Rhode Island Police to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge

[left-of-center2012]

Source: Bloomberg news

Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday. On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York and demand 14 days of self-quarantine.

“Right now we have a pinpointed risk,” Governor Gina Raimondo said. “That risk is called New York City.”

New York is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., on Friday reporting a total of 44,000 cases. Rhode Island has just over 200, and it has begun an aggressive campaign to keep the virus out and New Yorkers contained, over objections from civil liberties advocates.

Raimondo, a Democrat, said she had consulted lawyers and said while she couldn’t close the border, she felt confident she could enforce a quarantine.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/rhode-island-police-to-hunt-down-new-yorkers-seeking-refuge?srnd=premium

---

Many New Yorkers have summer houses in Rhode Island, especially in tony Newport, and the governor said the authorities would be checking there.

“Yesterday I announced and today I reiterated: Anyone coming to Rhode Island in any way from New York must be quarantined,” the governor said. “By order. Will be enforced. Enforceable by law.” Raimondo signed an executive order Thursday that applies to anyone who has been in New York during the past two weeks and through at least April 25.

[elleng]

1. Please excuse, but I wanna laugh!

(I also want to visit RI, next summer/fall maybe.)

[tulipsandroses]

3. This is where we are. People being hunted. Its like a zombie apocalypse

What a mess.

[Mrs. Overall]

4. At first I thought this article was satire.

It's not. Wow.

[gldstwmn]

5. I grew up in RI and it's different to

say the least. But if you own property there how can she say you can't go there? You pay taxes there.
Are they going to Taylor Swift's house in Watch Hill?

[Marrah_Goodman]

14. No one is saying they can't come here

They are saying they must self quarantine for 14 days and give their contact information so officials can check and make sure they are abiding by the rules.

[gldstwmn]

17. My bad. I thought she was considering

closing off the borders. I've read so much today I can't keep it all straight.

[nilram]

26. A friend lives in rural NY and has a 90-year old mother with Alzheimer's in RI.

She commutes weekly to see her. Is RI requiring her to quarantine for 14 days with each weekly commute?

[ripcord]

42. That is non essential travel and she should be staying home

But yes every time she has to go into quarantine each time but hopefully she will show some common sense.

[nilram]

45. The issue isn't "travel," the issue is contact with others.

And every state's Stay at Home order that I've read allows people to care for the sick and elderly.

[ripcord]

46. You said she commutes weekly to see her

That is not caring, that is visiting. At 91 with alzheimer's I assume she is in assisted living, states are advising people against visiting elder care facilities because they are particularly susceptible to the virus.

[47of74]

6. Yeah and what if it's a rental car that happens to have New York plates?

Last edited Fri Mar 27, 2020, 09:46 PM - Edit history (1)

So that should subject people to harassment just having a certain state's plates on a vehicle that might not have even been in the state in a couple months and been cleaned multiple times?

I don't care what party Raimondo is a member of. If she's going to wipe herself with the Constitution even in the middle of a pandemic I'm going to have a problem with it. If we open these emergency power doors too wide we'll never be able to get them shut again.

Oh, and before people mount their high horses, about three years ago I rented a vehicle in Iowa that had New York plates on it. I've rented vehicles that had Texas plates on them even though I've never been to Texas in my whole fucking life. The rental agency sure as fuck didn't ask me if I cared what state's plates were on the vehicle. And there are times when people have to rent because their primary vehicle is out of commission due to an accident.

[paleotn]

9. If your license is from a state other than NY, you're good.

I wish Gov. Scott would do the same in VT as we are also having an early influx of summer complaints. Since our population is less than any other state except freaking Wyoming, we have very limited medical resources. RI may be in the same boat resource wise. So don't come up here, get sick and crash, and use resources meant to VT residents. If you're sick, or from a highly infected area, stay the fuck home. Please don't spread it around, particularly to places without the resources of NY.

[Blues Heron]

7. Good

Quarantines may be enforced that's old, settled common sense principles. The constitution says nothing about quarantines being illegal, that's ludicrous.

