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Statesman
 
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Post 09 Sep 2017, 8:04 am

Fate
It just puts them on the same plane as the other 10+ million illegal aliens.

A four year old is brought across the border with their parents, illegally.
And you believe that 4 year old has committed the same crime as their parents?
That they should be treated equally under the law as an as adult would?
Wait, no you aren't...

Fate
Nope. I'm not against them staying


But you're okay with them being thrown into fear and insecurity about their families and futures, because of your fetish for the "rule of law".
Enforcement of the law would be as immoral as enforcement of runaway slavery laws. That isn't a great stretch Fate...
Consider the consequences of deporting a 24 year old into mexico. A country they left 20 years ago. You would destroy the lives they built over 20 years just because you think the law must be upheld and enforced as long as it is the law...

You want to enforce immigration laws...start with going after the American businesses that willingly, and knowingly employ millions with little fear of repercussion because your Congress refuses to enact decent standards for these employers. When there are no jobs on offer for illegals they stop coming.
More than 90 percent of DACA recipients have jobs, which pay an average of $17.46 an hour. 72 percent are pursuing some form of higher education.
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Post 09 Sep 2017, 9:25 am

rickyp wrote:Fate
It just puts them on the same plane as the other 10+ million illegal aliens.

A four year old is brought across the border with their parents, illegally.
And you believe that 4 year old has committed the same crime as their parents?


No, but I don't believe the parents illegal maneuver is worthy of rewarding the child either.

Fate
Nope. I'm not against them staying


But you're okay with them being thrown into fear and insecurity about their families and futures, because of your fetish for the "rule of law".


Let's see . . . rule of law is a bad thing . . . nope, can't buy it.

If some people are fearful of receiving the effect of violations of the law, that's a shame.

Enforcement of the law would be as immoral as enforcement of runaway slavery laws. That isn't a great stretch Fate...


Yes it is. It's asinine.

Slaves did nothing wrong. They were bought and sold as if they had no soul and no humanity. They were forced to breed. They were beaten. Those who were free and fought for the north were slaughtered like cattle if captured by the Confederacy.

There is no equivalence just because it makes you feel smug and superior.

Consider the consequences of deporting a 24 year old into mexico. A country they left 20 years ago. You would destroy the lives they built over 20 years just because you think the law must be upheld and enforced as long as it is the law...


Maybe. It depends on the circumstance. And, please, the 24 year-old is a Mexican citizen.

You want to enforce immigration laws...start with going after the American businesses that willingly, and knowingly employ millions with little fear of repercussion because your Congress refuses to enact decent standards for these employers. When there are no jobs on offer for illegals they stop coming.


Hey (epithet), I've been saying this for years. However, Congress won't do that until the poor little DACA adults are on the docket.

More than 90 percent of DACA recipients have jobs, which pay an average of $17.46 an hour. 72 percent are pursuing some form of higher education.


Many are subsidized by American taxpayers. What kind of sense does it make to give DACA kids in-state tuition and force someone from a neighboring state, who is American, to pay a much higher rate?

In any event, border security MUST be tied to any resolution of the DACA situation.
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Post 09 Sep 2017, 5:00 pm

fate
Slaves did nothing wrong


But a 4 year old child brought into the country by their parents did?
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Post 10 Sep 2017, 6:36 am

rickyp wrote:But you're okay with them being thrown into fear and insecurity about their families and futures, because of your fetish for the "rule of law".


Rule of law is the foundation of western civilization. Your dismissive wave of the hand of "rule of law" is shocking. You can disagree with the decision on DACA, but to say that Fate has a fetish for "rule of law" is like saying you have a fetish for "democracy."
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Post 10 Sep 2017, 3:28 pm

geojanes
Rule of law is the foundation of western civilization. Your dismissive wave of the hand of "rule of law" is shocking. You can disagree with the decision on DACA, but to say that Fate has a fetish for "rule of law" is like saying you have a fetish for "democracy."


Realy? Here's a few laws that I believe were immoral. (I'll keep them to US laws, since were discussing DACA, not to pick on the US. All countries have their share, now and especially in the past.)

