- Yes --> Happen upon the information indicating there may be unlawful activity afoot.
- E.g., Someone calls in a tip saying "such and such" has been going on. In this case, the tip might say, "Most dairy farmers in Sibley County, IA use illegal immigrant labor."
- That's a serendipitously obtained piece of information. LEO didn't on their own go out asking any old "Tom, Dick and Harry," "Hey, what do you know about illegal immigrant laborers in Sibley County?"
- No --> Happen upon the actus reus.
- Once they have received a tip, LEO have a duty to investigate its veracity and take the appropriate action based on what their investigation reveals.
Why limit their acceptable LEO activities to tips? Here's a tip - every dairy in the country is likely using illegal immigrants. I know for a fact they do in Tennessee. Same story in Iowa, so why would any other region be different? So raid them all.
That's a tip. It also has the benefit of being a coherent enforcement strategy, and ensures that farms in one little town NOT the subject of a major article in a NY magazine are competing on the same playing field as those who ARE.
Same with the slaughter houses, chicken houses, pork factories.
Point is that if we want to enforce the laws against illegals and hiring them, enforce it, or don't. This nonsense about enforcement being arbitrary and tip based is to describe an unfair and corrupt system. You say the LEOs have an "obligation" to act on tips, neutrally and without bias, without favor, but you have to be
deliberately naive to believe that's how the world ACTUALLY works.
In the scenario of these IA dairy farmers and their use of illegal immigrant labor, of no concern to me are the human consequences of the cops arresting/fining parties to the illegal activity. If that -- not more, not less and not something different -- is what you think I don't care about, you're correct.
Yeah, I got it, you'll happily enjoy lower produce, milk, food, meat product, hotel, landscaping, building, maintenance, painting etc. prices and if occasionally randomly and arbitrarily enforced laws against illegals ruin a few lives, what the hell - what business is it of yours because you got YOUR benefits, and enjoy them everyday so long as the laws aren't ACTUALLY enforced in a way that affects YOU. I understand completely - you get yours and **** the workers.
I am thus indifferent toward the noted human consequences....
Right, and if the choice for illegals wasn't which COLLEGE to go to, but whether or not their family had enough food, and so sent a few family members to the U.S. to make enough money for themselves, and to send large amounts of it back home to mom, dad, etc. then to hell with them, because we all have choices to make.
because since I was about a sophomore or junior in high school, I, my siblings, my cousins, and nearly early other person with whom I grew up, have been held accountable for every choice we made....
It's no different with those dairy farmers who chose to hire illegals. And it's no different with those illegals who opted to become illegal immigrants.
Well, it's slightly different, because the choice of dairy farmers is hire illegals or lose the farm, go out of business, and for the illegals it's have that job or live in desperate poverty in central America, VERSUS....which college.
And in the meantime, you get cheaper food, etc.! Win for everyone except for the immigrant families, and they aren't your concern.
Here's the part that makes your preferred policy so morally repugnant to me. When we don't evenly enforce immigration law, we simply
HAVE entire industries like the milk industry and much of our agriculture and food production industries that cannot survive on the going prices without hiring illegals. So when you approve of arbitrarily/randomly and rarely enforcing immigration law, you create a system in which the options we give these farmers is, 1) break the law, or 2) go out of business.
I don't agree, at all, with the MAGA! types who want to deport 11 million illegals without regard to the human consequences, but at least THAT position is morally defensible. Enforce the law against every illegal, period, and we'll deal with the higher prices, economic losses, etc. But you don't agree - you recognize the economic cost, including to your own budget, of doing it, so prefer we don't really enforce the law, because YOU benefit from illegals every time you buy food, or rent a hotel room, or get some roofing done or other household repairs, or yard work, etc. But you're OK with the price of those benefits being a few ruined lives. Oh well, that's the cost of YOUR economic benefits...
