Why would you think your free speech rights should give you immunity from deportation if you're not actually here legally?
You are implying that only people who follow the laws in the US have the right of free speech. That's a very, very sad way to look at things, as it means anyone trying to actually change anything has no basic rights.
i.e. same sex couples, people smoking weed, etc. etc. These people are breaking the law (in most of the country) but they absolutely must be allowed free speech to talk about it. If not, how can anything ever change or get better?
Taking away free speech from people that don't follow the current laws of the US means a very bleak future.
Your right to free speech begins and ends with speech. You have a right to call for marijuana legalization, but if marijuana is illegal and you light up a joint in front of a cop, then yes he can arrest you and this is no violation of your free speech rights. Correspondingly, your right to free speech, right here and right now, is naturally pre-empted when you have no legal right to even be in the country. From the perspective of the US government, you are perfectly free to exercise your opinion about immigration reform from outside of the borders of the USA. The fact that this is obviously less desirable from the point of view of the illegal alien is basically irrelevant to what they have a "right" to do.
What you are talking about is civil disobedience, but you don't seem to understand how that works either. Civil disobedience is knowing something is against the law, and doing it anyway as an act of political resistance to motivate change in the system. Even then, you accept that an act is illegal and that you are breaking that law, rather than just blanket argument that anybody who is actively protesting a law should be allowed to break it without legal consequences because they disagree with it. I get it, you're for immigration reform so you think it's a stupid law and you don't care if they break it. But I'm arguing from the standpoint of a general legal principle.
I get it, you're for immigration reform so you think it's a stupid law and you don't care if they break it.
Not at all.
I'm for allowing people to assemble, peacefully protest and have their voice heard.
I'm for not escalating unrelated charges to people trying to do so.
Once you let that happen, you'll very quickly find every single person is breaking some obscure law or other, and every single person will be arrested when they even talk about voting for the other party.
Comments
You are implying that only people who follow the laws in the US have the right of free speech. That's a very, very sad way to look at things, as it means anyone trying to actually change anything has no basic rights.
i.e. same sex couples, people smoking weed, etc. etc. These people are breaking the law (in most of the country) but they absolutely must be allowed free speech to talk about it. If not, how can anything ever change or get better?
Taking away free speech from people that don't follow the current laws of the US means a very bleak future.
Your right to free speech begins and ends with speech. You have a right to call for marijuana legalization, but if marijuana is illegal and you light up a joint in front of a cop, then yes he can arrest you and this is no violation of your free speech rights. Correspondingly, your right to free speech, right here and right now, is naturally pre-empted when you have no legal right to even be in the country. From the perspective of the US government, you are perfectly free to exercise your opinion about immigration reform from outside of the borders of the USA. The fact that this is obviously less desirable from the point of view of the illegal alien is basically irrelevant to what they have a "right" to do.
What you are talking about is civil disobedience, but you don't seem to understand how that works either. Civil disobedience is knowing something is against the law, and doing it anyway as an act of political resistance to motivate change in the system. Even then, you accept that an act is illegal and that you are breaking that law, rather than just blanket argument that anybody who is actively protesting a law should be allowed to break it without legal consequences because they disagree with it. I get it, you're for immigration reform so you think it's a stupid law and you don't care if they break it. But I'm arguing from the standpoint of a general legal principle.
Not at all.
I'm for allowing people to assemble, peacefully protest and have their voice heard.
I'm for not escalating unrelated charges to people trying to do so.
Once you let that happen, you'll very quickly find every single person is breaking some obscure law or other, and every single person will be arrested when they even talk about voting for the other party.