Border Patrol Agents Vote: - NO CONFIDENCE

[kastein]

Joe, you are going to have to find that. I don't believe a Federal, State, County, or City Enforcement Officer can just walk up to anyone and ask for an ID without probable cause. You have protections under the 4th Amendment against Search and Seizure, and that extends to the personal level.


Ron

I fully agree. I would not be surprised if the feds can break this currently (just how many unconstitutional laws do we have? a lot, I'm sure) but they should not be able to. I do not believe it is constitutional to be able to pull the nazi-like "your papers please" without someone first committing a crime that justifies a search of some sort.

 

[Darky]

I fully agree. I would not be surprised if the feds can break this currently (just how many unconstitutional laws do we have? a lot, I'm sure) but they should not be able to. I do not believe it is constitutional to be able to pull the nazi-like "your papers please" without someone first committing a crime that justifies a search of some sort.

The only way I could see it happening and not being a major problem (note I said major, it would still be a minor problem) would be at an immigration protest or the like, where the people are protesting against anti-illegal immigration laws.

 

[Capt. Nemo]

Meh, I guess I'll reply...

ARS 11-1051 (SB 1070), which was pretty much axed, picks up after a lawful stop has been made. This seems to be fairly obvious to most here, but not to those who are against it. This law changed nothing as to how an officer goes about making a lawful stop or detention.

Once the stop has been made, an officer "when practicable" would then go about asking about immigration status. Problem here is that the only way that this state law could have been enforced is with federal help. There are a few ways that this was going to happen:

1) An officer would contact ICE. Our agency ran a test run prior to the law being put into effect and ICE was literally hanging up on us. Either that or the phone would continually ring. They basically gave us the middle finger.

2) An officer could contact a federally certified 287G officer employed by our department. Well, there's only a couple and good luck if you work third shift. We could have more officers become 287G certified, however, those classes are several weeks long and are only offered by the federal government as scheduled by our Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. We were told there are no classes being made available at this time (imagine that).

3) An officer can kinda cheat and try to contact the 287G officers at the county jail, but they are swamped as it is and are not obligated to answer the phone.

4) Contact Homeland Security. Most likely will result in having to leave a message. They will get back to us in 24 to 36 hours we were told. Since a normal "reasonable" detention is at most 20 minutes, not a very good option.

5) Have the person detained for an arrestable offense and immigration status won't matter since they will be screened by ICE at the county jail automatically. By far the best option and the one that has been in effect for several years.

Border Patrol told us they are not responding for any pick-ups north of Tuscon. If we do happen to get a hold of ICE and the person is found to have civil federal charges against them, we are not allowed to automatically transport them to ICE. They have to accept our free ride to ICE. If they have criminal federal charges, then we can transport to ICE.

Bottom line is that even had this law gone into effect, not much would have changed without the feds help. They've made it clear they do not plan on helping. More documentation on our end which ends up being forwarded to ICE, but what they end up doing with the reports is anyones guess.

I'm off to work

 

[Crawler]

Here's a recent article from azcentral.com -


Feds to drop deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants
Migrants with chance of legal residency would be able to stay
Aug. 28, 2010 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is moving to throw out deportation cases against thousands of illegal immigrants if the immigrants have a potential path to legal residency.

The move could affect as many as 17,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas, including some who are currently being detained and could be released from detention facilities as part of the move, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.


It comes amid a push by ICE to focus on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, rather than seek to deport all illegal immigrants.

Officials say the shift is needed to reduce massive clogs in the nation's Immigration Courts, where detainees can wait for months or years before their cases are decided, and to use deportation as a tool for public safety.

"ICE is dedicating unprecedented resources to the removal of criminal aliens," said Richard Rocha, deputy press secretary at the immigration-enforcement agency. "The focus now is clearly on criminal aliens. ... We want to ensure convicted criminal aliens are not only removed from the community but from the country as well."

Rocha said the deportation of criminals accounts for about half of all removals, an all-time high.

