I have an idea that just might kill Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law.

[Unrepentant Fenian]

I have a friend from Ireland who was recently deported after being stopped at an Immigration Check Point, 100 miles north of the Mexican border in Texas. We fought his deportation as hard as we could for over a year and a half but he still lost. The whole time he was kept in prison. His case is somewhat unusual as he fought deportation. It seems that when most people get picked up by I.C.E. they willingly accept deportation, get dropped off at the border and attempt to cross again.
Here's my idea. If everyone who gets picked up in Arizona, or any other state for that matter fights deportation they could effectively clog up the detention centers and courts sever ly and in short order.I don't think it would take long before the whole system ran out of money. At this point the states and federal government would have to find a shit ton of money to fund their illegal and immoral laws. Imagine how conservatards would cringe if the states and feds had to raise taxes to finance all of this. I don't know how to get something like this rolling but I think it would really work.
So what says D.U.? Is this a good idea? Would it work? Would the detainees be willing to fight the system in order to change the system? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I don't think it will play out as you have envisioned.

They can make detention centers and camps until their trials like the Japanese internments during the Second World War. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. How long should these people stay in prison, unable to support their families back home...

Should their families at home willingly starve so the person that supports them dong grueling work for very low pay can make a political statement for us?

How many families would you personally be able to support. Who could you convince to support these families while their husbands, wives, or children stay in prison?

Finally, how do you put his idea into action? What mechanism do you have to contact the thousands of undocumented workers that get arrested and deported?

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. The main reason why that won't work

unless it goes viral within the community of those who are here illegally, is that by and large, illegal aliens want to remain below the radar, and fear any possible ramifications by being caught. In fact, it is usually the illegal immigrants who seek to follow the law to the letter in terms of how they drive, where they go, not only to protect themselves, but also to protect their family members who are in the US, as well as the community of others like them, and which they are a part of in seeking shelter and informational support to be able to remain, as well as to seek work.

[EFerrari]

4. It's hard to ask someone who is already in custody to fight

when they are already isolated and just trying to survive the experience.

But clogging up the system is a good idea in itself.

[Cleita]

5. As an aside, since when is ICE picking on Europeans?

Usually, they never question them. I crossed the border several times with Irish nationals, friends of my Irish husband, whose visas had run out making them illegal and we were just waved through. However, as to your idea, most of the poverty stricken Hispanics don't have the means to fight back. It would require either churches or other human rights organizations to back them up and the expense involved on their side.

[EFerrari]

6. Not in Arizona. San Francisco has a thriving illegal Irish immigrant community

but I've never heard of them being hassled -- although that could just mean I never heard of it.

[TlalocW]

7. I don't think you're going to need anything to bankrupt Arizona

They've already lost almost a billion dollars thanks to the boycott. That will increase.
Legal Hispanic families are already leaving Arizona for states that believe in the 4th Amendment, taking their tax revenue with them and turning parts of Phoenix into shuttered ghost towns according to some reports I've read. As for the ones who are currently staying, they'll change their minds once they start getting harassed for their papers over and over.
The children of the families are leaving as well, which means enrollment is down, meaning less education funds.
Legal Hispanics will not want to talk with the police as witnesses to crimes, putting even more of a burden on law enforcement.

The racist bastards did this to purge the legal Hispanic voters in their state whose ranks had a big increase and who tend to vote democratic over republican by a 2 to 1 margin. They never thought about the other consequences.

TlalocW

[Igel]

8. It's an entirely federal expense.

The AZ law has a few portions. For example, one is penalizing people that make day-laborer contracts from the comfort of their own cars through open doors or windows. Another includes anonymous informants. (That's the bit that has my hackles up.)

The portion that most people seem to care about is toothless. You are a cop. You stop Jose Vladimirovich O'Toole because his windshield wipers aren't working right, and this can be a big problem with all that Arizona ran. You see that his driver's license says he is an 98 year old female, the picture is of a young black man, and his Social Security card has him as "Josie Voldirmoich Atoll", SSN 123-99-4321. You recognize the words that your great uncle Jukka taught you he accidentally impaled his thumb on on a fishing hook when you were 8, and recall that they were Finnish. He only speaks Finnish. You decide you have a reasonable suspicion that he's in the US illegally. You check his ID and it turns out that he is, indeed, a Finn who overstayed his visa when he came here to study fish hook design.

You decide to throw the book at him, the full weight of the law. You will be judge, jury, and executioner, by gee whiz.

You notify ICE and drive him over to them. You've punished him to the greatest extent of the law possible. So you go back to eating your nice American-made Tim Horton donuts.

Arizona doesn't care about the costs. If the feds have to put up new detention centers and hire 2000 more workers, that counts as "stimulus."

[militantliberal]

9. if hispanics voted republican would they even think of such a law? n/t