the united states (at the time it was the new world) itself was founded by immigrants, the pilgrims werent exactly born here. They came over on boats from another country and took the area from the native americans. Kinda funy that now we have a problem with immigrants.

we dont have a problem at all with immigrnta

but we do hve a problem with illegal immigrants who flout the law and the process for immigration

Arpaio , from what I have seen , carries himself like a bigot. As to whether he has broken any laws,, I dont know.

Immigrants, have laws for entering the country, just as houseguests have rules to entering someones home. Noone can just WALK in,(hopefully) without being accountable to certain responsibilities and being counted for maintaining those responsiblities. I really do not care what nationality people are, I just get pissed that immigration laws are not equally applied to all. Many many people go through a painstaking and time consuming process of financial and criminal investigation and it is a slap in their face when others are permitted to bypass that whole system.

Wow.....this thread sure got OFF TOPIC.

It's interesting that in Arizona, Sheriff Arpaio has been conducting raids on Small Businesses that he has been informed that are knowingly hiring illegal aliens.

This law was signed awhile back by our Governor at the time, Janet Napolitano. The law states that any business that knowingly hires an illegal alien will have their business license revoked by the State of Arizona.

Some of the biggest critics of Sheriff Arpaio were the business leaders in this state. They wanted the cheap/slave labor and saw him as a threat to their corporate profits.

The intent of the law was that if you didn't have the jobs available that lured them into the state, you would slow down the illegal immigration.

"Joe the Plumber" is part of the problem. Construction contractors were some of the biggest violators in this state as far as hiring illegal aliens. My brother is a superintendent for a large framing subcontractor and 400 of their 450 employees were illegal aliens. Now that construction has fallen to almost nothing, many of them have returned to Mexico to their families. They are down to 40 employees now.

Another lady I know manages a Mexican food restaurant that is part of a very popular chain here. She told me that all the cooks are illegals aliens and to protect themselves on this law, they hire the cooks as "Independent Contractors" and pay them directly as such and not as employees. Lots of greedy businesses trying to skirt the laws.

Sheriff Arpaio is in the news, on the radio or in the paper here almost daily. The bottom line is that he is going to continue to do his job and enforce the laws of the state, regardless of this issue.

I wouldn't try to blame President Obama....I blame this problem on the greedy business owners.

I agree, more needs to be done about these businesses providing the incentive for immigrants to break the law to get here.

Quiet,

They can't get food stamps without proving citizenship.

"“The 2008 audit … cites utterly no wrongdoing on behalf of the Sheriff’s deputies and even goes so far as to praise Arpaio and his office for their professionalism and adherence to all the 287G contract guidelines,” the sheriff’s office release stated. “The results of the 2008 audit identically mirror other audits conducted over the last few years by several different agencies, all of which found no wrong doing in Arpaio’s enforcement of the federal immigration program.” "

that's what I get out of that article

For those who think only Obama and the Democrats are lax on illegal immigrants, remember the Republicans and Bush led the charge to give them amnesty just a short time ago. Both parties want to get whatever votes they can, and neither one seems to be willing to hold to their claimed convictions when the time comes to sacrifice votes for principles.
As for the folks taking about hoarding bullets, be careful how you talk, and what you advocate. We don't need to encourage any more flakes like those who blew up that building in the midwest, killing children in the name of 'freedom.'

I'm not trying to be argumentative with you, because I actually completely agree with you here regarding this topic. But, you were doing the same thing to the cops in Nevada and posting that they could and would shoot anyone for anything and get away with it. Just a thought.

The sheriff has been praised for doing a good job for years. This whole event reeks of politics in favor of illegals.

It goes on here too, though I don't see anyone doing much about it. Local business wants the cheap labor.

There is a cause and an effect. The facts are simple. Mexico and Central America are a mess. There is no debate. Your options are live in terrible poverty, under corrupt regimes or take the chance crossing the border. That is about it. NAFTA has completely destroyed the agriculture industry in mexico. We subsidize our farmers and their crops are cheaper for mexico to buy than their own. This is a fact. Most of southern mexicos job base was farming. You have millions without a way to survive and they see one alternative.

Do I like the modern day slavery that is the use of illegal alien labor? No I do not. Should any of you take pride in the fact that these people are working for basically nothing? I would hope not. Unfortunately, most people can't get away from the political side of this issue to really be capable of asking themselves is this practice acceptable. You can sit and play the blame game all day long, but it doesn't change the facts.

Our government wants these people here. They are poor, uneducated, and will do whatever the puppet masters tell them to do.

This amnesty nonsense has nothing to do with compassion. It has to do with the bottomline. Big business, the government taxrolls, and the union pension coffers.. That is what this is about.

MONEY.. GREED.. POWER..

that's what I got too.

I agree texas should be left alone to decide what ever way they want to rule there country . they should go back and vote there selfs out of the union . I'd vote for that .