[PatSeg]

8. That is really creepy

[paleotn]

10. But necessary to arrest the spread.

It's simple epidemiology.

[47of74]

12. Yeah

What keeps me awake at night is that if this ever ends that Republican and even some Democratic politicians are going to acquire a taste for emergency powers and will keep coming up with excuses to keep them even if the virus itself is wiped off the face of the Earth. I've said it before and will say it fucking again. I will be. Five. Fucking. Days. Dead. Before. I. Ever. Trust. Anyone. With. Emergency Powers.

[PatSeg]

18. I remember

how quickly and easily congress gave GW Bush "emergency powers" and how he used it. And how the government militarized state and local police forces out of fear and things have never been the same since.

I do understand the need for emergency powers, but sadly, there will always be some people who will misuse or abuse those powers. I suppose it is unavoidable.

[47of74]

20. I am always going to be a hard ass about emergency powers.

I am concerned unless we are absolute hard asses about emergency powers and are watching our governments like hawks to ensure that they are limited to only what is absolutely necessary that very soon we will have our very own Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich as well as Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat laws getting passed. And as Senator Amidala said in Revenge of the Sith our liberty will die to thunderous applause.

[The Mouth]

28. There is always going to have to be a balance between

pandemic and police state. There is an extreme of each where one or the other is worse.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. STATEMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: "Anyone who has left New York should self-quarantine."

4 days ago reported in The New York Times

[Marrah_Goodman]

13. The title is a bit dramatic

People from NY are required to self -quarantine for 14 days when they come into the state. The "hunting down" is just officials getting their contact information and following up to make sure they are abiding by the rules.

[left-of-center2012]

15. The "hunting down" is just officials getting their contact information

Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday.

On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches
to find people who traveled from New York
and demand 14 days of self-quarantine.

[Marrah_Goodman]

16. Yup

And I have no problem with this. People should be staying home. This is my state, my daughter and grandaughter and both healthcare workers in hospitals. Lots of my friends and loved ones are in the at risk category. I applaud my Governor for doing as much as she can to keep the state safe.

[47of74]

19. And when my front door comes crashing in to a National Guard boot

In order to ensure my loyalty to a particular state government then what? This has the potential to go south real fast.

I may sound like a broken record but I don't and I will fucking never trust anyone of any political stripe with emergency powers. Not with the track record emergency powers have had to date. My fear is that even after the virus stops to be a threat too many - Republicans and some Democrats - will find they like the taste of emergency powers and having their boots on the throats of others to give them up willingly.

[Marrah_Goodman]

22. Let me fix that for you

When there comes a knock on your front door you simply open it, say hello, answer a few questions and then say goodbye. Unless of course, you are not home where you are required to be during quarantine. Then they might have a few choice words for you when they find you...and a fine.

[Marrah_Goodman]

24. I think we will never agree on this

Feel free to put me on ignore. It doesn't bother me.

[FBaggins]

32. What kind of lawyer would you be?

That would be “one who understands the constitution”... as opposed to whatever your specialty actually is.

Court precedent going back about two centuries recognizes that the states have the power to pass laws regarding quarantines (Marshall’s unanimous Gibbons v. Ogden comes to mind). RI has such a law and vests the governor with the necessary powers. They are not made up emergency powers, nor are they sweeping and unlimited.

[bubbazero]

37. Thank You

While reading and enjoying this thread, (in particular this;.................The Constitution does not go away because of the pandemic and what the fuck kind of lawyer would I be if I simply bent over backwards to demands to grant others sweeping and unlimited powers. Nope. Not going to do it. About eighty five years ago people bent over backwards and millions of dead men, women, and children were the result. The United States Constitution is a firewall against such people and it's our job to make sure that firewall stays intact whether you like it or not..............) I sensed some frustration on your part. For encouragement please lookup King Christian of Denmark during WWII. Amazing what one simple star, and one simple horse ride can do for a country! You clearly are an individual of significant intellectual capacity---keep bringing that to DU. Me; I's are an old, dumb rural redneck type--genus Bubbazoid_--who for some reason likes to learn. (it's a mutation I guess) Posters like yourself keep me coming to DU--have for years--even thru the slow (dial-up) years. I'd rather come hear to learn with posters like you............thanks, Bubbazero

[Renew Deal]

21. Rhode Island better remember where West Point is located

[rickford66]

25. We need rewards and bounty hunters.

Scarlet "V's" on foreheads. Must we carry "papers" ? Underground railroads ? Safe houses ?

