6 ms·

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

60 points by jadence 16y ago

defen 16y ago
This strikes me as ridiculous fear mongering. The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement" - the idea being that illegal immigrants will leave Arizona if they see that the state is serious about enforcing immigration law. Are we to suppose that people will continue to live in Arizona illegally, given the knowledge that there are now real penalties? The article also uses scare language like "The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before" to make it sound like there's some grand plan to hunt down and lock up every illegal immigrant, so that the prison companies can charge the state for their upkeep. And yet the bill only provides for a maximum of 20 days in jail for a first offender, and 30 days in jail for subsequent offenses.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  I think you should double check that. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070p.htm http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070p.htm http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-702.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-702.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-703.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-703.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-707.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-707.html
  - defen 16y ago
    I did, actually. Arizona SB 1070 was superseded by SB 2162: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/hb2162c.htm http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg...
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      Well, the story is about what was in the bill as allegedly drafted by the the prison company, not about the watered-down version that ended up passing. As first submitted to the legislature, it would have allowed for much longer sentences.
- credo 16y ago
  >>The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement" It is much more than that. If you're a US citizen and you're not carrying proof of citizenship, you could get thrown in jail for not having your "papers". Now, I'm sure many citizens feel that their accent or their skin color or some other attribute protects them from sent to jail and that they don't need to carry their papers with them. However, if a cop thinks that you might be a Canadian, they could throw you in jail for not proving otherwise. .
  - kjhgfkjmhng 16y ago
    Presumably only blacks and native americans are safe?
  - firemanx 16y ago
    Do you have a reference for citizens being able to be sent to jail for not carrying papers? I was under the impression that there was nothing in the bill about putting people in jail. I haven't read the link yet, though, so perhaps it has more details.
    - Natsu 16y ago
      Even before this law was passed, I can give you citations for American citizens who have actually been deported. I can't see how this law will make deportation any less likely. Here are some of the first few results: * http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/mentally-disabled-u-s-citizen-deported/ http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/mentally-disab... * http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/report_hundreds_of_us_citizens.html http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/report_hundre... You may notice a common trend among those wrongly deported: they're most often mentally disabled and non-white. It makes the news if and when their family discovers what happened to them. You don't have a right to an attorney if accused of immigration violations (even if you are a US citizen). I don't believe that a native-born US citizen can be stripped of their citizenship via any means. However, there are ways for naturalized citizens (those born elsewhere who successfully apply for US citizenship) to be stripped of that citizenship after the fact. This usually happens if they lie on their application (and that is the reason they ask questions like "Are you a terrorist?" on that application). There's a discussion of how that works here: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/376038 http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/376038
- butterfi 16y ago
  "But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room. It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC. It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country. It was there that Pearce's idea took shape. "I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'" This isn't just about illegal immigrants, this is about corporations that get legislation passed for their own financial gain. Granted this happens all the time, but this is so blatantly targeted towards people who have little or no defense. The potential for abuse is obvious. We've already had a U.S. judge busted for receiving kick-backs for sending juveniles to a youth facility. The US already has one of the largest prison populations in the world. This is a crime against humanity in the making. We should be afraid.
- JohnnyBrown 16y ago
  The frightening thing is not this particular application, but the broader concepts of (1) extension of an already draconian police power (2) almost entirely brought about by a private profit motive. Capitalism is an evolutionary process and as such is almost beyond the control of human intentions, so seeing it move against individual liberty is highly alarming.
  - hnal943 16y ago
    Whose liberty is being restricted? Illegal immigrants do not have rights to remain in this country.
julius_geezer 16y ago
