San Francisco Police Department Kicks FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force To The Curb
from the thanks,-but-no-thanks dept
In the wake of President Trump's travel ban, the San Francisco Police Department has offered up an unprecedented response: it's breaking up with the FBI.
On Wednesday, San Francisco officers took a bold stance against Trump’s new immigration laws. In response to Trump’s Muslim ban, they are cutting ties between the police department and an FBI task force.
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has worked with the FBI on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) since 2007, with the purpose of investigating terrorism threats, collecting intel, and making arrests.
Generally speaking, federal partnerships are forever… especially in Forever Wars. Local law enforcement agencies have been working side-by-side with federal agencies since the Drug War began. The same goes for the War on Terror. Wars keep government agencies in good health, awash in perpetual funding and repurposed military gear. Local governments are seldom interested in ending these lucrative arrangements, whether or not the underlying activity is productive.
But San Francisco already sees its supply of federal funding drying up. President Trump has made it clear he'll cut off this flow to cities that care more about immigrants than he does. So, there's some gamemanship in this move -- one that sends a message to Trump while expressing some resignation to the eventual fiscal punishment to come. The city of Austin, Texas is doing the same thing, but fighting the battle on two fronts, as its decision to call itself a "sanctuary city" has also earned it the displeasure of the state's governor.
But the SFPD's rejection of the FBI's "assistance" in the War on Terror suggests a couple of things -- neither of them complimentary -- about the federal agency's usefulness in this "war."
The first is explained in the Think Progress article.
[T]he SFPD will no longer work with the JTTF on the grounds that the federal agency will likely increase efforts to surveil Muslims, following Trump’s recent executive order to prevent Muslims from entering the county.
The other part is implied. By telling the feds to beat it, the SFPD is suggesting the FBI isn't doing much to acutally make San Francisco safer. The Joint Terrorism Task Force seems to be more about expanding surveillance and obtaining perpetual funding than preventing terrorist attacks or uncovering their conspiracies.
This much can be ascertained by the FBI's counter-terrorism efforts to date. For the most part, the FBI's terrorism busts have relied heavily on FBI informants being the brains, muscle, and wallet behind supposed future acts of terrorism. Undercover agents have pushed some of the weakest humans in the nation towards acts of violence -- acts which would likely never have materialized on their own. The FBI has poked and prodded easily-influenced people -- some elderly, some with mental problems -- into professing their support for [Current Top Terrorist Organization], helped them plan trips to [Top Terrorist-Associated Foreign Country], and purchased everything from duct tape to latex gloves to weapons for would-be terrorists that seemingly would have difficulty opening a savings account, much less coordinating an act of terrorism.
The SFPD feels it will be fine without the FBI's dubious assistance, which appears to be mostly limited to trampling civil liberties and ever-expanding surveillance with minimal oversight. The city can apparently handle the terrorism threat without federal intervention -- suggesting it's not much of a threat… and the FBI isn't much of a counter-terrorism agency.
What the city's rejection says about President Trump's orders and directives is pretty damning. What it says about the FBI and its counter-terrorism efforts is even worse.
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Filed Under: fbi, joint terrorism task force, police, privacy, san francisco, sfpd, surveillance
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I remember...
I did not care much for Arizona's case on this and I do not care much for SF situation either. I am just noting the obvious double standard I am perceiving here.
TD has made itself clear that it is pro Democrat, but please stop being hypocritical.
"The SFPD feels it will be fine without the FBI's dubious assistance, which appears to be mostly limited to trampling civil liberties and ever-expanding surveillance with minimal oversight."
O yea... I am very sure SFPD has a sterling reputation as well. The Police state was here before Trump and even before Obama, now we are just negotiating how hard and where the jackboots come down differently. Not so fun when it hovers over your head huh?
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Re: I remember...
What the San Francisco police are doing here is clearly not the same thing, and it's not a double standard.
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Re: Re: I remember...
The previous posted said "the opposite". They didn't say what Arpaio was accused of so I'll take your word on it. The opposite of abusing power and misusing funds—i.e, not doing those things—is OK by me. (And in general, police leaving people alone is much more acceptable, legally, than harassing them.)
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Re: I remember...
In SF's case, they're just choosing to end voluntary partnerships because they believe the FBI will not help make people safer and are likely to engage in racial profiling trampling over people's rights.
Techdirt is pro the rights of the people. If you think that means they are pro-democrat, then that seems odd to me that you would reserve being pro-rights for democrats implying that non-democrats aren't?
