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Immigration Reform 
Wed May 05, 2010 at 06:47:24 AM MST
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One of the canards we hear about immigration reform is that before we can work on the issues of the 12 million or so informal immigrants inside the United States we have to secure the border. This seems imminently reasonable, as long as one does not dig too deeply into what that means. It is a nice, simple and clearly intelligible idea, "Secure Our Borders". Let's talk a little bit about what that would actually mean.
The southern border of the United States is 1,969 miles long. The northern border is 1,538 miles long. These are just the land borders of course, the shoreline on the East and West coasts are bigger still. If we are to "secure the border!" then we have to guard, just on land more than 3,400 miles. These miles, both North and South snake through some very rough country, but they also cut through ranches and Native American nation reservations. The line includes cities and towns which have grown up on the border to take advantage of the fact of the line between nations.
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Tue Apr 27, 2010 at 12:30:00 PM MST
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The Senate Judiciary Committee held an oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security today. Over the course of nearly three hours Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was questioned about the running of her Department. Given the new law in Arizona and the looming Comprehensive Immigration Reform fight, most of the questions centered on immigration and the boarder.
Several Senators tried to get the DHS Secretary to give an opinion as to whether the "Papers Please" law in Arizona was constitutional or not. Being a good politician Sec. Napolitano kept deferring to the Department of Justice which is currently reviewing the case law and did not offer her own opinion.
However, when asked about its affects on law enforcement, if it should be allowed to go into effect, she was not shy in detailing the ways that it would be a net negative. One of the biggest issues is the level of distrust that such enforcement would engender between the Latino community and all levels of law enforcement. When a community feels that laws are punitive they do not come forward with the kind of information that allows effective enforcement of all the laws.
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Mon Apr 26, 2010 at 06:48:10 AM MST
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When I was 11 or 12 I went on a long road trip with my Dad. It was on this trip that I learned about the law. Not the laws or the practice or the procedure of court cases, but the reason behind having laws. The law is an attempt at balance. Just that, an attempt at finding balance between the harm done, by people, by businesses or by governments and those who are harmed.
The attempt part is important because finding balance between multiple competing claims of harm is difficult at best and Sisyphean at worst. When looking at crimes against a person or property, the remedy is often clearest. If someone takes your car, you want it back and you want to be relatively sure they will not do it again.
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Mon Apr 19, 2010 at 09:16:17 AM MST
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Yes, I'm stretching but it's Schultheis so I'm allowed.
If you haven't heard, the Republican Arizona House has passed a bill that would allow the police force (who opposed the bill) to commit racial profiling and arrest citizens who don't have their "papers".
Tancredo and Schultheis are all up in that. Tancredo wants the the Arizona bill to spread like a disease to the Colorado legislature but since Democrats in the majority aren't completely batshit, he thinks they'll have to put it on the ballot. Ho hum.
State Bill has Schultheis:
..."excited" that progress is being made in other states, because that may influence legislation in surrounding states. "I'm really excited about the fact that Arizona passed this new law. I think it's a major step towards trying to institute the rule of law in Arizona - I just wish we could do something like that here," said Schultheis.
He added that if the Legislature doesn't introduce such a measure next year, then he believes the people will take matters into their own hands. "If we try to run something like this next year and it fails, I think there will definitely be an initiative proposed to take care of it," said Schultheis. "The people want this kind of thing. Probably 80 percent of the population wants something done and they're very frustrated with the inaction of this Legislature."
Can't you imagine a paradise where you have to have your papers with you at all times or you run the risk of being deported? Perhaps we can eventually wear an emblem on our coats that signify whether or not we are citizens. Perhaps it could look like this:
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Wed Apr 14, 2010 at 06:49:06 AM MST
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Immigration reform is an important issue. Changing systems that are not producing the desired result is one of the reasons to have a Congress in the first place. The current system of immigration controls is a complete failure and needs to be addressed. The good news here is that it is will be taken up this summer, if we can believe what Majority Leader Reid has said.
There are several bills in House which really do cover the waterfront in terms of immigration. In general they are looking to do several things, shore up the enforcement of our boarder, specifically in the South; change the number of visas available to family members of documented immigrants; and provide a method to bring the estimated 12 million undocumented workers who are currently in the United States out of the shadows.
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Mon Apr 12, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM MST
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In my professional life (such as it is) I am a 6 Sigma Black Belt. For those who don't know (most of you probably) that is a process improvement project manager. One of the tenets of Six Sigma is that you have to design the process to meet the needs of the customer, whoever that is. It is simply summed up as starting with the end goal in mind. This is applicable and important when we are talking about politics as well.
In the middle of policy fights, it is easy to get narrowly focused on the minutiae of the policy itself, while losing sight of the overall goals. This is even more of a problem when one does not have an overall set of goals in the first place.
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