That's because most laws are made by lawyers for other lawyers. Job security.

really? Platupus, if i lived in Virginia i wouldve GLADLY mowed your lawn for 50$. Maybe kids these days are getting a little too much money from allowances from doing incredibly simple chores, hence not needing to do much real labor.

Im honestly kind of shocked no one took you up on the offer. Even here in some of the more upper middle class and rich parts of california, all i heard from my classmates back in high school were "i wish i had a job SO badly". Because there are few who are fortunate enough to have rich parents. Teenagers want to do what THEY want to do. So they need a car, money, phones, laptops ect.

And here in college, everybody NEEDS a job because their parents CANNOT afford 20k a semester to go to a decent college. They have to take out loans. Some live off campus. Im at CSU Maritime. They have a program where you work on your degree like any regular student, but also attend weekend Navy ROP training. By the end of your 4 years, youll graduate straight into the Navy. Ive asked around and many instructors who teach there graduated from it, and those who took the Navy ROP said that their college tuition was paid off. Plus you get a monthly sum of a couple hundred bucks.'

But thats how i try to cope. Teens i know all need jobs to go to college. Many of them cant find any. All of the jobs that businesses are willing to hire for have been filled. So those who cant find any will be spending ALOT of time paying off ridiculously large student loans.


And yes, actually, they do advertise labor vacations. The illegal immigrant family with multiple children born here will almost assuredly NOT be deported.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/debate-birt...ry?id=11322850

Theres your link.

Platapus,

Your logic is flawed, because to enter the country legally:

Q: What Documents Must You Present?A: A foreign national entering the U.S. is required to present a passport and valid visa issued by a U.S. Consular Official unless they are a citizen of a country eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., or a citizen of Canada.

Source: http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id...to_the_u_s.xml


Any visa issued is recorded - and thus can be demonstrated to exist - or in the case above - to not exist. A simple records check - did Mr. Juan Gonzales get issues a visa? Yes or no? US Consul's do not just hand out these documents without there being a paper trail. After all, if they didn't have a paper trail, they couldn't look up someone's immigration status, now could they?

Simple - you cannot BE present legally in a location if you did not gain entry to that location in a legal manner.

Lets say you put up no trespassing signs in your yard all around your house. On day, you go to the store and when you get back, you enter your home to find me sitting at your table, drinking and eating stuff from your fridge. By your logic - if you don't have no trespassing signs posted in every room in your house, I could LEGALLY be in any rooms that don't have the sign - as long as I am not caught sneaking into it! Maybe I flew down the chimney - or if thats illegal - maybe I teleported in or used a star trek transporter. After all - my mere presence does not - using your logic - prove any illegal action actually occured. My presence does not show any violation of the trespass borders you posted.

Now if your ok with that, fine. But I assure you - most of the people who live in a free society are not. Seriously - I know your smarter than this though.

It's not his logic. Its the logic of the courts. Read U.S. vs Cupa-Guillen, as was already linked in this thread. Mere presence is not actus reus in the eyes of the law, as illogical as it sounds. To try and make some sense out of it, the court compares it to being a drug addict. If someone's a heroin addict, can you bust them for possession of heroin? I mean they had to have possessed it at some point in order to become addicted. The law says no, you can't.

Thank you, I appreciate the complement, but honestly my post is more a factor of my experience in legal research than in intelligence. But, I am afraid that it is your logic that is flawed. If you go back to my post, I explained that the prosecutor needs to prove all the elements of the crime, there can be no assumptions nor presumptions.

Yes it is a common sense inference that if a person did not enter legally, they can't be present legally. However, that is not how the law works. The law does not work on common sense inferences, but on proving the elements of the crime as listed in the law. That and the tenet that the prosecutor has to prove guilt, the defendant does not have to prove non-guilt.

The problem is that the way the Title 8 laws are written, it is difficult, not impossible, to prove that a person is in the country illegally, unless they confess, or in the case of Section 1325 they are caught on the boarder.

This is why prosecutors like to find other charges that are easier to prove (drugs, weapons, tax-evasion, trafficking, etc.) to criminally deport people or go through the non-criminal administrative hearing route which is a lot easier and therefore the preferred way of handling this issue.

Now, there is a poser: How would anyone of us reword or make up a new law that would make it easier to prosecute?

Remember that prosecutor has to prove ALL elements and that the prosecutor has to prove guilt.

That should be an interesting discussion. :yep:

That is an excellent analogy. Common sense tells you that if a person is under the influence of cocaine, for example, that they must have had possession, even for the shortest of time. But if the addict has injected/injested/ect all of the drug, the law says that you can't convict them of possession. After all, there is no drug left to bring to the courtroom as evidence. How can the court convict someone of possessing something when there is nothing to possess?

Yes many times the law appears not to make sense and I will certainly agree that the law is complicated. Perhaps overly complicated.

And this is why juries need to be briefed on the law, its elements and how the judicial system works concerning proof - because it is not intuitive to non-legally educated people.

Finally, people are getting serious about this problem
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/09...law/?hpt=hp_t2

As long as they start holding the employers accountable to this new law, I am in favour of it.

Some do. Here in MD there is a raid every now and then. Problem with it is some get outraged about the raids. Human rights, yadda yadda. It is a growing problem and concern. As we see, other states are following suit.