Let’s say I wasn’t a lawyer, but I really wanted to be. I couldn’t go to law school, couldn’t afford to squander three years of my life or the tuition. But I cared deeply about helping people and felt I could be a really good lawyer. So instead of passing the bar, being admitted to practice law, I hung out a shingle saying I was a lawyer and started representing people.
Say I did a pretty good job of it. When courts started requiring a bar number of papers, I made one up because, obviously, I didn’t actually have one. I paid taxes on the monies I earned. I contributed to the welfare of the community, where everyone thought I was a lawyer. I did pro bono. Everyone thought I was a great guy and a great lawyer. The only thing I wasn’t was an actual lawyer.
One day, somebody figured out that I was many things, but not a lawyer. Was I a bad guy or a good guy? Did I not deserve credit for all I had done, all I contributed? There is a law that says a person can’t be a lawyer without being admitted to the bar. I violated it, but no one was harmed. So what’s the big deal?
Activist Jeanette Vizguerra is hiding in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Denver from ICE agents who want to arrest her. She tells her story as if she’s the victim.
This year is my 20th in Denver, but I may have to spend it in the basement of the First Unitarian Church instead of my own home. When I wake up in the room set up for me here, my first thought every day is who will pick up my children from school.
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to extend my stay of deportation. I sought sanctuary in the church because, like that of millions of other immigrants, my future in this country was thrown into doubt. Thanks to President Trump’s new policy, every undocumented person is a priority for eviction from this country.
The reference to Trump’s new policy is somewhat gratuitous. Vizguerra’s issue isn’t that she’s here lawfully, or that she hasn’t broken other laws in the process, such as using a false social security number, working without authorization, maybe driving without a valid license. It’s that her exclusion is now a priority.
In my years here, I have witnessed many injustices and have been involved in community organizing against them, including as a co-host of a radio show here. After paying taxes for two decades, spending thousands of dollars on my immigration case and fighting my deportation for eight years, I am not giving up now. (Emphasis added.)
It’s unclear what “injustices” she’s referring to. The injustice of not being allowed to ignore laws that don’t inure to your benefit?
He arrested me, and while searching my bag found documents that bore my real name and date of birth but a made-up Social Security number. I needed these to apply for a third job — on top of the two, as a house cleaner and a janitor, I was already doing. I pleaded guilty to a third-degree misdemeanor for attempted possession of a forged instrument.
She’s hardworking, doing jobs that others might eschew but need to be done. This goes to how new immigrants contribute to the welfare of a nation. You would have to be blind not to appreciate the contributions.
To many, this sounds like a serious charge, but what some might call criminal is a question of survival for most of the people who build your homes and keep them clean. You accept our labor but won’t provide the piece of paper that recognizes our equal humanity.
And there is the key shift in the argument. Much as the crime happened, and she was very much guilty of it, it was necessitated by her undocumented status. So laws that apply to everyone else don’t apply to people who are undocumented because they can’t do things lawfully? That’s pretty much how law is intended to work, that violating one law doesn’t entitle you to violate others to conceal your initial violation because if you didn’t violate the law again, you would get caught.
I decided not to hide my battle against deportation but to fight publicly to draw attention to the unfairness of the system. I wanted to inspire my community to step out of the shadows and raise its voices. In 2011, a judge denied my application for cancellation of removal, saying that my family’s suffering if I was deported would be neither extreme nor unusual. I appealed the ruling.
Vizguerra has three young children, all American citizens, as well as an older child with DACA status. If she was deported, she wouldn’t be able to see them. At least not in Denver. They could go with her to the country from whence she came. As the judge ruled, this is neither extreme nor unusual. This is pretty much how it goes when you’re an undocumented alien who has been here for 20 years. There is no three kids rule that confers legitimacy on you.
But what is particularly interesting about Vizguerra’s story is that she is fighting the battle. She’s the victim of some other nation’s, not hers, immigration policy, which she knowingly and deliberately violated. She’s the victim of her breaking criminal laws because she couldn’t get what she felt she deserved without doing so.
If you think you’re entitled to that big diamond ring at Tiffany’s, are you entitled to steal if you haven’t got the money to pay for it? The reasoning is the same.
