On like Donkey Kong: Obama Said to Plan Moves to Shield 5 Million Immigrants

That's a great question. You can answer it in a couple of ways. You could take the position that laws only matter so far as they have the public confidence. As per the Pew Research Center, Roughly seven-in-ten (71%) Americans support a way for undocumented immigrants to gain legal status if certain requirements are met: 42% overall say they should be able to apply for citizenship while 25% think they only should be able to gain permanent residency. About eight-in-ten (82%) Democrats favor a pathway to legal status compared with 57% of Republicans.[/QUOTE]

You can also answer your question of do laws really matter from a more philosophical standpoint. I think that I stand on the legal realist side of the spectrum, but there are a bunch of other schools of thought.

They already pay many state and local taxes, and many pay federal taxes. What happens when they need help is dependent on a whole host of local factors. E.g. in Houston we have the Gold Card. The benefit for coming out of the shadows is work authorization which Major already covered. Also important is getting access to a driver's license.

I think that we should have compassion for our fellow man and his suffering. I also acknowledge that sometimes compassion is hard and we don't quite get there. I don't find that to be very fairy tale at all. I disagree with you that America is a dog-eat dog society with every person for themselves if it were we would not have a government and even having a government we would not have many of the social programs that successive voters have approved and implemented.

I'm not sure how paying taxes to the government means that compassion is somehow dead in America, but please elaborate. Many undocumented people already pay federal taxes and an increased amount will pay in once working under work authorization - I imagine that any applicant will make their own cursory cost benefit analysis in deciding whether to apply and when to apply. I believe that many of these 3.7 will ultimately decide to apply and that we will see similar numbers (possibly slightly lower) to what we saw with DACA.

Working hard often is a contributor to how much money you will make but there are so many other factors that have nothing to do with the efforts of the person. Yet still we work. Just because someone makes more than you while putting in less effort doesn't mean you just give up or at least it doesn't for most people.

You said that "law abiding" people are now getting slapped on the face and that on a more personal note, your immigrant parents cant stand this change. I think it is odd for your parents to care so much that someone might have more options or and easier time than they had. Do they feel slapped in the face that gay marriage is now viable when it wasn't for them? Do they feel slapped in the face that income taxes are lower now than they were when they first came? Do they feel slapped in the face that insurers can no longer use pre-existing conditions to same extent that they once did?

Have they been upset at every other change of immigration law or practice of immigration law that has occurred since their arrivals that has made lives easier for immigrants? I imagine not, and that's why I think that the argument you trotted out about it being a slap in the face to people who did it the "right way" is so ridiculous. The argument is merely a proxy for saying "I don't like X or Y" and it doesn't actually get the merits of anything.

 

That's not at all what was said there....

 

As noted in my other post - removing the threat of deportation and a dramatic expansion in work opportunities.

It's not like they are trying to go Minority Report and catch the criminals before they commit a crime. The idea is to deport the ones that are caught - that's not hard to identify because you have a very small population of people in jails and holding cells that you are targeting.

Executive Orders have always been part of how government works. They have limited legal authority and can be changed by future Presidents. Obama's bipartisan-ness was giving Congress several years to come up with a solution. They didn't, so he decided to do what he could. If they still do come up with one acceptable to all parties, his stopgap solution will become irrelevant.

 

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I like the part about how he'll get on a plane as soon as Obama calls him and personally race to Washington to save the day.

Anywho, he does highlight how local law enforcement is affected by our current immigration system ... but it also seems like the things he suggests that may help are already in the works.

Which one of his requests do you agree with that you feel has not been addressed?

 

what was he saying?

It's one thing to say that he's not really black because he was raised by whites and asians, and grew up surrounded by zero blacks.

But texxx added that he attended "white" colleges. He attended Columbia and Harvard, to Ivy League schools.

What exactly is he talking about? Why does he consider Columbia and Harvard "white" colleges? Because they are Ivy League? They are considered elite schools? I did not know that colleges had races.

Texxx's posts get me very uneasy and I would not be comfortable being in a room with a man with his perspective on minorities.

 

prosecutorial discretion is evil by its very nature

it means rule of men, not rule of law

 

In defense of him he's saying that only elite colleges aren't for blacks... :grin:

 

I much prefer rule of algorithm.

http://beyondtransparency.org/chapters/part-5/open-data-and-algorithmic-regulation/

 

Except that prosecutorial discretion is a necessity to the justice system and is built into the very system itself. Our courts and prisons would grind to a halt if there wasn't prosecutorial discretion.

The fact that we have juries and grand juries shows that while we have rule of law it ultimately is decided by men. Law enforcement isn't a robotic exercise but one where humans are meant to use their own reasoning and discretion.

 

Interesting. So you think a police force should give equal effort into catching a prostitute as a mass murderer? They should have no discretion to prioritize where to put resources, what bad guys to focus on, etc?

 

My own opinion about this is that I wish that Congress would've acted on this before. I also think this is very much a political move to position the Democratic hand in the next election by forcing the Republican Congress into a tough spot. Either they take a very hard stand to try to hurt Obama alienating Latinos and moderates or they try to pass something that will be divisive within their own caucus. Unfortunately either way this will make it harder to get anything else passed such as tax reform, infrastructure (things that both parties claim to support) and also appointments.

Those given I still support this move. The current immigration situation is in terrible shape and getting worse. As much as people might just wish that we could shut down our borders and deport everyone that won't happen and besides that many interest on both the left and the right won't let that happen. We need a realistic solution to deal with the supply and demand issue driving immigration. This isn't that solution but it is a step towards it.

Further given how many opportunities Congress has had to pass an immigration bill they haven't. That is both due to how divisive the Republicans are on the issue but also how venal Democratic leadership has been. If this gets them going then all the better.

 

And also RocketJudoka's response, it appears Commodore has...

 

I know you like to blame both sides, and the Democratic leadership certainly sucks, but they are not to blame here. The Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration package. The House didn't want to take that up - even though most people think it would pass the House - and won't come up with anything of their own. There's nothing Democrats can do there. If the House would offer a proposal of their own, then perhaps Dems could kill it without negotiating, and thus deserve some of the blame. But at this point, there is nothing further Democrats can do on this topic.

 

doesn't follow then that the president gets to act unilaterally. there are a host of issues and proposals that one party or the other may want to enact, and they may even pass a bill in one or the other house. but our system requires both houses, and the president to sign off. no one, not boehner, reid, mcconnell, obama...get's to act on his own.

 

...says an ardent supporter of the unitary executive theory administration.

 

said Obama, until very recently.

 

Crimes that can't be enforced ubiquitously should not be crimes at all.

Prostitution being a good example.

 

bro your agenda is simply to smear me. And you're not succeeding.

let's keep the thread on topic.

I do believe introducing all these new illegal immigrants into the workforce will serve to bring down unskilled jobs' wages. I'm not sure how anybody could disagree with that -- it's simple supply and demand. Blacks occupy those types of jobs at a disproportionate rate, so they stand to lose. I'm not sure why that's so controversial.

 

lol i should frame this

"Crimes that can't be enforced ubiquitously should not be crimes at all."

the peak of reading Rand, clipping short soundbites meant to demonstrate everything and signify nothing