I guess one question is whether the bulk of the illegal immigrants in Arizona at any one time are using it as a residence or just passing through. This would definitely make it less attractive as a residence, but its advantages for transit are considerable. The prison business has had some curious effects elsewhere a judge went to jail up around Scranton for abusing his power to send kids to jail for offenses that ordinarily might've rated probation before judgment; he was compensated by the company that ran juvenile prisons up there.
guelo 16y ago
Private prisons are an abomination and should not exist.
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  Why?
  - jackvalentine 16y ago
    It creates an industry of private businesses that have but one motive: a profit motive. They are therefor motivated to do everything they can to increase incarceration rates to create demand for their services of imprisonment. This article illustrates that pretty clearly. It also creates situations like the corrupt judge/private prison kickback scheme in Pennsylvania recently.(1) We don't need profit-driven companies who profit from increased rates of incarceration, they have no reason to really rehabilitate people - they want them back in the system ASAP. (1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=2&h...
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates. In fact, organizations like prison guard unions have stronger motives than multiple private prison corporations. A non-monopolistic prison corporation could easily let their competitors waste money on lobbying and reap the benefits, so any prison corp with small market share has no motive to lobby. The prison guard union reaps all the benefits since they have 100% market share.
      - Natsu 16y ago
        > This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates. I happen to think that you're both right. I'd rather not see union-owned or for-profit private prisons due and I'm not convinced that we really have to choose one or the other.
izendejas 16y ago
If legislators really wanted to reduce illegal immigration they would also go after the demand, implementing tougher penalties against those who hire illegal immigrants^^ or outsource to companies that do. Of course, this will never happen as the walmarts, mcdonalds, big tech corps^, etc will never allow it because surely their costs would go up and so would their prices. Edit: ^ work at a big tech company? A decent percentage of the janitors and cooks are illegal (and, for the record, are not just Hispanic) Edit2: ^^Including themselves--because they do. edit3: (sorry I was on my smartphone before). If the supply of jobs for illegal immigrants goes down, so does their influx. It's true in the US--and it's true in Europe and it's true in Asia: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247156221.99/ http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247156221.99/ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93137/recession-enforcement-driving.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93137/recession-enforc... But then, of course, in a global economy, cutting the influx of illegal immigrants (and immigration in general) would lead to more jobs shipped north/south/overseas. So in the end, many of these legislators are really just pandering and contributing to the fear-mongering here and everywhere as people are, in many cases, naturally xenophobic.
- scrod 16y ago
  And in fact, companies that hire illegal immigrants benefit greatly from stricter immigration enforcement; the more pressure from the state that's applied to immigrants, the easier it is for employers to lower their pay, subject them to dangerous and harsh conditions, and occasionally even refuse to compensate them altogether. If they refuse, ICE will deport their families.
  - izendejas 16y ago
    Yes, and we all end up paying the indirect costs of this cheap labor because, as is well-publicized, most of these people won't have health insurance so premiums, medical costs, Medicaid costs, etc go up.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    If we cared about human rights, we should flip the situation on its head and impose heavy (in the 6 or 7 figure range) fines for hiring undocumented workers. If any of the workers are mistreated they should be able to turn in their employer. That will give the workers an upper hand and would prevent them from being taken advantage of. Now the employer can live in fear of being exposed.
xtho 16y ago
Interestingly I recently attended a talk by Loic Wacquant[1] about prisons in the US, the US as penal state. This somehow fits. [1] http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/ http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/
johngalt 16y ago
Unchecked undocumented immigration is a problem. There are a lot of people that want to come here for the right reasons and some that want to come here for the wrong reasons. The goal of any immigration reform should be to parse those two groups. Make it easier to be here legitimately to avoid the ongoing exploitation of the people that are here to work. Then focus enforcement on those that are not here legitimately because they are now not hiding among the crowds of people that just want to feed their families. This is what most people in AZ want, but the only lever they have is enforcement, it's not like Arizona can decide to unilaterally grant amnesty. The idea of "papers please" is reprehensible, but where is the anger at the federal border patrol checkpoints between AZ and CA? An AZ cop asking for a drivers license during a traffic stop is supposedly "draconian fascist evil", but stopping people for no reason driving between two states is considered ok? Imagine that after 9/11 the rest of the country said "good luck dealing with that terrorism problem NY. We're going to put checkpoints up to make sure those problems stay in your state and not ours."
hnal943 16y ago
What an absurd hit piece. The Arizona law simply states that the authorities in Arizona will enforce existing federal law.

