geeandtee

Bloody hell. That would have been inconceivable three years ago

I know the City I worked for will be up the Swanee if the State decides not to go with the bid for a prison there. It's hard to believe that three years ago there were developers and home builders lining up to build there.

Brit3964

The Tea Partiers.

Brit3964

Funny you should mention prisons...

Anti-immigration hysteria tied to the private prison industry

The now-infamous “show me your papers” law which requires Arizona law enforcement to check the legal status of anyone “reasonably suspected” of being undocumented has brought illegal immigration to the forefront of American politics.

S.B. 1070’s incessant media coverage and the grossly overstated urgency for immigration reform would lead many to believe Mexican drug cartels were on the verge of overthrowing the government and illegal aliens were running rampant through the streets.

But data collected by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Homeland Security indicate that apprehensions of illegal crossings have dropped by nearly 70 percent since 2000.

Still, despite the overwhelming evidence indicating otherwise, prominent Arizona politicians have continued to insist that illegal immigrants are pouring into the country in droves, responsible for headless bodies in the desert and “terror babies” intent on destroying our way of life.

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/mobile/pe...stry-1.1572422

Norri

I saw one downtown just this afternoon.

CelticRover

The business community is asking the 'Guv' to repair Arizona's tarnished brand.



http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...brand0909.html

Malashaan

Unfortunately it seems to be the same everywhere right now; right back to the 80s in feel. Politicians talk about being tough on immigration, the media whip up a storm about how huge a problem there is and enough people follow in a blind panic and general sense of xenophobia for the politician to get elected. It doesn't matter how many people put forward counter evidence, the "swamped by immigrants" story just seems to have the right elements to strike a chord with people.

scrubbedexpat099

I have never had that problem. nobody has accused me of swamping them.

Malashaan

Lol, good for you.
Fact remains that the only justification I've ever heard levelled for 1070 is that Arizona's economy is being destroyed by over immigration, and all the same arguments were rolled out for the general election back in the UK.

lapin_windstar

Did the last twenty years pass you by? Slovakia's not Communist any more. Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War and now everyone's free, rich, happy and capitalist. You know, like Iraq and Afghanistan, but with more pork sausages and less sunshine.

chartreuse

And with that sentence, the author glosses over the biggest problem with attempting to measure any type of crime. By its nature, crime is hidden. We can't measure it directly, we can only measure things (in this case, apprehensions, in other cases, convictions, reports, etc.) that we choose to use as proxies for the thing we're trying to measure.

But we know that such measures are unreliable. Under-reporting, under-recording, drop-outs in the judicial process, a shift in focus by law enforcement agencies or new and innovative criminal methodologies all come together to skew the measure downwards.

A drop in apprehensions could as easily be explained by DHS doing less of that type of enforcement, or by many other things, as by a drop in illegal migration.

Bob

True, but it does take a lot of fuzzy math to make 70% out of nothing, so there has to be something to it.

chartreuse

Bob, mate, if you want to say "Bollocks!", just say it.

Dogbyte

Lap' wind'... twenty years have passed me by too quickly actually... However if you care to look at the Master Spy's original reply he mentioned the 70's which is actually more than 20 years ago and yes I remember even the 70's aswell .

fatbrit

He mentioned a T-72. It's a battle tank, not a date.

Dogbyte

Yes, very good, you win a prize.And the T-72 was first seen in public in the late 1970's, when Slovakia became independant in 1993 the T-72 remained its main battle tank, even today.