The Facts About SB 1070

There is unrest in Tucson, Arizona after arrests were conducted by local authorities which have been related to SB 1070. I do not subscribe to the views of the round ’em up, kick ’em out nativist crowd and initially had concerns with Arizona’s controversial new immigration law SB 1070.

However, I decided to do some research to see if much of what SB 1070’s critics charge would occur under Arizona’s new state statute. After careful consideration of the points for and against it and looking into this matter further, I have come to the conclusion that the new law will not result in many of the things opponents of SB 1070 claim. Including some libertarian’s bizarre claim that the new law is part of a conspiracy to a clandestinely implement a national I.D. card. The new law is based soley on documentation, written to apply to everyone equally and, despite opponent’s claims, and there is no requirement in SB 1070 that people in Arizona have to carry any identification.

Also, while working its way through the Arizona legislature SB 1070 was amended to prohibit racial profiling and race cannot be used as a determining factor when police stop someone. According to the Cato Institute, most of the undocumented immigrant population are Hispanics and, unfortunately, it is Latinos that are hit hardest by the U.S.’s bureaucratic immigration process. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and much of the case law surrounding these two Amendments is very strong in protecting personal privacy and unreasonable searches and seizures.

Under SB 1070 Arizona police do not have a blank check to stop people for any reason as there are numerous legal hurdles still in place and even enhanced protections implemented under this new law to prevent much of what SB 1070 opponents fear. Under the law police officers don’t have any more authority to stop or arrest someone than they had before it was implemented. If they abuse their power, the agencies or officer who acted fraudulently can be held legally and criminally responsible.

For example, in the course of their investigation, under SB 1070, police officers are not required to check someone’s immigration status if doing so interferes with their ability to conduct an investigation. Police will only have to make a reasonable attempt (when practicable) to check someone’s immigration status if they stop someone involved in the commission of a crime. It was discovered by one journalist that undocumented immigrants with clean records would be eligible for temporary guest worker cards until they are assigned a hearing before an immigration judge.

Immigration courts that handle deportations are backlogged and detention centers that hold undocumented immigrants are full. As a result, many detainees could be the recipients of guest work papers. Recipients, in turn, would be able to travel anywhere in the country to find work until their court date which could be up to 5 years or more. When this fact came to light, SB 1070’s sponsor Russell Pearce didn’t call for this practice to be stopped. According to Phoenix’s Fox News station his reaction was:

It will save us hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s good for the taxpayer. The benefits so outweigh [the work permits].

With all of these points in mind, one has to ask who is really the target of SB 1070? One explanation comes from a news story out of Atlanta, Georgia. As it turns out, while many of the undocumented immigrants caught at Arizona’s border are from Central and Latin America, hundreds are coming from countries you may or may not have expected:

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

With the threat of terrorism inspired by proponents of Islamic jihad, many terrorists who subscribe to fundamentalist Islamic theology will look for any way to sneak into the United States and make their way to terrorist sleeper cells. This is not to say that everyone from the four above mentioned countries or someone from somewhere else who attempts to sneak into the U.S. are terrorists. It is very possible that the migrants from middle eastern countries attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico are refugees.

However, the vast majority of terrorists do hail from the Middle East and all of the countries listed above are known to harbor terrorists. One country (Iran) helps arm and train them. Therefore, legal measures, like SB 1070 to help counter the ability of terrorists and violent criminals to enter and live in the U.S. while maintaining standards to preserve individual liberties are warranted since terrorists and violent criminals pose a threat to an individual’s right to life.

The fact is Russell Pearce proposed SB 1070 in reaction to discussions he had with ranchers in southern Arizona expressing their concern to him about the death of Rob Krentz who was murdered by an immigrant or drug smuggler back in March on his ranch located in Cochise County. Krentz was a decent, honest, hardworking man known to help undocumented immigrants crossing Arizona’s desert.

Cochise County is one of many counties in Arizona near the U.S. – Mexico border that has experienced increased violence due to the smuggling of illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants. Most undocumented immigrants are honest, hardworking people who took a chance to come to the U.S. in search of a better life and should be able to apply for papers to legally work in the U.S. The result of SB 1070 could enables them to do just that.