60 points by jadence 16y ago

defen 16y ago

This strikes me as ridiculous fear mongering. The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement" - the idea being that illegal immigrants will leave Arizona if they see that the state is serious about enforcing immigration law. Are we to suppose that people will continue to live in Arizona illegally, given the knowledge that there are now real penalties? The article also uses scare language like "The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before" to make it sound like there's some grand plan to hunt down and lock up every illegal immigrant, so that the prison companies can charge the state for their upkeep. And yet the bill only provides for a maximum of 20 days in jail for a first offender, and 30 days in jail for subsequent offenses.

anigbrowl 16y ago
I think you should double check that. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070p.htm http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070p.htm http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-702.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-702.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-703.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-703.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-707.html http://law.justia.com/arizona/codes/2010/title13/13-707.html
- defen 16y ago
  I did, actually. Arizona SB 1070 was superseded by SB 2162: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/hb2162c.htm http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg...
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Well, the story is about what was in the bill as allegedly drafted by the the prison company, not about the watered-down version that ended up passing. As first submitted to the legislature, it would have allowed for much longer sentences.
credo 16y ago
>>The point of the law is "attrition through enforcement" It is much more than that. If you're a US citizen and you're not carrying proof of citizenship, you could get thrown in jail for not having your "papers". Now, I'm sure many citizens feel that their accent or their skin color or some other attribute protects them from sent to jail and that they don't need to carry their papers with them. However, if a cop thinks that you might be a Canadian, they could throw you in jail for not proving otherwise. .
- kjhgfkjmhng 16y ago
  Presumably only blacks and native americans are safe?
- firemanx 16y ago
  Do you have a reference for citizens being able to be sent to jail for not carrying papers? I was under the impression that there was nothing in the bill about putting people in jail. I haven't read the link yet, though, so perhaps it has more details.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    Even before this law was passed, I can give you citations for American citizens who have actually been deported. I can't see how this law will make deportation any less likely. Here are some of the first few results: * http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/mentally-disabled-u-s-citizen-deported/ http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/mentally-disab... * http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/report_hundreds_of_us_citizens.html http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/report_hundre... You may notice a common trend among those wrongly deported: they're most often mentally disabled and non-white. It makes the news if and when their family discovers what happened to them. You don't have a right to an attorney if accused of immigration violations (even if you are a US citizen). I don't believe that a native-born US citizen can be stripped of their citizenship via any means. However, there are ways for naturalized citizens (those born elsewhere who successfully apply for US citizenship) to be stripped of that citizenship after the fact. This usually happens if they lie on their application (and that is the reason they ask questions like "Are you a terrorist?" on that application). There's a discussion of how that works here: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/376038 http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/376038
butterfi 16y ago
"But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room. It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC. It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country. It was there that Pearce's idea took shape. "I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'" This isn't just about illegal immigrants, this is about corporations that get legislation passed for their own financial gain. Granted this happens all the time, but this is so blatantly targeted towards people who have little or no defense. The potential for abuse is obvious. We've already had a U.S. judge busted for receiving kick-backs for sending juveniles to a youth facility. The US already has one of the largest prison populations in the world. This is a crime against humanity in the making. We should be afraid.
JohnnyBrown 16y ago
The frightening thing is not this particular application, but the broader concepts of (1) extension of an already draconian police power (2) almost entirely brought about by a private profit motive. Capitalism is an evolutionary process and as such is almost beyond the control of human intentions, so seeing it move against individual liberty is highly alarming.
- hnal943 16y ago
  Whose liberty is being restricted? Illegal immigrants do not have rights to remain in this country.

julius_geezer 16y ago

I guess one question is whether the bulk of the illegal immigrants in Arizona at any one time are using it as a residence or just passing through. This would definitely make it less attractive as a residence, but its advantages for transit are considerable. The prison business has had some curious effects elsewhere a judge went to jail up around Scranton for abusing his power to send kids to jail for offenses that ordinarily might've rated probation before judgment; he was compensated by the company that ran juvenile prisons up there.

guelo 16y ago

Private prisons are an abomination and should not exist.

