The "Gang of Eight" is a bipartisan group in the Senate that consists of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). They recently introduced a comprehensive 844-paged immigration reform proposal to the Senate, and they're optimistic and hopeful that they can receive over 60 votes to make their plans a reality. However, the big catch is that the recent Boston bombings may be influencing people's emotions, and Republicans and Democrats alike might be a tad hasty or rash in deciding how they'll vote in the near future. Because the Tsarnaev brothers were immigrants, many politicians are impassioned to vote in a way that will "protect the U.S. from future harm." However, one of the aspects that makes this whole situation a bit more sensitive and tricky, is that both of the brothers had actually obtained U.S. citizenship many years prior to their recent violent activities. Immigration reform was already causing a bit of chaos and wild negotiation to outbreak amongst the Senate, but the decision to inform Dzhokhar Tsarnaev about his Miranda rights was really what caused hell to break loose across the boards.
Tsarnaev was hospitalized and wasn't in any condition to answer questions until recently, so Senator Graham had apparently tweeted these messages on his twitter account a couple days ago:
What do you guys think about the whole situation? Do you think he should have had his Miranda rights read to him? What types of changes do you guys want to see with America's immigration policy?
For more information, read this, this, and this.
6 comments:
Was the decision to refrain from reading Tsarnaev his rights a violation of the Constitution? Yes. Was it, therefore, a bad decision? Not necesarrily. It is difficult to express discomfort over a criminal not being read his Miranda Rights when the criminal in question instigated a terrorist attack. A crime of this degree, in my opinion, warrants exceptions to the established law. Thus, I interpret Obama's decision as justified in this situation. However, if the reasoning behind not reading him his rights was related to the fact that he was an immigrant, I would be less accepting of Obama's decision. Immigrant or not, he was a legal citizen of the United States and, thus, deserving of the rights that would be provided to a natural-born citizen. Thus, while I am not offended that the Constitution was violated in an effort to retrieve "information quickly [and] without a lot of resistance," I hope that the logic behind it did not have a correlation with his status as an immigrant turned citizen.
Tsarnaev deserves to be read his Miranda Rights. Period. I know this is quite an unpopular opinion, but let's take a step back and look at the law objectively. The Miranda rights are for criminal protection so they aren't taken advantage of. We have laws that protect criminals because they are still human. Sure, this guy messed up big time, but does that mean we let our emotions get the better of us and throw out the rights we pride ourselves in as a country? We made these laws, so we should stick to them. Tsarnaev will most likely be convicted anyway, so at least convict him in proper fashion. Cherry picking where laws do and don't apply is hypocritical. I understand that politicians have to act according to how the public feels, but it just bothers me so much how at one moment, the public can say "We love our humane rights and privileges!" and then turn around against a guy like Tsarnaev and say "Take this monster's rights away! Who cares if he's a U.S. citizen!?"
While many have said that the government's decision not to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights is a violation of the Constitution, I think its important to note that this isn't the case, at least not in the Supreme Court's opinion. In the Supreme Court Case NEW YORK v. QUARLES, the court ultimately established the "public safety" exception to the Miranda Rights used on Tsarnaev. The court further ruled that this exception wasn't a violation of the Constitution (1). While I have serious concerns about this "public safety" exemption and what restrictions there are to it, I think the government's use of the exception was somewhat warranted as there was definitely an "imminent threat" of more attacks or maybe even more accomplices. I say "somewhat warranted" because I think that this exception to such an important part of our rights should only be used in a narrowly defined set of situations, not just to appease the public. I understand the need for the "public safety" exemption, but I think the government should definitely adjust the terms of this exemption to something that cannot ever be broadly defined or abused. That being said, I really hope that this one incident doesn't influence politicians' decisions to pursue immigration reform. Moving away from serious immigration reform that would help millions of people just because of this tragedy would be completely absurd.
1) http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1983/1983_82_1213/
As President Obama mentioned in the State of the Union Address, some change to the current American immigration policy is needed. Obviously, the recent horrors that happened in Boston are sure to play a role in how this immigration reform proposal will be voted on. Apparently, the Gang of Eight feels that this immigration reform proposal will have a "filibuster proof majority in the Senate" with possibly at least 70 votes backing it. Of course, these predictions are still early and could change later.
Also, the Gang believes that the support for the bill on the Democratic side would allow for a significant amount of Democratic votes, possibly over 50. While Republican votes would probably be less, John McCain has expressed optimism in his belief that a majority of senators from the Democrats and Republicans would support it. If they want this to succeed, I believe that they will have to definitely build such broad support and reach out to conservatives who are on the fence. Hopefully some significant change will be able to happen and both parties can put aside their partisan policies for the good of the country during such a difficult time.
Regarding the Miranda Rights conflict, I feel that it was definitely a violation of the Constitution, as Paniz said, to not read the rights to Tsarneav. Regardless of how public opinion (poll) or the president may feel about allowing this criminal knowledge of his rights, the law is the law for a reason and should be followed. As an American citizen, Tsarnaev deserves to fear the Miranda Rights. I disagree with the idea that the degree of the crime justifies putting aside the law. I'm not sure how much we can learn from Tsarnaev seeing as the other terrorist has been speculated to have done most of the planning. Even then, we should not let emotions decide how the law should be carried out. If we allow this breach of constitution rights to occur, it sets a precedent that will be noted in future cases. And I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.
Thus, I agree with Aaron that Tsarnaev deserves to be read his rights. I don't know whether there is a "public safety" concern regarding the situation since he is already captured and unable to commit further terrorist acts. We have a law. As long as there is no serious negative consequence to the people, I find little reason why it should not be followed. People are emotional right now; it is not wise to act based on emotion alone. I think it would be wise to go back to this quote by Mahatma Gandhi: "We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party."
EDIT: It seems Tsarnaev has been read his Miranda Rights.
Holy guacamole. Alright, let me pull myself together. This incident does not a) indicate that we need to have immigration reform b) reflect on Chechnians as a whole c) mean that we should go bomb Chechnya. Forgive me, I just read this blog post (http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/48547675807/the-definitive-people-who-thought-chechnya-was-the) that just showed how incredibly ignorant and plain racist some people are. Does immigration need reform? Yes. Does this incident mean we need immigration reform? For goodness sake, no. This incident has a fairly minimal connection to problems in the immigration system. It does show the complete spectrum of humanity, however: there are those who ran past the finish line the day of the bombings to the hospital to donate blood, and then there's the Fox News commentators (http://www.hulu.com/watch/482882#i1,p6,d1).
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