Timothy Birdnow

Bad idea.

Missouri lawmaker proposes bounty system to report migrants

Getting people to rat out their neighbors is never a good idea, and especially when you will find it hard to differentiate legal and illegal immigrants.

I appreciate the sentiment but do not agree with the method.

How many of these reports will wind up being petty revenge on people they just don't like?

When Aragon and Castille joined together to create Spain King Ferdinand kicked out all the non-Catholics; he wanted his new nation-state (the first nation-state) to have religious homogenaity along with other cultural aspects in common. So he kicked out Jews and Muslims and many converted to avoid being tossed out. This was the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, because many former Jews or Muslims would be accused of being secret, closeted aliens and the Inquisition would have to step in to investigate.

The Spanish Inquisition is largely misunderstood, and often it actually aided these people by taking them into custody and cooling tempers. It was the civil authorities who would torture and execute them otherwise. Read Medieval scholar Thomas Madden on the subject.

The point is that paying citizens to turn in their neighbors is precisely how the troubles in Spain started, and there is reason for concern here.

I'm all for concerned citizens turning in illegals if they know they are breaking the law, but paying people is guaranteed to get all sorts of bogus or shady accusations made for all sorts of reasons.

The bill also authorizes a bounty hunter program, paying professional bounty hunters to go after illegals. I can get behind that; we have ample experience with bounty hunting and if you have licensed people doing it all the better.

And it creates special law-enforcement agencies to deal with this.

I like most of it. I just don't think paying citizens to rat people out is a good idea.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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