Warp wrote:
> 1) Demand that all people always carry a form of identification.

Identification isn't proof of being allowed to be in the country. I do 
always carry identification. That doesn't prove I'm allowed to be here.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
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Warp wrote:
>   It still sounds to me like "the police should stop checking primarily
> Mexican-looking people because it's racism and it offends them".

If the primary illegal immigrants look Mexican, then the majority of people 
doing something that raises suspicion that they're illegal immigrants will 
be primarily Mexican.

Not being prejudiced about it doesn't make it more lenient.

Analogy: If Mexicans are the primary drunk drivers, pulling over mexicans at 
random is not going to reduce drunk driving as much as pulling over people 
who are driving erratically. Even if the majority of the people you stop 
wind up being Mexican, there's no reason to pull over Mexican drivers 
driving safely to see if they're drunk.


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> In the US, we're supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.  
> You're starting with a presumption of guilt, which goes against the 
> ideals under which this law is created.

  So if you go to a grocery store and use your credit card to buy something
and they want to check your ID to make sure you are the real owner of the
card, are they presuming you guilty until you prove you are not? Or is this
simply a security measure which, on the grand scale, benefits you as well
as everybody else?

  If you enter the country and at the airport they check your baggage using
an X-ray machine, are they presuming you guilty? Or is this just a security
measure?

  If a police officer asks for your ID to check that you have the right to
live in the country, is he presuming you guilty, or is it just a security
measure?

  You make it sound like in that last case the situation is different, for
some reason.

> Based. On. Skin. Colour.

  Why are people so damn obsessed with skin color? Criminal profiling does
not have anything to do with racism. Skin color is just one feature which
can be used for profiling.

  If most illegal immigrants happen to look similar, it only makes sense
to concentrate resources on people who look like that. It's the same as
the vast majority of rapists being male, hence it it makes sense to
concentrate resources on investigating males and skipping females. Nobody
is crying sexism because of that.

  I really think people are way too hypersensitive with any kind of
profiling based precisely on skin color. Any other type of profiling is
ok, but heaven forbid if you start using skin color as a distinctive
feature. The second you do that, all human rights are flushed down the
toilet. Sheesh.

> Nothing else.  If you *look* like an illegal, you are presumed guilty 
> until you prove otherwise.  This could be a daily occurrence IF YOU 
> HAPPEN TO HAVE THE WRONG COLOUR SKIN.

> Hell, it could happen HOURLY.

> Wouldn't that piss YOU off if YOU were constantly having to prove that 
> you were in your country legally?

  If it significantly increased my own security, I wouldn't. (Of course
I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm just saying that there are more
sides to this than an extremist political correctness.)

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                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> What you are proposing
> - is not effective

  What do you suggest which would be more effective?

> - will violate rights of legal citizens

  Wait, exactly what am I proposing here that would "violate rights of
legal citizens"?

  Don't confuse what *I* am proposing with whatever laws they are proposing
in those states in the US. I don't know what exactly they are proposing there,
nor am I explicitly advocating those laws.

  I am simply arguing that extreme one-sided political correctness *can* be
too naive to be practical. Sometimes innocent people have to endure some
scrutiny (and even profiling) if criminals are to be caught.

> - will harm trust in the police and the juridical system

  Well, I suppose it could. It's basically a lose-lose situation. You can't
win. Either you get many criminals go free which would otherwise be caught
of more efficient measures were taken, or you anger people.

> - will increase racial tension

  I really think people are way too sensitive about what they perceive as
"racism". Well, I suppose there's no helping that.

> For these and a number of other reasons legislators all over the world 
> have decided it is not a good idea and made it illegal.

  Make what illegal, exactly? You seem to use the word "it" to refer to
something I have proposed. What exactly?

> Although it 
> seems a good idea at first sight, if you think a little longer you will 
> understand why it will destabilize the society more than it solves 
> illegal immigration.

  As I said, it's a lose-lose situation.

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                                                          - Warp

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Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone to 
> live in a Nazi state.

  I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Let me rephrase: If 90% of illegal immigrants are Mexicans, then 90% of
> > illegal immigrants will look like Mexicans. Hence it only makes sense to
> > devote 90% of the law enforcement resources to check Mexicans.

> But if 90% of the local population *also* looks mexican, then there's no 
> reason to favor checking mexicans over non-mexicans, is there?

  Wait, what? If 90% of the local population looks mexican, all the more
reason for 90% of checking to be done on mexican-looking people. A completely
random blind-testing would get you that.

  If less than 90% of the checked people would not look like mexican,
wouldn't *that* be discrimination? It would not be impartially random
anymore, but it would be a conscious choice of checking other people
more.

> The problem with this sort of profiling is that you have to look at the 
> ratio of legal to illegal immigrants, not just the ratio of illegal immigrants.

  Exactly what are you proposing here? I don't quite get it.

  If 90% of the population of a place is of mexican origin, wouldn't it only
make sense that 90% of the resources are devoted to checking mexicans?

> If 10% of 10,000 mexicans are illegal immigrants, and 90% of 200 africans 
> are illegal immigrants, it makes much more sense to ask random africans if 
> they're citizens than random mexicans.

  Well, I suppose it does.

  But I thought you were *against* such "profiling"?

> >   Why is it so only with immigration? If the suspect of a crime is a white
> > male, is it racism to question only white males? Wouldn't it be less racist
> > to question also black females? You know, for equality.

