And what exactly are you defending LEGAL immigrants from? You're so full of it. Every comment I have ever seen coming from you that even mentions LEGAL immigrants is intended to contrast ILLEGAL immigrants because that's your way of avoiding the moral questions, by reverting to their legal status.

Geez Loki... wearing your wading boots today? "I will bow to your superior knowledge" is a polite way of saying "you might just be right."? I don't think so. And when such a statement is preceded by "I have a full library on law and in particular the immigration decisions. In 1999 there are over 24 volumes ..... and I am not inclined at this moment to read them all"... that pretty much confirms the sarcasm. If anything, it was a polite way of being sanctimonious.

Yeah, it's unfortunate... the format I use is what the original version of the software driving this site promoted through it's markup language (tags). A while ago, this site upgraded it's software and the new version doesn't handle that format very well, specifically in it's "quote reply" action. But you can still READ the format and I still use it because it still provides the advantage of separating concerns within a post. It also helps reduce the confusion about who said what.

Fortunately in this case, most of the statements in your post are predicated on a single faulty assumption, so I can condense my response to just addressing that assumption in a format you might find more... palatable.

Pennylynn said:
The infancy defense at common law intended to strike a balance between the impropriety of punishing minors who are not responsible for their actions, and the dangers of categorically immunizing young people from prosecution, thus allowing them opportunity to commit serious crimes with impunity. In the US, Statutory legislation has largely superseded the common law infancy defense through the establishment of a dual adult/juvenile justice system. Children under a certain age, usually between sixteen and eighteen depending on the state, are eligible for prosecution in a more lenient and rehabilitation-oriented juvenile justice system, while most states strictly bar the prosecution of very young children (usually under seven, though some states hold the age limit at ten.) But, again this is felony law.

straightUp responded with:
There is no law that makes that restriction. You are simply going by precedence. So far, Defense of Infancy has only been used in felony cases such as murder, because for the most part, prosecutors would never dream of punishing people for being carried across a border by their mothers when they are babies. This is what you call unprecedented... In these cases a court would need to revert to to the same arguments that created the precedents for the felony cases, which is the Defense of Infancy. The problem is that a 17-year old murder who happens to be a U.S. citizen can appeal to the courts while immigrants can't. So the precedents don't get established. That can change of lower courts start prosecuting the DOJ, which I am already writing letters to my representatives about.

You did make one statement where my response was incorrect...

Pennylynn said:
The proper take away from this is it is a crime, this includes those crossing the U.S. border with a "coyote" or buying a fake U.S. passport, a foreign national who enters the U.S. illegally can be both convicted of a crime and held responsible for a civil violation under the U.S. immigration laws.

straightUp responded with:
I disagree with your conclusion. I think when a law only prescribes civil penalties, the proper take away is that the violations are civil infraction.

When I was reading 8 U.S. Code § 1325 - I made a hasty assumption myself, thinking that since there is a section titled "Improper time or place; civil penalties" there should also be a section that specifies "criminal" in it's title. I have since re-read the law (after some much needed sleep) and realized that punishments are prescribed in all the sections and as Loki pointed out some of them make references to Title 18. So, I retract my disagreement on criminal status, but I think I'm right on the Defense of Infancy being applicable to ANY punishment not just felonies in which case, I think my original point still stands.

One thing I wish more people understood about the judicial law is that it's a means to an end and sometimes that end can be immoral. This is why we have legal concepts like the Defense of Infancy. This is also why some of us find these "legal" conversations frustrating. It's good to get a grasp on what the law is saying but we shouldn't loose sight of what the law is doing. I'm sure most of the folks who uphold immigration laws as gospel are the first to condemn the regulatory laws that Trump is repealing.

Morgan initiated this topic with a concern about the policy of taking children away from their parents. It's a moral concern. Her question is appealing to our moral sense of humanity and yet I read the topic and I see how the moral question is buried under a pile of disputes over legal definitions. There is a very clear aversion to confronting the moral question. Can you explain that?

I think some of those women have no choice but to risk it. I don't know what YOU think motivates them to improper entry or if you even care. You have never shown any sense of compassion for immigrants.

The federal case I cited in my response says your wrong. You might be confused with a state law on the minimum age of criminal liability - I believe North Carolina has the lowest stated age of 7 years.


You have the concept right, but the ages are arbitrary. Jurisdictions that adapt the Defense of Infancy can apply whatever ages they see fit.


There is no law that makes that restriction. You are simply going by precedence. So far, Defense of Infancy has only been used in felony cases such as murder, because for the most part, prosecutors would never dream of punishing people for being carried across a border by their mothers when they are babies. This is what you call unprecedented... In these cases a court would need to revert to to the same arguments that created the precedents for the felony cases, which is the Defense of Infancy. The problem is that a 17-year old murder who happens to be a U.S. citizen can appeal to the courts while immigrants can't. So the precedents don't get established. That can change of lower courts start prosecuting the DOJ, which I am already writing letters to my representatives about.


...As I had told you already.


That's a lot of dictionary definitions strung together with a lot of interpretation. Why don't you just read the law? It says right there as plain as day... "(b) Improper time or place; civil penalties" There are no criminal penalties listed in that law.


I disagree with your conclusion. I think when a law only prescribes civil penalties, the proper take away is that the violations are civil infraction. And yes, that includes everything you listed all of them civil infraction.