Some view United States immigration policy as unduly harsh and inflexible. Some want it to be that way, driven primarily by their lack of understanding of the problems and a visceral hatred of “illegals.” But does disagreement over policy somehow absolve people who have, without question, flouted our laws, engaged in secondary offense, albeit malum prohibitum, turn otherwise lovely people who violate our laws because it’s good for them into victims?
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Three felonies a day, four a day, whatever.
The biblical punishment of banishment has always been recognized as one of the harshest.
Amnesty programs mitigate this, but reward those who get away with breaking the laws the longest, which grates considerably with some people.
After Trump waves his magic wand and make the borders impervious, this debate will become moot.
And so…this means what?
For a start, it means that all analogies suck, so here’s another sucky one to go with your sucky lawyer one.
A lot of us speed. Some of us get caught, but, unless we are destitute or get caught a lot, the punishment for that isn’t generally ruinous. It is indisputable that speeding is a significant factor in a lot of fatal accidents, so it seems likely that one reason the associated punishment is light is because “everyone does it.”
Apparently, a lot of us are here illegally. The INS-dodging 20-year immigrant is, unfortunately, very real. A punishment of deportation, may not be usual or extreme for those who are caught. But if the fear-mongerers who think that two out of three of their neighbors are illegal and “everybody does it” are correct, then in the wider world it is actually quite unusual and extreme, because it hasn’t been applied to the billions who aren’t caught.
In contrast, your hypothetical lawyer is a very rare bird, indeed. Very few would be able to keep that deception up for decades, so there are very few in the community who would think “there, but for the grace of God, go I” when he is caught, and the human suffering associated with the punishment will be limited to very few families.
FWIW, if I were on the hypothetical jury trying your hypothetical lawyer, hypothetically speaking, I might consider whether the government had shown that anybody (besides the lawyer’s guild) was actually injured by his conduct.
Well yeah, my analogy was kind of ridiculous. That could never happen. But the analogy was used to reflect the intentional, but not venal, violation of laws where there was no discernible harm. That was kind of the point.
Yeah, your analogy does illustrate the discernable harm issue, and previous immigration laws and regulations have tried, with varying success, to add discernable harm into the equation.
As far as your hypothetical, obviously, it could happen, and in a country of 307 million people, that means there is an excellent chance it happens occasionally. But I don’t think Penofsky is a perfect match — he appears to have actually had a legitimate JD.
It was a great analogy. A beautiful analogy. Dan Penofsky happened to be a really good prosecutor. His fall from grace was huge.
The dog (or your spam filter) ate my homework.
He threw it back up. Apparently, it didn’t agree with him.
Damn! Just how many years is it gonna take you to get over your violated yankee gutters?
P.S. When a prosecutor uses the phrase “flouted our laws” in her closing arguments do you go after “flouted” or the “ours” part or just ignore it all together as not to get the jingos on the jury more riled up?
The friggin’ Yankee gutters. Still pisses me off.
It says wonderful things about our country that some people would rather live out their lives in a church basement here than go back to their nation of origin. Trump really has made America great again!
Well, it is Unitarian.
I get what you are saying, but from my perspective see our immigration laws as inhumane and unethical. These are people desperate for a better life and I don’t feel that just because I was born in the USA I have a ethical claim to exculed others who happen to be born elsewhere. Also historicaly immigrants have been great for our country and economy, so we are hurting ourselfes to hurt them.
To me, it is not unethical to break unethical laws.
Also, I would love the ability to go and get a job or move to another country without layers of imigration red tape, and I want others to have the abilty to move here.
That’s a very moral stance. It will bring you great comfort during those long, cold, lonely nights in prison, as “I think the law is unethical” is not a defense.
Sometimes it has to come to that, but in this context, I am saying that I do not assign any ethical failing to the illegal immigrants. May people deomoize them because they are breaking the law and the entire nomenclature around them is baised on their law breaking, but I see the failing on us, not them.
I completely respect civil disobedience as a matter of principle. But it’s important to remember that it comes with consequences. Break the law with a pure heart and you get the cell the curtains, but it’s still a cell. Remember, our system provides for law to be enacted by our elected representatives. We may not like their choices, or agree with them all (or any of) the time, but they pass laws and we are obliged to follow them. Just as citizens aren’t absolved from violating laws they don’t like, same goes for aliens.
