Several commenters here have argued (some of them being lawyers) that the bills I have complained about would never be used to prosecute humanitarians acting on behalf of needy illegal immigrants.\u00a0 I think that is naive.<\/p>\n
However, one attorney in particular (from California) posted a comment here claiming that IF a humanitarian were ever arrested on the basis of the Oklahoma, Alabama or Texas laws he would have no trouble getting the person acquitted based on case law.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a lawyer or trained in law, so I can\u2019t argue competently with that claim.<\/p>\n
However, EVEN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS interprets the Alabama law as criminalizing giving a ride to an illegal immigrant.\u00a0 The article I cited did not say \u201cif you\u2019re a coyote.\u201d<\/p>\n
My point is\u2013lacking the specific exceptions I\u2019m asking for, these laws WILL inevitably cast a chill on individual humanitarian aid (such as giving a ride to work) to illegal immigrants.\u00a0 If there\u2019s one chance in a million of being arrested and prosecuted, even if there\u2019s virtually no chance of being convicted if you can afford a good attorney, people will naturally shy away from offering humanitarian aid that might conflict with the literal wording of the law.<\/p>\n
That a good attorney could get a humanitarian arrested under one of these laws acquitted does nothing to counter my complaints about these laws.\u00a0 Their lack of clear, unequivocal exceptions for individual humanitarians offering aid to individual needy illegal immigrants speaks volumes about the legislators\u2019 intentions.\u00a0 They could easily have put that language into the laws to ease the minds of people who want to help a needy illegal immigrant (e.g., with a ride or temporary shelter, etc.).\u00a0 That they didn\u2019t says they don\u2019t want people giving any help to illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n
Anyone who has studied European history knows that seemingly innocuous laws that supposedly would never be enforced against innocent people were eventually used to persecute innocent people.\u00a0 The first sets of anti-Jewish laws in Germany, for example, did not seem particularly harsh and most people, including Jews, did not panic.\u00a0 They assumed these laws were political statements never to be enforced and that, if they ever would be enforced, they would only be enforced against true enemies of the state (e.g., communists\u2013the Nazis said the anti-Jewish laws were aimed at communists within the Jewish community).\u00a0 We all know what happened.\u00a0 At first the laws were not uniformly or universally enforced.\u00a0 Then they were.<\/p>\n
Am I comparing the people who passed these anti-illegal immigrant laws with Nazis?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I\u2019m comparing seemingly innocuous laws with seemingly innocuous laws\u2013that can have unintended consequences later.<\/p>\n
To my mind, many people in the U.S. regard all Hispanics (perhaps other than the ones they personally know) as a threat and they are willing to scapegoat them (e.g., by allowing laws that clearly will be used to harass even legal Hispanics) because this relieves an irrational pressure within themselves.\u00a0 Too many people simply don\u2019t understand the phenomenon and mechanisms of scapegoating.\u00a0 We have to be vigilant against this evil tendency in human life and insist that laws that could be misused, anywhere or by anyone, not be passed or be revised once they are passed to avoid their misuse for scapegoating (e.g., racial profiling) purposes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several commenters here have argued (some of them being lawyers) that the bills I have complained about would never be used to prosecute humanitarians acting on behalf of needy illegal immigrants.\u00a0 I think that is naive. However, one attorney in particular (from California) posted a comment here claiming that IF a humanitarian were ever arrested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n