If the laws were indeed immoral, then it follows that the enforcement of these laws must also be immoral.
Which of these Geo do you disagree with being immoral? Which would you have actively considered enforcing ? Which would you have actively tried to over turn? Which would you have sought to protect people from prosecution?
- Slavery
- The Fugitive Slave Law
- refugee bans of jews in WWII?
- racial segregation (jim crow laws)
- laws denying access to contraception?

Was it moral to enforce all of the above laws? Should they have been enforced until the minute they were legally changed, or do moral people have a duty to oppose, protect their victims and even actively subvert these laws.

There isn't always a moral answer, and the law is often at its worst when attempting to divine or impose moral consensus, as opposed to interpreting black-letter law. The law is cold, mechanical and objective for a reason: when judges unmoor morality from logic, you find judges whose morality tells them to install monuments to the Ten Commandments in their courthouses.

Certainly if the current DACA recipients lose their protection and the law is strictly enforced and they are deported ... the enforcement of law will be an immoral act.

Rule of law is the foundation of western civilization

But I think it was Holmes who said "The Spirit of the law is more important than the law."

Blind obedience to "the rule of law" is folly. And often the refuge of the tyrants, either the few or the majority, defending their privileges .

Laws are the constructs of men. When laws are designed to enslave, and discriminate, then they need to be torn up and changed. And until they are changed civil disobedience of immoral laws is the moral course.
I the case of DACA Obama recognized the moral injustice being perpetrated against what are, for all intents and purposes except "the rule of law", young Americans. His action was moral. And it offered a patina of legality.
Rescinding DACA without readying a just and moral legal solution to the fate of these young people is cowardly and immoral.
Using the "rule of law" as a defence for immorality has a long and inglorious history. This is just one more instance where "rule of law" would be itself a crime against humanity.
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Post 10 Sep 2017, 5:06 pm

Laws are important, they can also be wrong, so you work to change them, as was done with ALL of the laws you quote.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 5:44 am

geojanes wrote:Laws are important, they can also be wrong, so you work to change them, as was done with ALL of the laws you quote.


If there is a law that a couple of intelligently written sentences are more persuasive than a whole bunch of gobbledygook, you've just proven it.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 9:58 am

geojanes wrote:Laws are important, they can also be wrong, so you work to change them, as was done with ALL of the laws you quote.


Sometimes, the best way to change a law is to enforce it rigorously.

A slight detour: in my former profession, guess what drove management into a panic? The threat by our union to follow our procedures as written. Why did that cause panic? Because they knew if we did that, the whole process would grind to a halt. As written, the policies and procedures were impracticable, so we had developed shortcuts over the years to keep the machinery of justice moving. For the most part, these shortcuts (potentially) endangered the officers.

Now, imagine DACA is done away with and Trump begins deporting all 800K DACA recipients. How much pressure is there on Congress, especially Democrats and moderate Republicans, to finally tackle immigration? I think it would be immense.

I'm not suggesting that's the ONLY way, but I do think it would force Congress to stop taking vacations and engaging in endless partisan sniping.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 10:49 am

Well, there are a couple of inherent issues with laws. One is that language is vague. So lawyers fight over what the statute means. Does the statute cover the situation at hand?That is, if the court is looking at the plain meaning of the statute. If the plain meaning of the statute is not enough then courts will look at other things (such as Legislative history) to try and determine whether the statute applies to the given situation before the court.

Also statutes can cover acts that the Legislature was not trying to cover. It's very hard to envision every case that a certain law wil cover and therefore laws have a problem of being overbroad. A criminal statute might punish offenders in more situations than the Legislature was trying to punish.

And so prosecutors will decline to prosecute because of this in certain situations. And a court might be more lenient as well. That's why the Federal Sentencing Guidelines were so unjust. The design was to prevent judges from having too much discretion to sentence, which meant that they did not have the discretion to be lenient on offenders who did not fit within mandatory severe drug laws. If you take away judicial discretion you are taking the ability a court's abilty to fix the inherent overbreadth problem of laws. But people get all upset when the somewhat rare instance mistake of judicial exercise of discretion results in a unduly lenient sentence, but there is a huge cost in taking away judicial discretion because we have to adjust to the fact that we are unable to write perfect laws that cover the exact acts we wants to cover. Judges are able to use their discretion to make adjustments that are just when cases fall through the cracks.