But you’ve characterized your issues as “inhumane and unethical.” To some extent (maybe completely), I agree with you, at least on the inhumane bit since I don’t see ethics implicated here, but these aren’t legal criteria. These are our individual feelings. Laws should be based on sound public policy, which may work poorly and contrary to purpose under certain circumstances, but it’s impossible to create rules that cover a wide category that won’t do harm in individual instances. Sometimes we can craft exceptions into the law as a safety valve for when they work harm, but other times not.
The part that you may be missing here is that you see immigration law as “inhumane and unethical,” but others do not. Disagreement over policy doesn’t divide us into good and evil, just different. Are citizens who disagree with you “inhumane and unethical” in your eyes for supporting policy that’s inhumane and unethical? If so, then there’s nothing to discuss and it’s just a matter of numbers. If they have the votes, that’s the law, you lose.
Or, if you want to change the law, lessen the pain, you need to soften your rhetoric, open your mind to the possibility you’re not as right as you belief, your feelings do not dictate policy, and hope that those with the authority to make law will be kinder toward you than you are toward them. Here’s the kicker. The laws exist. You want them changed. You need their acquiescence. They need nothing from you. You’re approval is superfluous.
We hate it when you use the word “alien”. It has a science-fictioney ring to it. There’s nothing science-fictioney about immigration, not even close. Normally we would expect you to sympathize with that person who is being defined by the worst moment, or action, in his or her life. So now you’re swinging the other way. We hate it when you think like a lawyer.
Warren Buffett just came out with glowing things to say about immigrants and immigration to the U.S. In his annual report, a obvious slap at the current immigration crackdown. We have always been a welcoming nation, in the spirit of the Statue of Liberty in your own New York Harbor. Given to us by France, the only major European nation never to have gone to war with us.
Buffett is not a lawyer, but he’s not a stewpid man. Being a lawyer and a stewpid man are not mutually exclusive, I’m afraid.
This movie ends badly. Laws were meant to be broken. We are a nation of law-breakers when you get right down to it. Some worse than others. Some of us pretend that we are as pure as the driven snow. The “really bad dudes” either go back to prison or back where they came from. Ha. We trust the Orange One will one day recognize the errors of his ways. For now, some will have to suffer, simpley. If it’s cruel and unusual banishment without amnesty, well then so be it. In time, the pendulum will swing the other way. It’s a Law of Nature.
Do we? The word “alien” is different than immigrant. It has meaning. It has multiple meanings, in fact. All of you need to get over it.
Whenever someone says something simplistic that panders to the clueless, be suspect of their motives. We are, indeed, a nation of immigrants. We have never, however, been a nation of open borders. No nation can afford to allow in every person who wants to come, to feed them, house them, provide health care, etc., unless citizens are prepared to take the food from their children’s mouths to give to other people’s.
As unaccommodating as that may seem to people who aren’t good with numbers, there is a reason why France shipped the Status of Liberty here rather than keep it for themselves.
My understanding is that the U.S. now has net zero immigration, or migration if you will. In other words, as many leaving as arriving. Not sure how long that’s been going on? There are plenty of other hospitable places to go in the world. With China rising and Russia coming back from the dead, Amerika may no longer be the greatest. The Orange Man may have his directions mixed up.
Look, CBP folks need something to do. They cannot just sit there in their armored vehicles, binocs in hand, and justify the expense of their uniforms and training. The immigrants try to cheat, and CBP tries to catch em. It’s a busyness not unlike any other. Now the Orange One has their back. This too will change.
As to Mexico, the number is about net zero, the extent it can be measured since we can’t really be sure how many are coming in when they won’t stop at the border and announce themselves. But that’s only Mexico. If you have a better source than “my understanding,” it might shed more light.
None of this has anything to do with Trump’s immigration policies, or criminal epidemic claims, or any other policies that Bannon may whisper in his ear. Regardless of what he’s saying or doing, reality, facts and logic have an independent existence.
Open borders may not be feasible, but you can put a price tag on immigration. Based on the immigration numbers by the CIS, the additional cost to native taxpayers for immigration, legal and illegal, is ~$300/person/year.