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Re: I remember...
TD has made itself clear that it is pro Democrat, but please stop being hypocritical.
I think @theDonald has made it clear that it is a proponent of police states, curtailing civil liberties, and a perpetual state of fear.
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Re: Re: I remember...
Since the Drug War the SFPD has been cooperating with the FBI to commit all manor of unconstitutional acts against civilians like civil forfeiture, harassment, gun running and drug smuggling, but it is all of a sudden not okay when an immigrant is caught in the crossfire? When did they start becoming more important than actual citizens?
come back when you can figure out how the dots connect...
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Re: Re: I remember...
The double standards is over the REASONS they split the bed sheets even though I like that they did.
I am not a fan of Joe either, I just do not subscribe with cheering one asshole on because they hated another asshole.
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Re: Re: I remember...
But regardless of trumps own bullshit, I call bullshit on the reasons here. I want to know why the ever honorable SFPD were okay with fucking citizens left and right up until now, drawing the line at fucking over immigrants?
Immigrants are not even afforded constitutional protections but no qualms on fucking over actual citizens? What the fuck is this?
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Maybe there's more than one issue at play.
Sure, maybe it's a case of state's rights good/bad or red/blue president good/bad, but perhaps not everyone's political inclinations can be neatly pigeonholed into one of two options consistently across all topics.
...Hmm, I guess that is pretty far fetched.
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Sanctuary cities do nothing to help legal immigrants. When did being pro-immigrant include those who violated our laws?
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I believe that should read "...cities that care more about ILLEGAL immigrants than he does".
Somehow, that one adjective keeps getting left out.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
The way I am seeing it is that when an actual police department gets fed up, instead of taking more power to harass people to themselves, things are pretty bad.
Whose double standard are you noting?
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The order did not even bother about immigration, either: it just declared every citizen of a number of countries as undesirables in the U.S., never mind whether they had acquired legal papers, a job, work or visiting visas or whatever else.
A move unparalleled since the internment camps for Japanese in WWII.
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Re:
Many in law enforcement -- including police chiefs in major cities -- as well as mayors and others concerned about public safety agree that when victims of or witnesses to crime are afraid to come forward (as they might be if they or their family members are undocumented), the community suffers. Cities are made less safe.
This affects everyone.
L.A. Times: LAPD will not help deport immigrants under Trump, chief says
Washington Post: Big city police chiefs, mayors troubled by Trump immigration order, police union and sheriffs untroubled
NPR: Why Sanctuary Cities are Safer
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Re:
The build-a-wall (expensive, porky, complete failure, economic and environmental disaster) conversation is somewhere else.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
what I got from the article was Cali is pushing back against the Trump admin.
This brings up another point though, Republicans are all for those state rights, except when those state's rights run counter to the republican platform.
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Re: Re:
It takes foreskin to prevent this kind of attack on American core values. You can't let the bad people win. Just ask the Native Americans how immigration worked out for them.
Orange is the new red.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
But if a police dept. changes from abusing human rights to not abusing human rights, I'm not going to complain and call it a double standard. I'm going to praise them for getting better, whatever the reason.
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Cheering one asshole when they hate on another...
Techdirt policy as much as I've observed it has been to cheer on assholes when they do something commendable and censure them when they do something despicable.
Just because people behave poorly sometimes, enough to be regarded as a jerk even, doesn't mean they don't do some things right from time to time.
Things are not only shades of gray, but grays evident are merely other shades of gray dithered together.
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Re: I remember...
Wow! Who knew that states have authority over immigration when business is affected? For the last eight years, every time a state like Arizona tried to enact some kind of immigration-affecting law in the face of complete federal inaction, we were told in no uncertain terms that immigration is solely a federal issue, per the Constitution, and the states have no say about the matter at all.
I'm sure Arizona could make a decent case that the virtually unchecked flow of illegals over its border affects business in that state, but they were told no over and over again. Now suddenly the leftists have discovered the wonders of states rights and federalism. Now suddenly states have a seat at the immigration table after all. Now suddenly it's not solely a federal issue that the states should stay out of.
The same goes for the mayors and councils of all these "sanctuary cities". Amazing how they went from "immigration is federal only" to "we have a right to have our own immigration policies" almost overnight.
As for Mr. Cushing:
> President Trump has made it clear he'll cut off this flow
> to cities that care more about immigrants than he does.
More like, "...cities that care more about illegal immigrants who have committed additional crimes while in the US then he does."