I find it amazing that people can't see a difference between a couple thousand people and 36000000 million people . maybe they should take the shoes off and count them .

sheriff Joe is a very politically conscious person . hes a republican but goes to union meetings he sends some illegals home and then smuggles some across the border in the sheriffs helicopter .
I know him but hes the kind of guy thats undercover as to his feelings about any ones race . he is a mexican decendant and but very american .

that;s nice.. too bad it's none of your goddam business.

I can note a few things worth commenting on...

...First, we seem to exist in a society where the news media rips apart whatever they want us to think about... in this case, the media circus focuses their effort on a hardline man famous for being a hardlines man, and throws suspicion in his path... that same suspicion, to many, is enough to prove guilt... as in it seems like it is no longer the edict "innocent until proven guilty"... but rather... "if I heard it on the Internet, it must be true"... it is to the ridiculous point that if a rash of people get an e-mail about an urban legend, they will believe it to be true, and forward the same mis-information on down the pike... as if it is Gospel, without even stopping to check the references, etc...

this is the mind set of the primed "sheeple" who just need to be told what to believe by the media... not so much an issue of sheriff Joe, or any other thing... if it gets in the way with a political agenda, it gets blasted in the media... and if stories can get broadcast more often by the same media, it gives the illusion of truth... which is how the media circus steers the masses with what is called propaganda... every government uses propaganda, it is simple political science... what we DON'T have is a free-thinking population that thinks about what the media is actually doing... instead, they suck it all in, hook-line-and-sinker... and react, before checking details, references, or doing any research... not just about sheriff Joe, but to the effect that not many actually want to be involved with the political thought system... howbeit millions complain about the same system... and we expect the corrupt politicians to do all the thinking for us, so we can... let's see... watch football, baseball, hockey, sports, and play X-Box with our time... ANYTHING but actually THINK about anything real...

sheriff Joe's tactics may seem a bit rough by some of today's ultra "weak-on-crime" liberal thought, but he gets results... ons aspect of his enforcement policies is that criminals put in his jails don't get cushy jail sentences in air conditioned jails, instead, they are put in tents, in Pheonix, even in the summer, (think hot-as-hell) and they are put in a penal state, not a resort state like many jails and prisons have become in this country... it is actually a punishment for someone to go to jail in Maricopa County, AZ where Joe is sheriff. Here in Michigan, and in other parts of the country, criminals can become "institutionalized", believe it is better for them to be in jail or prison, than to be in the free society, so they commit crimes shortly after being released from their sentences, so they can go back into the system that was taking such good care of them... three meals a day, cushy beds, free cable TV... etc... this is what sheriff Joe takes AWAY from the criminals, and the softy-on-crime left-wingers hate him for it...

but he gets results

so the typically left-winger media, throws a few stones of discontent at sheriff Joe in an attempt to use propaganda to smear his reputation, and attempt to cause populace doubt... in other words, the media is waging a political battle towards sheriff Joe, instead of actually reporting un-biased news coverage...

add to that limp-wristed politicians both Republican and Democrat, who don't have the stomach to take a stand against illegal immigration...

yes, this country was founded on immigration, but the bar of this culture has been raised, and in the course of events, as the nation grew, so did the nation's legal system... herion and cocaine were once legal substances, but those have become illegal... times change, laws change, and the society evolves... and rules are laid down for people, all people, to follow

I have a personal friend who is from Africa. He immigrated here LEGALLY on a student Visa. He had to bust his a$$ weekly with all of the laws and regulations connected to legal immigration... he brought with him a college education from his university in Africa, which he was adding to with an education from a college here in the states... he fell in love here, he has started a family here, and this man works two 40-hour a week jobs, one at a factory where there is no heat or air conditioning, and one at a nursing home where he works in the kitchen... and he still takes classes on top of this...

he works the 3pm-11pm shift Sunday through Thursday nights... Monday and Friday he works from 6:30am to 2:30pm at the rest home, after working all day Monday, he goes on to his factory job in the evening... Saturday and Sunday he works from 6:30am to 9:30pm at night at the rest home... he has (to my knowledge) never taken a day off, and has been working like this for nearly four years straight...

THIS is a man worthy of legal immigration...

Compare this to some criminal who crosses the border, knowing it is illegal to do so, sometimes with the help of extremist liberal groups that leave food, water, and maps for the illegals in border states such as where sheriff Joe has this kind of problem just a few miles away...

It is now, in our society, illegal to just come here whenever you wish... you can't compare that to Pilgrims who struggled to get here in the 1600s... there is no logical comparison, in fact, it is a ridiculous comparions. The society has evolved, and the people who you have put in charge of doing th political thinking for you have made laws that have made it now illegal to cross the border at will...

My friend from Africa is not a burden on society... he is busting his tail to make something of himself now that he is here... I here few U.S. citizens that love America any more than he does...