I think the issue is somewhat similar with DACA. The law says deport them...but are these illegals the ones we want to deport? I think not. And Obama adjusted the unfair application of the law to them by issuing an executive order that they can stay. That was just.

Deporting DACA recipients in an attempt to force Congress to act seems unjust to me. Nothing requires that it done. And it will cause hardship. And there is no guarantee that Congress will act.

Laws do not have exact contours. Human beings adjust things a bit when laws written on a piece of paper get applied in the real world. Applying deportation laws to people who were brought up here as kids and have been here a long time would not be just. That is why so many people supported DACA. They recognized this.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 11:41 am

freeman3 wrote:I think the issue is somewhat similar with DACA. The law says deport them...but are these illegals the ones we want to deport? I think not. And Obama adjusted the unfair application of the law to them by issuing an executive order that they can stay. That was just.


To you it was just. To me, it was unconstitutional overreach--as Obama himself said on several occasions prior to making his edict.

Of course, if it's only "discretion," then a new President has "discretion" to undo what the previous President did. That's why I find Napolitano's lawsuit on behalf of the UC system so implausible. How in the world is she going to have standing? Good luck getting over the most basic hurdle.

Deporting DACA recipients in an attempt to force Congress to act seems unjust to me. Nothing requires that it done. And it will cause hardship. And there is no guarantee that Congress will act.


"Unjust" is subjective as you well know.

If breaking the law to show it is unjust works, and it has, then why should keeping the law to show it is unjust not work?

Congress will absolutely act. In the past, it has been difficult because of the various interest groups fighting for one extreme (deport them all) or another (give them all amnesty and citizenship), while the mushy middle was unable to come up with a plan they could agree upon. This will force a consensus to form. The extreme wings won't get what they want, but I suspect Trump will get what he wants--more border security and a Congress-approved form of DACA.

Laws do not have exact contours. Human beings adjust things a bit when laws written on a piece of paper get applied in the real world. Applying deportation laws to people who were brought up here as kids and have been here a long time would not be just. That is why so many people supported DACA. They recognized this.


Many people did not support DACA. It has never been made a law.

If DACA stands without a revamped border security system, we are engraving invitations for millions more to break the law. Fix the system.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 12:04 pm

Good post...though I don't agree with it.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 12:15 pm

geojanes
Laws are important, they can also be wrong, so you work to change them, as was done with ALL of the laws you quote


If a law is wrong, (immoral) and you have the discretion to enforce the law or not...which is the moral position?

fate
If breaking the law to show it is unjust works, and it has, then why should keeping the law to show it is unjust not work?


Because of the consequences of enforcing the law against the recipients of DACA protections are horrendous. And unsupportable.
When laws are wrong, you don't enforce them up to the point of when they are changed. You stop enforcing them as soon as it is understood that the consequences of the law are immoral.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 1:38 pm

freeman3 wrote:Good post...though I don't agree with it.


I'll take that.
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Post 11 Sep 2017, 1:42 pm

rickyp wrote:fate
If breaking the law to show it is unjust works, and it has, then why should keeping the law to show it is unjust not work?


Because of the consequences of enforcing the law against the recipients of DACA protections are horrendous. And unsupportable.


Really? And, even if so, you're making my point.

You really think the press wouldn't be all over every sob story to shape public opinion? If you don't believe that, you're not paying attention.

When laws are wrong, you don't enforce them up to the point of when they are changed. You stop enforcing them as soon as it is understood that the consequences of the law are immoral.


What you call "immoral" is not necessarily immoral. I think it is immoral to take my money to give drug addicts money they will spend on more drugs. Do you agree?

I don't think it is immoral to deport non-citizens to their country of origin, provided it is done in a safe manner.

How can it be immoral to send people back to where they have legal status? Are you saying you are an anarchist? Do you favor doing away with the concept of "nation-states?"

If a country is allowed to have borders but they have no meaning, is it still a country?