No charge for the correction.
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Re: I remember...
You're delusional.
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"those who violated our laws"
You understand that you likely violate more US and state laws than undocumented immigrants do, yes? That by implying they are illegal you are being completely, if unwittingly, hypocritical.
They may get deported for being here without proper documentation (what is not required of those of us who appear to belong) But if some of the laws you've broken were enforced, you'd be in prison for twenty-five years plus. More likely they'll let you plead to five.
Remember that prosecutory discretion is still a thing, that our attorneys general choose what laws to enforce, and when to enforce them. And it is only by their grace that you (and the rest of us) remain free. If one of them doesn't like you (say if you're the wrong color), then it's off to Sing Sing for you.
So do be careful when invoking law for law's sake.
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Re: I remember...
I'll bite.
Explain how the two things are remotely similar.
And explain it to me like I'm a Maricopa County native. Because I am.
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Re: Re:
You're just quibbling over terminology. The principles of federalism are front and center here, as is the bald-faced hypocrisy of those government officials at the local and state level who are now claiming to have some sort of legal authority over the immigration issue.
During the Obama Administration, the southern border states (AZ, NM, TX), frustrated over the complete lack of meaningful federal immigration enforcement, attempted to enact various state laws dealing with the problem. Those laws were immediately challenged by open-borders activists who claimed that immigration is solely a matter of federal jurisdiction, per the Constitution. (A claim which does have legal merit, unfortunately.) And time after time after time, the federal courts agreed and invalidated the state laws which encroached on a power reserved exclusively to federal government.
Fast-forward to 2017, and the "progressives" have lost the White House and Congress, something they thought would never happen when they were making those "federal-only" legal arguments in court during Obama's term. Now they've suddenly done a complete 180-degree reversal in their arguments.
Now "progressives" in the Washington State government claim that immigration isn't solely a matter of federal jurisdiction after all, and the fact that the Constitution says it's so is merely an inconvenient legal speed bump to be "interpreted" around.
Now "progressives" claim that if a state suffers a negative impact on its business climate because of federal immigration action, it has standing to sue to stop that federal action. (Not only do they now claim to have power in the realm of immigration, they're claiming that state power *exceeds* federal power if they can show a negative impact.) Never mind they were shooting down those very arguments from the border states as little as three years ago, calling them absurd and without legal merit.
The blatant hypocrisy on this issue is truly stunning to behold. Politicians have always been hypocrites but they usually don't parade it around quite so nakedly like this.
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Re:
You make a great point. When did New York or San Francisco ever do anything for legal immigrants?
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Also...
In the case of Miami, FL undocumented inhabitants make up about 11% of the city's economy, which documented immigrants would certainly feel, if they were all rounded up and deported.
And that's before regarding that some legal Americans and legal non-American immigrants are related to undocumented immigrants, and breaking up families is very messy.
There are good reasons that most major cities are sanctuary cities, and some of them are obvious enough to regard Trump's contempt for them as direct aggression on urban America.
You might want to read up a bit on why the law's the law doesn't work very well when (as Madison put it) the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
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Re:
Nope, pretty sure it's fine the way it is.
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ugh. Dangling participles.
In the case of Miami, FL undocumented inhabitants make up about 11% of the city's economy, which documented immigrants would certainly feel, if all those undocumented people were all rounded up and deported.
I'm sure I could rewrite this to be clearer still, but I'm lazy.
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Re: Re: I remember...
btr1701 wrote:
If you don't understand the distinction between a state (e.g. Arizona) being prevented from violating the rights of its people and a state (e.g. Washington) defending the rights of its people, I don't see the point in even continuing a discussion with you.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
I hate to break it to you, but everyone in the US is either an immigrant or the offspring of an immigrant. What the latest travel ban highlighted for many was the fact that it didn't matter if you were a US citizen... if you were born* in one of those countries, you could be denied access to the country where you were a citizen.
Ever hear of "the straw that broke the camel's back?" I'd guess that this active trampling of people's rights based on nothing more than country of birth/visitation was that straw. Things get to a point eventually where the number of unconstitutional acts begins to affect enough of the citizens you're trying to protect (not the ones you're trying to arrest) that it's time to call a halt.
*North American Aboriginals migrated to the US too, although they did so before the US became a nation.
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Who Kicked Whom?
> Terrorism Task Force To The Curb
Since the JTTFs are run by the FBI out of FBI offices, it would be kind of hard for the local PD to "kick them to the curb". More like they packed up their desks and kicked themselves to the curb.