[Karma13612]

27. Well, Northern NY

Is another hot spot of summer vacation homes along the St Lawrence River as well as in the Adirondacks.

Now our numbers will climb as well.

And we DEFINITELY don’t have enuf resources, you can count on that!

[NutmegYankee]

29. Liberty is dying right in front of us.

Capt. Vasili Borodin:
I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?

Captain Ramius:
I suppose.

Capt. Vasili Borodin:
No papers?

Captain Ramius:
No papers, state to state.

Turn around Ramius, cowards have murdered freedom! Good bye right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.

[Bayard]

31. Escape from New York.....

I could see the whole country going bonkers over the virus. Shelter at home becoming house arrest.

It never would have been a good time to have trump in office, but him overseeing a national disaster is a nightmare.

[Demovictory9]

34. exactly

[Demovictory9]

33. reminds me of Katrina - when some cities and states blocked their borders

[Jack-o-Lantern]

35. National Guard troops banging on doors, harassment, fines, jail maybe for crossing state lines?

So America has come to this??...no words.

[47of74]

38. Yeah

Unfortunately I can see many governors getting to like emergency powers and being very reluctant to give them up after the emergency has actually passed. They'll come up with excuse after excuse as to why they can't give them up just yet.

[EllieBC]

43. And too many people cheering it on.

I’m appalled at the amount of Canadians wishing and hoping Trudeau uses his power to do cellular tracking and to impose martial law (I don’t think it’s possible in Canada).

Those who wish the government had such powers don’t understand it can eventually harm them.

[47of74]

44. A lot of people don't understand you cannot unring a bell

There needs to be checks because some officials absolutely will not give up their emergency powers when the emergency is over and will turn towards to harming those they wish to harm. Some officials absolutely will see the current situation as it being open season on the Constitution and able to do what they want with no repercussions. I'm worried the Kluxer contingent in law enforcement and the military will see this as the gloves being taken off.

The cheerleaders - here and elsewhere - refuse to acknowledge if we give up all our rights to such officials good luck getting them back anytime soon.

[Thunderbeast]

36. A friend of mine in Paris was fined 175 Euro

She was sitting alone on a park bench 1,500 meters from her house. In France, you are only allowed to be 1,000 meters from home without a permit.

[catsudon]

39. taiwan will fine up to 30k usd

however, that only applies to people who broken mandatory self-quarantine, who are being monitored


the fine includes force quarantine

[Kathy M]

40. This was on CNN

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory urging people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to "refrain from non-essential domestic travel" for the next two weeks.

President Donald Trump had asked the CDC on Saturday to issue the advisory after he had floated the idea of a quarantine earlier in the day. "
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/28/politics/trump-new-york-new-jersey-quarantine-coronavirus/index.html

"The CDC urges residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately. This Domestic Travel Advisory does not apply to employees of critical infrastructure industries, including but not limited to trucking, public health professionals, financial services, and food supply. These employees of critical infrastructure, as defined by the Department of Homeland Security (https://www.cisa.gov/publication/guidance-essential-critical-infrastructure-workforceexternal icon) have a special responsibility to maintain normal work schedule. The Governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will have full discretion to implement this Domestic Travel Advisory."

More at link https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/travel-in-the-us.html

[EllieBC]

41. We have a snitch line up here.

So if you misunderstand what self isolate after travel means and you see someone that you thought hasn’t been doing it long enough out jogging at 10pm you can call and try to get them fined or get them jail time.

Which is laughable because Canada doesn’t even put child molesters in jail for very long.

People are turning into maniacs.