jacoblyles 16y ago
Why?
- jackvalentine 16y ago
  It creates an industry of private businesses that have but one motive: a profit motive. They are therefor motivated to do everything they can to increase incarceration rates to create demand for their services of imprisonment. This article illustrates that pretty clearly. It also creates situations like the corrupt judge/private prison kickback scheme in Pennsylvania recently.(1) We don't need profit-driven companies who profit from increased rates of incarceration, they have no reason to really rehabilitate people - they want them back in the system ASAP. (1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=2&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=2&h...
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates. In fact, organizations like prison guard unions have stronger motives than multiple private prison corporations. A non-monopolistic prison corporation could easily let their competitors waste money on lobbying and reap the benefits, so any prison corp with small market share has no motive to lobby. The prison guard union reaps all the benefits since they have 100% market share.
    - Natsu 16y ago
      > This problem is not limited to the private prison business. In California, for example, the prison guard union is similarly motivated by profits to increase incarceration rates. I happen to think that you're both right. I'd rather not see union-owned or for-profit private prisons due and I'm not convinced that we really have to choose one or the other.

izendejas 16y ago

If legislators really wanted to reduce illegal immigration they would also go after the demand, implementing tougher penalties against those who hire illegal immigrants^^ or outsource to companies that do. Of course, this will never happen as the walmarts, mcdonalds, big tech corps^, etc will never allow it because surely their costs would go up and so would their prices. Edit: ^ work at a big tech company? A decent percentage of the janitors and cooks are illegal (and, for the record, are not just Hispanic) Edit2: ^^Including themselves--because they do. edit3: (sorry I was on my smartphone before). If the supply of jobs for illegal immigrants goes down, so does their influx. It's true in the US--and it's true in Europe and it's true in Asia: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247156221.99/ http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247156221.99/ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93137/recession-enforcement-driving.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/01/93137/recession-enforc... But then, of course, in a global economy, cutting the influx of illegal immigrants (and immigration in general) would lead to more jobs shipped north/south/overseas. So in the end, many of these legislators are really just pandering and contributing to the fear-mongering here and everywhere as people are, in many cases, naturally xenophobic.

scrod 16y ago
And in fact, companies that hire illegal immigrants benefit greatly from stricter immigration enforcement; the more pressure from the state that's applied to immigrants, the easier it is for employers to lower their pay, subject them to dangerous and harsh conditions, and occasionally even refuse to compensate them altogether. If they refuse, ICE will deport their families.
- izendejas 16y ago
  Yes, and we all end up paying the indirect costs of this cheap labor because, as is well-publicized, most of these people won't have health insurance so premiums, medical costs, Medicaid costs, etc go up.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  If we cared about human rights, we should flip the situation on its head and impose heavy (in the 6 or 7 figure range) fines for hiring undocumented workers. If any of the workers are mistreated they should be able to turn in their employer. That will give the workers an upper hand and would prevent them from being taken advantage of. Now the employer can live in fear of being exposed.

xtho 16y ago

Interestingly I recently attended a talk by Loic Wacquant[1] about prisons in the US, the US as penal state. This somehow fits. [1] http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/ http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/

johngalt 16y ago

Unchecked undocumented immigration is a problem. There are a lot of people that want to come here for the right reasons and some that want to come here for the wrong reasons. The goal of any immigration reform should be to parse those two groups. Make it easier to be here legitimately to avoid the ongoing exploitation of the people that are here to work. Then focus enforcement on those that are not here legitimately because they are now not hiding among the crowds of people that just want to feed their families. This is what most people in AZ want, but the only lever they have is enforcement, it's not like Arizona can decide to unilaterally grant amnesty. The idea of "papers please" is reprehensible, but where is the anger at the federal border patrol checkpoints between AZ and CA? An AZ cop asking for a drivers license during a traffic stop is supposedly "draconian fascist evil", but stopping people for no reason driving between two states is considered ok? Imagine that after 9/11 the rest of the country said "good luck dealing with that terrorism problem NY. We're going to put checkpoints up to make sure those problems stay in your state and not ours."

hnal943 16y ago

What an absurd hit piece. The Arizona law simply states that the authorities in Arizona will enforce existing federal law.