Of course not being on the JTTF means they won't be in the loop anymore regarding intel sharing. It'll be interesting the next time something significant happens in SF and the mayor starts screaming about why she wasn't informed, etc. etc. And the FBI says, "Well, you picked up your ball and went home in a snit, so you only have yourselves to blame."
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
With the drug war/smuggling/etc. the SFPD could at least argue that they were upholding the law (even if they disagreed with it) and let themselves sleep at night knowing that their constitutionally questionable actions helped put "bad" people behind bars.
Swap out "average" for "bad" and it's got to leave a really sour taste in their mouths.
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Re: Re:
> > about ILLEGAL immigrants than he does".
> Nope, pretty sure it's fine the way it is.
And you'd be wrong about that. My city is fighting against cooperating on the deportation of *criminal* illegal aliens. Not just illegals who came across the border illegally, but who committed other crimes once they got here-- gang crime, robbery, rape, even murder.
Who the hell fights tooth and nail to keep a rapist or a home invasion burglar in the country? What kind of mental illness is that, where you think such people are so desirable that you're going to spend taxpayer money fighting to keep them from deportation?
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Re: Who Kicked Whom?
btr1701 wrote:
Yes, poor SFPD is going to be so sad when the FBI leaves it out of its next FBI-initiated, FBI-planned, FBI-executed "terrorist plot".
And did you miss this part of the article?
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Re: Re: I remember...
Of course, that didn't stop them from railing against Obama when he did things against digital civil liberties.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
> (e.g. Arizona) being prevented from violating the rights
> of its people and a state (e.g. Washington) defending
> the rights of its people, I don't see the point in even
> continuing a discussion with you.
If you don't understand that none of that is relevant with regard to what the Constitution says and the powers it delegates vis-à-vis the state and federal governments, then there's no point in continuing this discussion until you take a remedial Civics class and learn the basic functions of your government.
Oh, and not all the laws that were passed by the border states violated people's rights, unless, of course, you're an open-borders radical who defines anything that controls or hinders illegal immigration as a "violation of rights".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
Here. Have fun learning about the Incorporation Doctrine.
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Re: Re: Who Kicked Whom?
> The other part is implied. By telling the feds to beat
> it
Which they didn't do. As I pointed out above, the SFPD was working out of the FBI's offices. They didn't "tell the feds to beat it". At most the mayor's office told the SFPD to beat it and they walked out, probably to a chorus of yawns and "whatevers" from the FBI and the other federal, state, and local agencies on the task force.
> the SFPD is suggesting the FBI isn't doing much to
> acutally make San Francisco safer. The Joint Terrorism
> Task Force seems to be more about expanding surveillance
> and obtaining perpetual funding than preventing terrorist
> attacks or uncovering their conspiracies.
Well, they'd have to say that or something similar, wouldn't they? Funny how the city never had a problem with any of that for decades until their precious illegal alien-coddling programs were threatened.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
From your own link:
"The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine through which selected provisions of the Bill of Rights..."
This has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. It has to do with the enumerated powers of the federal government found in Article I, Section 8.
Go back to school.
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Re: Re: Re:
Arizona passes a law that is ruled unconstitutional.
Washington state argues that an executive order is unconstitutional.
It seems like the constitution is backing up both of these positions?
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Re: Re: Re:
And therefore, Trump cares about immigrants? I'm not quite sure I follow your reasoning.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
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Re:
Matter of fact, the way our Constitution is set up, no government, be it local, county, state, or federal has a right to anything. They have powers enumerated to them in the Constitution that allow them to restrict rights of the people, and if it's not spelled out that they have that power then they do not have the power.
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The FBI will be forced to create it's own terrorism plots to foil without the SFPD's help.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
> Arizona passes a law that is ruled unconstitutional.
> Washington state argues that an executive order is
> unconstitutional.
Arizona's law was ruled unconstitutional because immigration is solely a matter reserved to the federal government.
Given that, Washington's argument that it can sue because Trump's order affects business in the state is nonsense because immigration is solely a federal matter.
If this "affects business in the state" criterion is valid, then Arizona's law wouldn't have failed to pass constitutional review.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, Trump cares about (or panders to, which is the best we can expect from any politician these days) U.S. citizens and is trying to deport the violent criminals from their midst.
It's the Los Angeles city government that seems to care more for the violent illegals than the citizens it's supposed to represent.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nonsense.