In addition to undocumented immigrants who have clean records being able to obtain work cards, at the very least, President Obama should work with Congress to repeal the cap on H1-B visas so employers can hire more people and would simulataneously enable the legal importation of more skilled labor.

With the high likelihood of more domestic terrorist attacks along with the elevated violence in Arizona counties along the U.S.-Mexico border makes it abundantly clear that it is the violence and death resulting from illegal drug and undocumented immigrant trades, and the potential influx of terrorists that Pearce’s law is designed to curb. Short of halting the hiring of undocumented immigrants for working and living here (which I disgree with), Senator Pearce never sought to overturn appropriate legal protections geared to prevent abuse by police officers directed towards people nor stop the flow of immigrants to the United States. With these points in mind, one has to wonder whose side opponents of SB 1070 are really on?

The Costs of the Postal Service

It has recently come to light that the Post Office currently has 714 people who received a pension in excess of $100,000 per year, for the rest of their lives. On top of all of that, those same pension recipients also get health benefits. The New York Times understates the problem by saying the US Postal Service has a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions.

The grey lady also stated, in July that the USPS pre-funds all health costs for future retired employees. That cost the post office more than $20 billion since 2007 — a period during which its total loses amounted to $25.3 billion. and It’s pension obligations are also over funded by around $11 billion. Not since the debt criss has there been such an avoidable fiscal mess.

In order to pay for all of this the Post Office is raising delivery rates. Obviously the idea of them scaling back operations is a concept foreign to an entity that has a monopoly on the delivery of first class mail. Never mind raising postal rates drives people to seek alternatives to regular mail options which, in turn, drives down revenue. Apparently the post office thinks it can pay out all the high pensions that are bankrupting it on the back of international mail too. A flat rate envelope for international mail, for example, was $11.95 but was raised to $13.95. In the latest price increase raised it to $23.95.

The Congressional Research Service says almost all of the problems are do to rising spending, not lower income. The CRS states: the USPS has significantly increased operating expenses. A great deal of the rise in costs is attributable in part to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA).8 The PAEA established the RHBF and requires the USPS to prefund its future retirees’ health benefits at a cost of approximately $5.6 billion per year…. They go on to point out that the effects of the PAEA’s mandatory payments to the Postal Service Health Benefits Fund on the USPS’s profitability were considerable.

In fairness the Post Office is not a private business and legally can’t act like one. It is managed by all sorts of Congressional restrictions. For example, the Post Office can’t sell packaging materials and supplies in their lobby. So they are restricted from seeking additional methods to generate income, but they are hampered by postal unions from reducing their most significant cost: personnel.

The employees of the USPS are federal employees and Congress mandates how much the Post Office has to pay into their pensions. Post Office officials say they have been forced to overpay $6.9 billion that they want back. But the federal government won’t allow it, and instead the money sits in government accounts making the USPS look bad but the federal government looks good.

For employees with service both before and after 1971, the federal government and the Postal Service share responsibility for CSRS pensions. The federal government pays for service through 1971, and the USPS pays for service after 1971. Congress set it up so that most the burden is put on the current USPS even though the employees were most employed by them. The percentage of CSRS pension costs allocated to the USPS for an employee who worked for both the Post Office Department and the USPS is greater than the proportion of the worker’s career that he or she spent as an employee of the USPS.

Postal employees today get pay less for their health benefits: USPS employees pay approximately 21% of their health care premium costs and 0% of their life insurance premiums, while other federal employees pay 28% and 67%, respectively. The Post Office can get people close to retirement to do so at huge amounts, but that’s probably the best they can do. However, even the decreasing revenue didn’t reduce income because increased in rates made up for it. So there was less work for the post office each year but not less income.

Congressional Research Service notes: the USPS is required to be self-supporting but that federal law provides it with very few authorities to control its employment costs—which make up approximately 80% of its total operating costs. With no ability to layoff unneeded workers they can only entice them into early retirement with generous benefits. The fact is that USPS has been run for the benefit of the postal employees, not the consumers. It’s revenue is forced into federal coffers through the backdoor by making they overpay the prepaid health costs. And the private Post Office is forced to carry the cost of employees who had been working for the pre-USPS post office that was entirely federal. Not surprisingly, Congress and the unions rigged the USPS to fail using it as a cash cow rather than as a means of serving the public.