> No, because there's already suspicion of a crime, a reason to believe that 
> the person accused might have done it. Note that you don't get to question 
> *all* white males when a crime is committed. You have to have *some* reason, 
> known as "probable cause", to believe the person you're questioning was 
> involved.

  So the police must not question anybody unless they have "probable cause"?

  Wouldn't that be a bit hindering on criminal investigation?

> What *this* law does is it makes immigration a *special* status, saying you 
> do *not* have to have any reason to believe the person was committing any 
> sort of crime before you ask him to prove he isn't.

  If a store clerk asks for your ID in order to corroborate that you are
indeed the owner of the credit card, is he suspecting you of a crime and
thus making an illegal demand? Would you argue that the store clerk must
have a valid reason to suspect you of not being the legal owner of the
credit card before he can demand you to show your ID?

> >   So what do you suggest? 

> I suggest that before you question anyone, you be required to do enough 
> police work to at least have a reason to question them.

  And what would that reason be, exactly?

> >> Or to put it another way, jump back 180 years. Pass a law in the northern 
> >> part of the USA saying everyone had to prove they aren't an escaped slave. 
> >> Do you think there's any way that wouldn't be considered a racist law today? 
> >> Do you think there's any chance you wouldn't wind up locking up a whole lot 
> >> more innocent black people than innocent white people?
> > 
> >   You are comparing immigration laws with slavery laws. Same thing?

> No, I'm comparing racism to racism.

  Sorry, I still don't see slavery comparable to checking people's ID based
on typical illegal immigrant profiling. You might argue both are, technically
speaking, "racism", but I still see a huge difference in magnitude.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sat, 01 May 2010 13:13:57 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> No, but the notion that you can pick someone up because they *look*
> >> like an illegal immigrant (which BTW violates the 4th amendment right
> >> to protection against unreasonable search/seizure) *is* patently
> >> racist.
> > 
> >   Why does it have to be racism?

> Because it relies on racial profiling, and not on what has been done.

  So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling based
on how someone looks like?

  I really think this is political correctness getting in the way of
criminal investigation.

> >   Imagine that a woman is raped, and the police is immediately called,
> > and they suspect that the rapist is still in the vicinity. The police
> > ought to start questioning suspects they find. Male suspects.

> Different circumstances.

  Right. Profiling based on gender is ok. Profiling based on skin color
is not.

> >   Likewise with illegal immigration: The vast majority of illegal
> >   immigrants
> > don't look like locals. 

> Except that in Arizona, the vast majority of immigrants (legal and not) 
> are of hispanic descent.

  You are the fourth. Do we get a fifth?

>  Let's see how many Canadian immigrants get 
> stopped there because "they don't look like they belong".

  Is it typical for illegal Canadian immigrants to move to Arizona?

> > Hence it only makes sense to prioritize the
> > scarce resources law enforcement has and concentrate on people who don't
> > look like locals. This is not racism. This is practicality. Questioning
> > people equally is only going to waste resources, which wastes taxpayers'
> > money, and causes less crimes to be stopped.

> No, this law *is* a waste of taxpayer money, in fact, several police 
> departments in Arizona have said that this takes resources away from 
> *real* crime.

  Well, I suppose if illegal immigration is not seen as such a bad crime,
you could argue that it can be overlooked.

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                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   If he is an illegal immigrant, why should the country he illegally
> > entered take responsibility? It's his own country's problem.

> I think it's more a matter of "what are you going to do?"  If the country 
> won't take him back, it's not like you can leave him in a cardboard box on 
> the front step.

  You send him to his own country's airport and let them decide what to do
with him. Give him the phone number of Amnesty International.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2-5-2010 8:24, Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>>> There is another way that even takes less time and is not illegal 
>>>> because of various international laws: don't question people unless you 
>>>> have a serious reason to believe that they are illegal (or you are 
>>>> questioning them anyway because of a non-related suspicion or check).
>>>   And then watch illegal immigration raise. Right.
> 
>> Wrong.
> 
>   The police should stop looking for illegal immigrants, and that will not
> cause illegal immigration to raise? Can you give some kind of explanation
> how that works?

Your logic fails. What you propose is not being done ATM and for good 
reasons. Stopping doing something that is not done will not give rise to 
a raise.

>  Maybe you should awaken to the real world. 

It might have escaped you, but IMHO you are the one who is not in 
contact with the real world. Or at least fails to see all the 
consequences of what he is proposing. No problem as long as you don't go 
into politics.

>>>   It's better to allow illegal immigration than to possibly offend someone.
> 
>> It it not about offence, it is about human rights and/or the local law.
> 
>   It still sounds to me like "the police should stop checking primarily
> Mexican-looking people because it's racism and it offends them".

if it does, read again.

>>>   If find your argument that "the police should not be looking for the
>>> illegal immigrant because doing so might offend someone" even more
>>> disturbing.
> 
>> They have all the right to do so, just not based on looks alone.
> 
>   Basically, this is pragmatism vs. political correctness.

It is obvious (in the traditional sense as used in mathematics)

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On 2-5-2010 8:35, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:

>> Based. On. Skin. Colour.
> 
>   Why are people so damn obsessed with skin color? Criminal profiling does
> not have anything to do with racism. Skin color is just one feature which
> can be used for profiling.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pars_pro_toto
You were the one who asked us to stop nitpicking words and finally try 
to understand what you meant in stead. And yes, that made me ROFL.

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