It is an ethical dilemma, that across an imaginary geographical line, we have extreme poverty, and human beings willing to risk life and limb to have at least a small piece of our prosperity. Prosperity that a lot of Americans now take for granted.

I would guess that, if the border rules were completely removed, there wouldn't be a country called Mexico anymore, because there would be a mass exodus of people from their land into the geographical territory where they have been convinced exists better jobs and a better life style

Picture this... a rich neighborhood in the U.S, bordered by a poverty-stricken neighborhood...

Of course the rich folks are going to b.itch because the poverty culture isn't up to their standards of living... and when the people from the poverty culture walk into the rich town, dressed in their poverty clothes, the rich b.itch even more because to them it is a foul thing...

But in all this drivel and blah-blah... one thing is true... the line between the countries is an imaginary geographical boundary... just as people wouldn't generally want to live at the north or south pole due to the climate, it is human nature not to want to live in a country full of poverty...

Thus we have an ethical dilemma

In order to live as separatists, in a land caged in by imaginary geographical borders, we must ignore the struggle of fellow humans who for no other reason other than the bad luck for being born in a poverty country, the social system makes them out to be the "bad guys" because it is so blinded by the richness of the nation, that it has never really experienced what it is like to live without the huge croppings of plenty so many in this country now take for granted

Some people enjoy pizza, beer, food galore, grocery stores chock full of items, department stores and retail outlets chock full of goods, and have since taken it for granted that the U.S. population only represents 4.3% of the total world population of 6 billion people...

We have become a land of glutons and ravenous wasters because we have such plenty in this country... and we seemingly want to selfishly put our arms and hands around "mine, mine, mine" and turn backs on the other 95.7% of the world that might not have it as good as we have it here...

Then b.itch and complain when humans are tempted by the plenty within, to come here at all costs, and attempt to enjoy some of this good stuff for themselves...

It is an ehtical dilemma to possess more than you need, control all that you possess with laws and a military, and deny others any close venture at that same excess...

This is one of the many reasons the American lifestyle, as we know it in today's world, is becoming "threatened" by outsiders such as "illegal" immigrants... globalization is creating a world where other societies can now experience a very minute peek at our prosperity, and there will come a shift from this land being a land of ultra-plenty, more so than any other place in the world... to being more like the rest of the 93.7% of the humans living on the planet who do NOT live here...

Many in that 95.7% don't even have the luxury of flush toilets or running water...

Yes, keep out these icky people, so I can continue to take my flush toilets and running water, and full-to-the-brim groceries... for granted...

Makes perfect sense... to someone who is very lost, I suppose...

Make sure and separate the rich from the poor... heck, let's just take a few of those Micronesian islands we blew the $hit out of with hydrogen bombs in the 1950s, and send all the poor people over there to suffer on there own... just put all the "illegal" aliens on boats and deport them to Micronesia... yeah, what a great idea... then build massive fences around the U.S. like post-war Berlin, Germany...

Let's be sure and put a huge divide between the rich and the porr, at all costs... it seems this is the thinking of some... but it is perposterous...

Knocking on our borders, screaming to get in, clawing at the dry river beds, coming across the border from poverty to extreme wealth, is simply normal human beings like me and you... let's send you over there to see how you like living in that society of poverty... nope, can't take your TV or X-Box... sorry... you gotta live and dress like a person from Mexico... and let's give you like several months... maybe several years of internment there to decide what you will do next... besides calling your rich momma and crying, what would YOU do in that position?

I would probably be running across the Arizona border at 3am, regardless of machine guns and German Shepherd border dogs... hoping to get my share of the human plenty...

Sheriff Joe is just a public servant, dedicated at upholding the laws as they are written... they are currently writen to prevent poor people from crossing the border into a land of plenty, and they have assigned sheriff Joe (and others) to the task of trying to keep out the poor... he isn't a cause of the problems, he is a by-product of them...

One solution, just off-the-cuff, would be to implement imperialism again just long enough to go to war with Mexico, and annex the entire country of Mexico as part of the U.S.... doing away with the problem of Mexican nationals illegally crossing the border... then our laws would protect them instead of persecute them... and we could exploit their natural resources (such as oil, gold, etc.) just like we exploit our own natural resources...

It would give the liberals a war to fight for, and a reason to go to arms (some for the first time in their life I might add...)... free the Mexican people, make them ALL Americans.....

But that would never work, because then there would be no cheap labor in Mexico to exploit anymore for car parts and numerous other globalized items which are made very cheaply by the willing-to-work-for-pennies Mexican folks...

An ethical dilemma indeed... one that will most likely never be solved in our lifetime

We have a problem with illegal immigrants. There is a bit of a difference.

I believe the whole taxes thingy was different back then as well. Maybe that is part of the reason for the immigration laws and such???