Just because it's unconstitutional for that reason doesn't mean it's not also unconstitutional for other reasons.
Do you think if Al Capone hadn't been convicted of tax evasion, that would have proved he wasn't guilty of any other crimes?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
In other words, Trump doesn't care about immigrants.
I'd say "explain the part where I'm wrong, then," but I actually would rather you just quit gibbering your nonsense.
Cool avatar/comment synergy, but it could use more 1930's slang.
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
Trolls come here requesting that TD stop being this and stop being that when it is only the troll drool that mentions left/right bullshit, not what they post in response to.
Then when it is pointed out, they get all huffy and call everyone various names - their creativity used to be somewhat entertaining but has gone down hill and become silly.
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Re: Re: I remember...
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Perhaps they did not look at how much California contributes to the federal coffers. Like many blue states, their net flow is positive wrt the fed - that is they contribute more than they get back. How do they think this strategy will work?
Hopefully the trumpettes can be convinced that a civil war is beyond stupid and knock it off with this ridiculous bullshit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
Seems like a win win for the citizens.
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Re: Re: I remember...
It is so funny how a group of people have been so brainwashed that they vote for something that will kill their businesses.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
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Re: Re:
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We're not leaving.
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So you're in L.A. too? Christ, how embarrassing.
Oh, and there's this: Research shows immigrants are substantially less likely than native-born Americans to be involved in bad behavior
And this: An Examination of First and Second Generation Immigrant Offending Trajectories (Abstract available, full article paywalled)
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Re: Re: Re:
No it isn't!
For those not getting the reference...
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Re: Re: I remember...
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Re: Re:
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status quo. more quo? i'm fine for now, thanks.
(1) Replace with current politician's name.
(2) Replace with current war zone, or place of unrest.
Rinse, repeat. Nothing changes but the names.
Enough with the party-based hypocrisy. According to ABC Obama deported more people than any President in US History, more than 2.5 million through immigration orders.
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How many sock puppets can one guy have?
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
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Re: Re: Re:
Wow. Just wow. That is some serious narcissistic ethnocentrism you've got there. I think you're referring to the Arabic language rather than Muslims considering that there is no Muslim language. Many Muslims speak and write Arabic, but many do not. And there Christians who read and speak Arabic.
Secondly, it's not "the wrong way round", nor is it upside-down. They write and read right to left rather than left to right. And the fact that we write and read left to right rather than right to left is almost entirely a matter of convention. There's some amount of argument to be made that writing left to right means you aren't smudging up what you have just written with your hand, but that's only true for people who are right handed. Does that mean you think people who are left handed but write left to right are also "doing it wrong"?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: I remember...
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"San Francisco is the most looney left"
Oh, do elaborate! You can't really just toss a comment like that out there without being specific. Or were you just duckspeaking?
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"Anchorbabies"
Way to reduce human beings to a legal exploit.
Are you a three fifths of all other persons sort of fellow?
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Re: Re: Re:
You do realize most men in America are circumcised, yes?
Given that circumcision is an integral part of Judeo-Christian religious dogma, where do you propose we find sufficient quantities of uncircumcised men to protect us?
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FBI Survillance
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Re: Re:
Yup. Because all those shipping ports with direct access to the Pacific, including being a major shipping lane for good to and from Asia, are just a tremendous drag on the US Economy.
Nothing bad at all would happen to the US economy if the US were to lose direct access to those ports.
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Re: Who Kicked Whom?
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Re: Re: Re:
That would be the 10th Amendment you're referring to, which states
I don't see the word rights mentioned anywhere in there, do you?
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Re: Re: Re: I remember...
TD is definitely pro Democrat. When the Obama administration was in charge and the police, FBI, CIA, DHS and all the rest of the alphabet soup, were all out of control no one made one comment about it.
You clearly do NOT read Techdirt.
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Re: I remember...
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Re: Re: I remember...
Yes, because NYPD's counter-terrorism programs were so damn effective.
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Re: Cheering one asshole when they hate on another...
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Re: Also...
> and breaking up families is messy.
The government is breaking up their families merely by enforcing its laws. *They* are breaking up their own families by placing them in a situation where it could happen. They came here knowing it was against the law and if they were caught, they could be deported, so if that results in a separated family, that's on them.
When a guy robs a bank and gets caught, we don't say it's the government's fault for breaking up his family when it sends him to prison. We say it's the bank robber's fault for committing the crime that put him in that position.
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Re: Re: Re:
> were to lose direct access to those ports.
