Civil or Criminal - PICK One!

I don't have time to fully flesh this out, but I just wanted to note it down while it was still in my head. A common refrain regarding illegal immigrants is that they are all criminals, because they broke the law in coming here or overstaying their visas, so they should all be deported. Because they are criminals.

I've been pondering about whether all illegal immigrants really are criminals, in the real sense of the word. And, if they are, shouldn't they get all the process that real alleged criminals get?

Basically, in all other parts of law, there is a dichotomy between civil and criminal. To illustrate, I start with the difference between a traffic violation and a traffic crime. A traffic violation is a civil infraction, and the penalty is usually a fee. Classic examples would be speeding, or driving without insurance. You've broken the law, technically, but you haven't really endangered anyone else. A traffic crime is a criminal offense for which the punishment could include jail time (though often also includes fines). Examples would include a hit and run, drunk driving, or reckless driving. The difference seems to be the higher degree of potential harm to society. Criminal defendants are entitled to all sorts of procedural protections, including the right to counsel at the government's expense.

It seems to me that in immigration, the civil/criminal distinction has been completely lost. In far right rhetoric, technically civil violators (I'm not talking about the ones who perpetrate fraud, or engage in illegal re-entry, which are, indeed, crimes) like visa overstayers are now criminals. A person who sneaks across the border is a criminal. They've broken our laws! Even if they haven't hurt anyone, they are criminals!

Yet these "criminals" lack all the procedural protections that criminals have. And, unlike the norm with respect to civil violators, they are subject to oftentimes prolonged detention (and infringement of their personal liberty -- frequently thrown into jails next to real criminals), and torn apart from the families that they have established here.

This is major shaft-age! Illegal immigrants get none of the criminal protections, and all of the criminal punishment, oftentimes for mere civil violations, which are supposedly not punitive.

It seems to me that the right approach to this should be to truly institute the civil/criminal dichotomy in immigration law. Violations that pose little harm to society -- overstaying your visa, sneaking across the border -- would be truly civil, and treated as such. They would be subject to a fine - you could make it heftier to increase the deterrence factor. On the other hand, there could be criminal immigration violations (committing a crime while out of status, etc.), the penalty for which would be detention, and deportation, but with the full panoply of criminal protections.

As it is, the civil/criminal distinction is completely lost, and law is completely divorced from both reality and from normative considerations.

How about that?

Premature

I'd just like to state for the record that I think it's ridiculous that Obama won a Nobel Peace prize. Just what has he accomplished exactly? Apparently we get prizes for intending to do things now.

Job Search

So it's time to hit the job market! I've been submitting applications to various companies looking for a job in finance. I'd thought it might be therapeutic to blog about my search. Last year I looked for a bit and had no luck - hopefully this year will be better. I've submitted 12 applications so far - hopefully some of those will yield an interview.

Congrats to XX who landed at least one summer offer! Hopefully that will relieve some of her stress :).

Protectionism

WSJ argues Obama is protectionist.

Voters in America!

Oh my god, this video of a Tea Party protest in DC is friggin hilarious. Also quite terrifying.

Some choice quotes:

"There won't be enough doctors to take care of the people that he wants to bring on. I mean, we're going to be 200,000 doctors short. Q: What should happen to these people without care? A: A different plan. Q: Could a different plan produce more doctors? A: Uh, no?"

"His mother was white, so he's not an African American! But he's going that way because that pays off for 'im!"

"Well... fascism is a form of socialism, I would believe. I mean, they're all intertwined. Communism, Fascism, Socialism... They all have a little bit of each. They borrowed from each other."

"I don't even know why Obama appointed a czar. What are they doing? Czar came from Caesar... in the Roman times... and then the Russian czar. This is America, we don't have czars in America." "... are they going to be given land?"

The left-wing propaganda message at the end is a little much, but ... it's just ... really funny to laugh at people who don't know what they're talking about. Sorry, I know I'm on an elitist high horse here...

http://reason.com/news/show/136044.html

I just wanted to share that article: "The Republican Health Care Failure." I really liked the author's point, and there were some great lines: "[Republicans] did worse than miss an opportunity. They stimulated the public appetite for lavish federal spending on health care while catering to the illusion that it can be provided painlessly."

Obama's speech

Obama delivered his speech to the American public on healthcare last night and I just wanted to put down a few thoughts. He began by talking about the economy, which I thought was very telling. Do we really want to implement huge reforms when there are other problems looming? I was not convinced by Obama who appealed to a moral imperative to do things now. The reforms he's talking about are expensive. Expanding coverage and reforming coverage are both going to cost a lot of money. This will either be higher premiums or come from the government. The idea that it won't add to the deficit seems like some very sneaky and convenient accounting. I don't buy it for a second. That said, the expense of the these reforms and universal coverage do not change the fact that it's a worthy goal. I agree with the president that it is a moral imperative to provide greater access to healthcare.

I don't think we should be blinded by that fact. There are a lot of worthy goals in the world, poverty in the US, poverty in the world, human rights violations, etc. You can use such idealism to promote this reform, but you could use it to promote dozens of other worthy causes. In the end it comes down to cost-benefit analysis. No matter how good something is, we can't do it or buy it if it's too expensive. If the expense is reasonable then we can go ahead.

Herein lies the rub. Finding out the exact expense is almost impossible because the administration keeps combining the expansion of coverage with "cost-reductions" that will save billions. I can't speak to the veracity of these claims, because I don't know the details, and perhaps those details don't exist at this point.

Obviously if we can save billions, that's something we should do whether or not we reform health insurance or expand coverage. But that seems separate from the issue of expanding coverage. I thought it was telling that the president's anecdotes often focused on insured people who had insurance and were denied claims. This was a calculated appeal to the public to support his reforms, which in theory would improve their coverage. Again he's combining reforms on current coverage with expanding coverage to appeal to more people. These are separate things and should be treated as such. Why they are taking this approach seems obvious - expansion of coverage is very expensive.

Finally, the speech showed a rather deep divide on party lines. I don't think Republicans walked away convinced, and I didn't see any substantial concessions made by the administration. I don't necessarily fault him for that, but if these reforms make it through it's because Obama convinced people in his own party to stand with him.