You guys don't understand!!
DEC is a joke to most immigrants. Do you think they care if an officer gives them a yellow or pink piece of carbon paper that states they owe $25 per fish or even $250 per fish?? What do they care?
DEC is only a New York state agency. These violators all know that if they don't pay the fine, NOTHING will happen to them. Even if they are LEGALLY here in our Country, most of them (especially in Brooklyn) don't have drivers licenses, don't own houses, and don't have bank accounts. The ONLY thing of value to them in their wallets are their green cards and/or their Visa/Passports. Since those are FEDERAL documents, DEC & New York State have no authority to threaten to take them away to help collect their cheesy fines.
Do you guys realize that DEC presents ZERO threat to these people?? If they have nothing to lose, and DEC has no power to arrest them on the spot, then they will be on those piers EVERY DAY catching food to feed their families and/or to sell on the street for pocket money.
Trust me, don't lose any sleep because in the State of New York there are two sets of rules; one for us and one for immigrants. This is no different than the MILLIONS of dollars of uncollected parking violations that foreign diplomats refuse to pay to the City of New York every year! Our laws, our rules, our fines mean NOTHING to them.
To put it in a way we can understand, when I was younger I was upstate visiting a girl at a small private college. I received a $40 parking ticket from the "campus police" for parking overnight without a student permit. Did I pay it? No! Did I ever worry about it? -No! What did I care? I absolutely did not care because school's rules & government were meaningless to me. I knew that they had no authority to force me to pay that stupid fine. The Spanish guys on the bridge, the day laborers, the Chinese in Brooklyn ALL feel this same away about those STUPID tickets they receive from DEC. They come from countries where true punishments would be a month in prison or losing a few fingers. Received a pink piece of paper with some English writing and numbers on it is something they LAUGH about. IT IS A JOKE TO THEM!
Now think about this, how many of those Chinese guys ever carry ID on them that is written in English??? How many DEC guys speak Chinese??? Most of the time when DEC tries to write a ticket, they can't even get the persons correct name and address.
Finally, like it or not, the DEC agency is responsible for showing New York state that it has the ability to meet its budget each year by bringing in REVENUE. Some of that money comes from licenses and permits. The rest comes from fines. We are their CASH COW because we are the only ones who buy hunting/fishing licenses/permits and we are the only ones they can successfuly colect fines from. If you were a DEC office with a budget and a revenue quota to meet each month, who would you concentrate writing fines to, a group of pennyless immigrants with no permanent addresses or Joey the electrician with a house full of kids, two mortgages and no place to hide? Who is it easier for them to collect money from to keep their agency running??
DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!