Secession would be a lot worse for CA's economy than the other way around. The vast majority of the tax base would up and leave because most people of means will prefer to keep their U.S. citizenship. That means moving elsewhere. Even all those mouthy celebrities who constantly threaten to move to another country if their preferred candidate loses an election wouldn't stay behind. (Ever notice they never actually move when their candidate loses?)
That leaves behind who? The poor and the illegals, all of whom have their hands out demanding government benefits. The rich and middle class have left, leaving no source of revenue to meet the demands of millions who think they're entitled to free stuff. Won't be long until the cities are burning.
In the meantime, the U.S. still has the Port of Seattle to bring in shipping from the Pacific.
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Re: Re: Re:
"My city is fighting against cooperating on the deportation of criminal illegal aliens. Not just illegals who came across the border illegally, but who committed other crimes once they got here-- gang crime, robbery, rape, even murder."
Not even sure how you can make such a dumb claim without realizing how dumb it is. Nobody is fighting against deporting people who have committed robbery, rape, murder or other serious crimes. I can't believe that has to be explained.
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Re: "Anchorbabies"
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and - btw illegals in this country are not mostly from Mexico and many illegals did not cross the border illegally, they over stayed. But yeah, let's focus on some side issue.
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Apparently he does not write them, does not read them and has no idea what is in them ... but signs them anyway.
Should they be called Bannon's executive orders?
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Oh yeah - it was when California was going to raise taxes, did everyone move, did a few move, any big names with lots of money?
Didn't think so
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Confirmed correct.
Mike and the team bash any individual or group that messes with or threatens to mess with the people's rights.
Dems are as guilty as the GOP (the degree to which this is true appears to be in the eye of the beholder) of abusing our rights because the Neocons and neoliberals have taken over the leadership of the party, pushing people on the actual left-ish side to the fringes where they don't have much power to effect change.
What we have now is radical right wingers of various kinds: anarcho-capitalists, religious authoritarians, white supremacists, etc., [~ruining~] running the government. This is why we've got unqualified, inexperienced people in charge of state departments when they don't know how the administrative functions of those departments work as part of the three branches of government. And since they're anti-government, they're not too interested in finding out about it. Turns out you can't do governance without government.
Stop working from a left/right axis, work from a freedom/tyranny one. Then you'll understand Techdirt and where the writers' biases really are.
I remember when "liberal" wasn't such a dirty word.
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True for most of whole planet, except some place in Africa. But I assume ancestor fish, amphibians, mammal like reptiles, mammal, and primates probably immigrated to Africa too.
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I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how states have rights.
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Oh, and businesses and citizens *are* fleeing California like rats from a sinking ship. California had a net population gain last year, but not in the demographics that provide a positive economic benefit to the state.
When it takes a year and a half to jump through all the legal and regulatory hoops just to open a simple burger joint (as opposed to three months in Texas, for example) and then once you start operating, you're taxed at the highest rate in the nation, it's no wonder California has been rated the most business-hostile state in the country and why businesses that can relocate to friendlier climates like Texas and Nevada are doing so in droves.
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> actually would rather you just quit gibbering your
> nonsense.
No more nonsensical than your attempt to turn the question of which immigrants "sanctuary" cities care about (legal vs illegal) into whether Trump cares about immigrants at all.
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Yes, given the lunatics we have at the helm in this city, it is often quite embarrassing to admit to living here.
> Oh, and there's this: Research shows immigrants are
> substantially less likely than native-born Americans to
> be involved in bad behavior
How is that relevant to the question of whether illegals that *do* go on to commit further crimes should be deported when caught?
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> realizing how dumb it is. Nobody is fighting against
> deporting people who have committed robbery, rape, murder
> or other serious crimes. I can't believe that has to be
> explained.
You obviously haven't been paying attention, because yes, they are.
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California receives about 20% of its water from the Colorado River, which comes from out of state. If it secedes, it will no longer have access to that water and its already-extreme drought will suddenly become a national emergency. Losing access to the Colorado River would put a tremendous strain on Southern California municipal and agricultural water districts, not to mention the vast farmland in the Imperial Valley.
Then there's the matter of defense. California would have to start funding it's own national defense by itself. Other than the state national guard, the federal government would remove all of its troops and equipment long before secession would be official, so it would have to hope that its exes in the American government would allow it to contract with the American defense industry to buy replacement equipment and/or that America will continue to defend California the way we do Canada. Either way, it's no small problem to solve.
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