of course the ruling class is white, or close. The ruling class in the USA was WASP, with the P usually standing for Episcopalian.
The Bracero program started in 1942 to make up for the American labor lost to the war. It has never stopped, even if Bracero is no longer used. Is it a safety valve for a 2nd/3rd world nation(s), sure. Is it that in the US? No. Go to Salinas, and work your way to the Imperial Valley, then across to Yuma and then to Phoenix. The labor is overwhelmingly Hispanic, and then overwhelmingly Mexican national, then Central American. It's a safety valve south of the border, it's agricultural labor north of the border. Don't conf
I've lived my entire life in the Southwest. I was born in the Imperial, lived for a time in the San Gabriel, and over 44years in Arizona. One side of my family, the side I was raised on, was all about produce: farmer to trucker to small-time distributor. All the labor was Hispanic.
"Give it up. You know nothing about Mexico or the mass migration from the south." is just pompous and condescending. But it serves you well from Michigan, doesn't it?
May 13, 2015, 6:17 pmacornwebworks:
Nope. They aren't all "OK". Anymore than we have to agree that every law passed is "OK". But the process *is* legitimate.
May 14, 2015, 9:55 am