Central Americans are the highest tax burden, mainly from their children. But the children do grow up, become productive, and help stem the risk from an inverse population pyramid. Net-zero immigration, if happening, paired with sub-replacement fertility is a future economic problem.
It’s a complex equation balancing legal, ethical, moral, and economic arguments. Absolving people might be required for a sound public policy that benefits society the most.
It is a very complex equation. There’s an interesting op-ed running through some of the numbers and impacts that includes this:
While there are also significant gains to the economy that help some, the harm to the workforce disproportionately harms blacks, Hispanics and … other not-quite-as-new immigrants.
The problem, as I recently realized, is that we are trying to ally Chaotic Good and Lawful Good. The reason that won’t work right now is that Chaotic Good has come to predominate the Social Justice movement and has convinced its members that Lawful Good is basically just Evil that won’t fess up. Her post and your reply are fantastic examples.
I bring this up because a) I’m a geek and b) I do have a serious point here. Chaotic Good and Lawful Good are both Good. Both of them want people to be happy and to thrive. Chaotic Good thinks laws get in the way of that and Lawful Good thinks laws are essential to it. Is this oversimplifying? Yes. But we live in an oversimplified time. For some reason, people of good will, like you and MollyG, are at loggerheads while the Actual Evil types (Mostly Neutral Evil claiming to be Lawful Good) are just laughing their dapper little heads off. The modern Social Justice movement is the best thing that ever happened to them. “Lets’ you and him fight,” they say to the various factions of Good, and we are only too happy to oblige.
I don’t know how we convince the Chaotic Good types that no, we don’t want the laws upheld because we hate poor/brown people, we want them upheld because we think that we’re all better off that way. Or that the right thing to do about a law being unjustly enforced is to change it and/or punish those responsible, not ignore it and use it as evidence that laws are inherently evil. But if we can’t, I think this just keeps getting worse.
An interesting theory. But not one with which I agree, as should be obvious.
I understand how you come up with Chaotic and Lawful Good, but they aren’t valid characterizations. Chaotic is emotional. Lawful is rational. The former finds good based on whatever it feels is good at any particular moment, regardless of how it fits within a rational paradigm, whether it’s consistent or principled, or the collateral harm it causes. Essentially, it’s “I like vanilla better than chocolate” as applied to rights. While the two may intersect often, they do so for very different reasons. For the latter, “I like it” isn’t a good enough reason, and shrieking hatred at anyone who disagrees isn’t a good enough reaction.
There is far more in common with Chaotic Good and Evil than Emotional Good and Rational Good.
It’s very much an imperfect analogy, but consider the case of Kathleen Soliah: member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, wanted in concert with a 1975 bank robbery in which people were killed, and an attempted bombing the same year. She became a fugitive for 23 years, and under the name Sara Jane Olson, married, had three daughters, was by many accounts an active, compassionate member of the community, well-liked and even admired. When she was arrested in 1999, there were people who stated that her community and family ties were sufficient expiation for her sins; however, the courts didn’t see it that way, and she eventually took a plea deal and was sentenced to 14 years in prison, of which she served about half before being paroled.
The link I see between the Soliah / Olson case and this one is the very human concept of fairness: no matter how exemplary one’s life has been since the initial transgression, in the absence of a statute of limitations, it isn’t fair to all of those who have “played by the rules” to just let it go. We’re not talking Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert and a loaf of bread; Olson pled guilty to 2nd degree murder, and I’ll generalize and state without proof that many (most?) Americans think that controlling the border and enforcing immigration law are important duties of a sovereign state.
Steven Pinker’s marvelous book “The Blank Slate” has a good deal to say about fairness in the context of the justice system; I won’t try to do justice to his arguments but will simply recommend the book.
Another good analogy.
I have a hard time not being emotional about it. I have an immigrant spouse who came here completely legally. We did it by the book. It was scary and difficult but we did it by ourselves and all above board.
However, I have a hard time not empathizing with people who come here illegally from places like Mexico where cartels rule and individuals can’t necessarily change their government like us Americans can when they are unhappy.
I feel anguish when my family members tell me they are so happy Trump is working on building a wall, the practicality or reality of it notwithstanding. The same family members without meeting my spouse or knowing that person in the slightest accused my spouse at first of just wanting a green card and for several years after.