If the immigrants who are released under the new policy have their applications for legalization rejected, ICE will resume removal proceedings.

While immigration advocates applauded the move and said it reflects a more humane approach to illegal immigrants in detention, Republican lawmakers and groups that favor stricter limits on immigration denounced it as a form of amnesty.

The number of immigrants being detained in the United States has doubled in the past decade, to 369,000 annually.

There are now about 248,000 cases awaiting review in backlogged Immigration Courts, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which tracks immigration statistics.

In Arizona, there are 8,343 cases awaiting review in Immigration Courts as of June 21, up from 6,868 at the end of September 2009, the end of the past fiscal year, according to the Syracuse University analysis.

A majority of the cases, 6,169, are pending in the Phoenix Immigration Court.

Some of those cases have been scheduled for final hearings as far out as 2015 because the backlog is so long, said Gerald Burns, a Chandler immigration lawyer.

The increases have triggered huge logistical problems and exposed successive administrations to charges that those who are in the country illegally, a violation of civil statutes, are being exposed to unnecessarily harsh conditions.

Simultaneously, ICE officials maintain, clogged Immigration Courts divert officials from identifying, tracking down and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed violent crimes and other offenses.

In a memo dated Aug. 20, ICE Director John Morton wrote that as many as 17,000 illegal immigrants have pending applications for legal status with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, ICE's sister agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Illegal immigrants who might be eligible for legal status can wait for years, and sometimes a decade or longer, for visas to become available because of long backlogs and caps on the number of visas issued per year per country.

Morton's memo did not specify how many of the 17,000 illegal immigrants are currently in detention and how many are not.

As those applications are being reviewed, immigrants in detention who do not have criminal backgrounds may be eligible for release, Morton said.

Local ICE officials have discretion in releasing detainees, he added, and will take into consideration a number of factors, including "national security and public safety."

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration, warned that the move would demoralize agents working for ICE and would also send the wrong message.

Krikorian acknowledged that the government has to set immigration-enforcement priorities but said the shortfall in resources stems partly from the Obama administration's not seeking sufficient means to expedite the review of cases and the deportation of detainees.

"Simply letting them go sends a harmful message to immigration agents and to illegal immigrants," he said. "(Immigration agents feel) their work is not valued. The message sent to the illegals is that even if you are put into deportation proceedings, we will let you go."

The Washington Post and Republic reporter Daniel Gonzalez contributed to this article.

 

[Fullsizexj]

Joe, you are going to have to find that. I don't believe a Federal, State, County, or City Enforcement Officer can just walk up to anyone and ask for an ID without probable cause. You have protections under the 4th Amendment against Search and Seizure, and that extends to the personal level

I beleive that only applies to legal U.S. citizens, if you are an illigal alein, you do not have 4th ammendment rights

 

[joe_peters]

Joe, you are going to have to find that. I don't believe a Federal, State, County, or City Enforcement Officer can just walk up to anyone and ask for an ID without probable cause. You have protections under the 4th Amendment against Search and Seizure, and that extends to the personal level

I beleive that only applies to legal U.S. citizens, if you are an illigal alein, you do not have 4th ammendment rights

I'm looking for the precedent. It was established that federal agents can ask you your immigration status when you are detained by them--the case in point was a woman was asked her immigration status during the execution of a search warrant on a residence for drugs. The woman was not in custody, nor had she been arrested. The court held that when a federal agent asks you a question you are in fact "detained", and therefore the question was legal.

In case you don't think you are "detained" when an LEO asks you a question, try running away from them and see what happens.

And if you think things couldn't get worse: recent court decision that LEOs can sneak onto your property and plant a GPS tracking device on your vehicles without a warrant. The court's reasoning--you have no expectation of privacy on your own property because the neighborhood kids and delivery persons can enter upon your property, therefore you have no rights.

Today your Constitutional Rights extend about as far as a round from your weapon will travel.