"seems to include children?" Things are either codified in law or they're not. Anything that is argued with "seems" is an interpretation and those are always up for debate. Besides, it wouldn't matter if children were explicitly subject to the law; the Defense of Infancy is still a valid argument. And one can certainly argue that deporting a person who has lived here all his life just because his mother carried him across the border when he was a baby is cruel and unusual punishment.



Defense of Infancy only pertains to felony crimes.... I see no such legal restriction anywhere.
An individual is defined by law includes infants .... irrelevant
And someone coming into the USA by any means other than through checkpoints commits a crime and.... the law we've been discussing says it's a civil infraction.
A person who commits a crime is a criminal... agreed, but irrelevent
And finally, repeated entry into the USA illegally can be charged with a felony... I have read that in several op-eds, still looking for the actual law. Maybe Loki can find it.



I *am* aware that there is a difference between crossing borders and expiring visas. One difference is that 8 U.S. Code § 1325 doesn't cover the later. It still doesn't matter as long as the Defense of Infancy is a valid argument and so far you haven't proven it not to be.


I just did. ;)

BTW, I appreciate your civility in this discussion. I have great respect for people who can stick to rational arguments. 'Though it does seem strange to me that we can have such calculated discussions on topics as horrific as ripping babies from their mothers and then loosing them. I know we've been talking about deportations but the issue that Morgan brought up in the original post is the new policy of separating babies from the parents for the purpose of scaring immigrants away from our borders, which is exactly what Jeff Sessions said the point was.

I think any jurisdiction in world would call that cruel and it's certainly unusual and in the U.S. that is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution per the 8th amendment. You don't even need a Defense of Infancy to make THAT ruling. You just need a citizen to prosecute because non-citizens can't (which actually makes them victims of oppression).

diluted in bar Latin - ha, ha. At least you got part of the reference right, my moniker was taken from my reputation for ordering whiskey straight up, but most bartenders know that means undiluted.

Swapping out the object of a sentence is changing the meaning of the sentence and this applies to ALL grade-levels. When you can get to the point of your post BEFORE trying to insult me with stupidity, I'll start actually reading them.

You're tap dancing Loki. I already described the court case as a battle in a bigger war and I gave you plenty of connections between TrumpCo and the pro-arbitration side of this war. Your point about the Federal Judiciary being a Democratic majority has no bearing on any of that other than the distraction that you meant it to be.

"nanny poo poo"? "Pee Wee Herman"?

Hmm, I'm pretty sure the topic here is about the policy of ripping babies from their mothers, putting the mothers in private prisons to be used as slaves and handing the babies to whomever wants to use them. And you come back with "nanny poo poo".

huh.

Yammer Speak - n : articulations of concepts that lesser intelligent people find tedious, pedantic and boring.

I'm sure Loki is capable of making that distinction but he obviously doesn't want to. I won't make any assumptions beyond that.

Nah, I think you're right. I think Italy is an interesting place to watch right now. They just elected an extreme right-wing government on a populist platform that almost appears to be a revival of Italy 1932. The EU has already motioned to except Italy from the their policy of debt absorption. I think all Americans should be looking at Italy as an example of what happens when you get to where Trump is taking us.

Anyway, what I wanted to mention is that Italy is the only G7 nation siding with Trump's demand that Russia be allowed back in the group. Which brings me to Russians... Specifically, the Russian oligarchs that would benefit most from what Trump is demanding. You probably know, there have been more billionaires created in Russia than anywhere else in the last decade or so. That's because the entire Soviet system, other than defense and energy, has been privatized. The Russian oligarchs are both the motive and the by-product of that privatization. Seriously, those guys are the experts.

The other thing about privatization that people with their heads stuck in the cold-war-mentality-box don't realize is that privatized interests have no borders. Borders are government inventions. For a Russian oligarch (which literally means a Russian with enough money to buy government) there is no reason to assume any part of privatized America is off limits. Imagine if the American progressive system (which is basically the American counterpart to the Russian Soviet system) was also privatized?

Dang, all they would need to do is find a guy in America with the potential to be a president and a weak sense of morals for easy corruption and it would be so easy to suggest things like corporate tax cuts that can shift billions from the government to Wall Street (which is already crawling with Russian oligarchs).

Not saying anything like that is actually happening...

Not a mutual exclusion, d mass. Common Core graduates that subsist on SNAP cards can be pretty raysiss t.

Loki... I said it's weirdly difficult to track that down. I did NOT say it was impossible. I actually *did* find the law that you linked to and I wrote about it in that very post to which you are responding. I cut it out to paste it into a separate response to Pennylynn because I was making a point about you and you're assertion that immigrants who cross a border without permission are criminals. You should read that.

One more thing... What grates me about most of these discussions, especially with folks like Loki is this simple-minded assertion that if you break a law you are a criminal. This is also debatable and you've probably heard Kamala Harris who spent 6 years as California's attorney general arguing that criminal law and immigration law are not the same thing. This should not be such a confusing issue. Anyone who has received a ticket for speeding and went to court to contest or pay can see how the court is divided into civil, criminal and traffic divisions. No, you are not a criminal for speeding or parking incorrectly, or being late on your taxes. These are civil offenses, not criminal offenses.

The current law on "improper entry" is Title 8, Chapter 12, Sub-chapter II, Part VIII, 1325 : Improper entry by alien. All penalties are listed in this law as civil infractions. There is a note that says "Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be imposed" But no such criminal penalty is defined in this law, so there would have to be other crimes involved. From what I can see so far (I'm still researching all this immigration stuff) Harris is correct.