We have been married and together over a decade, 11 years in April. It is complete BS. I have been married longer than the amount of time any of my parents’ marriages lasted and I tell you our behavior towards each other is night and day better than anything I ever saw between my parents and various stepparents. It is hard work to communicate sometimes but completely worth it.
I have a hard time blaming or thinking badly of “illegals” for wanting to come to a place that they can participate in and trust to an extent that things are going to work out eventually and a place where they can pay taxes and where it isn’t like living under the shadow of cartels. How can you not want to open your doors to people living like that who don’t want to?
I know it’s not fair to people like my spouse who came here above board or to me who had to wait separated from my spouse by thousands of miles for months, but I still can’t blame them.
I have a hard time reconciling my emotions with that; I know and agree if you broke a law you broke a law, but I still don’t blame them. How do you do that? Why is our immigration system so underfunded or why does it have such a backlog?
We can be a nation of laws or a nation of emotions. They may not be your emotions. Pick one and live with the consequences.
There you go again with your stewpid lawyer-talk. This was a very personal and emotional argument/confession, and you chose to diss the lady. Shame on you! Like I said above, we are a demonstrable nation of lawbreakers. Why else would we have 25% of the world’s incarcerated prisoners? With only 7% of the world’s population? The lawbreakers who roam the canyons of Lower Manhattan and other “financial centers” of the world have yet to be arrested, charged or incarcerated. (Bernie Made-Off-with-the-Money was low-hanging fruit and a nit-wit.) The proof is in the pudding! It’s called Prison-Industrial Complex and PoliceMan to the Entire World, dumdum. Have you lost your mind, or are you just plain dizzy, or having a flash-back? Time for another vacation, you, you, you, blawger extraordianaire.
It was a very personal and emotional comment. This was the wrong place for it. It’s big internet, and people can emote all they want. Just not here.
A vacation, eh?
Except when you allow them to. Touche!?!
That’s what me being nice looks like, you ingrate.
Wow. A lot of people here seem to hate the immigration laws and I will read all of their comments in a bit but what is surprising is that nobody has pointed out that she could have come to the US legally the first time. But she took the easiest and cheapest route apparently.
And she can come back as a legal immigrant as the children of citizens are able to apply for legal status.
That’s how the law works. I am assuming as I am not a lawyer.
And when she says she paid taxes I am curious as to how. With a made up social security number? I’m not sure how that works.
It seems that everyone assumes there is zero immigration now allowed which would be inaccurate. Also they have not changed the rules to apply legally regardless of priority.
Her argument applied differently might be:
I killed somebody. Then I had to illegally dispose of the body because they won’t let you kill people. Then I had to lie to people since some uncaring republican bastards frown on that. Then I had children. Then I became active in the community. Then someone discovered I killed someone and now I am hiding in a church basement. Welcome to Trump”s America. #notmypresident
(Literally because she is here illegally)
That about sum it up?
Unskilled workers have virtually no method of legal immigration into the US. These people do not have the option of “waiting in line”.
I like this from a few years ago, but still relevant:
(Ed. Note: Link deleted per rules.)
Liam raised legitimate issues. You respond with nonsense. Of course there are methods of legal immigration. They just don’t suit your feelings. The immigration numbers for unskilled workers fail to meet your approval? Then run for Congress, convince enough other people in Congress to change the numbers to meet Molly’s preferences and, boom, you get what you want.
But Congress has established the numbers. That Congress isn’t doing what Molly would like them to do is not the test of national policy, and doesn’t give Molly or those people Molly likes a free pass around United States Law. Despite your feelings to the contrary. this is not the United States of Molly, and if Molly’s feelings reflect the policy views of the majority of Americans, then Congress would change the numbers to suit people’s will. That it doesn’t isn’t a reflection of bad law, but that America rejects Molly’s feelings. Democracy is working. You lose.
Sorry, Molly, but just because you feel passionately doesn’t mean you get your way. You are not the center of the universe.
And ironically, this is the same America that all those unskilled workers want to come to, live in, be a part of, although they no longer want assimilate, which is what held the United States together as a nation for a couple hundred years and would seek to change this new country into more like the old country from which they so desperately want to escape.