What do you think about the immigration law Arizona passed?

David A

I've actually read the law (unlike the Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security or the Presidents of Mexico and the United States) and I support it.

It prohibits officers from stopping anyone based solely on suspicion of being illegally in the nation. The individual must first break another law. The officer can stop this individual for that offense and if he has reason to believe (which cannot solely be based on race of the stopped individual) he may ask the individual to provide some sort of identification. A driver's license is sufficient and unless a fake would prevent the individual from being detained any longer.

The law mirrors federal law and is not unconstitutional.

It is fascinating that the president of the United States support current federal immigration law, but believe an exact copy of the law on the state level is somehow misguided and unconstitutional. Whats worse is the president of Mexico criticizing this law as extreme when his countries law forbids any government official including the police from providing assistance to any foreigner until that foreigner establishes, by appropriate paperwork, that they are in the nation legally.

Hypocrisy at its best.

The state of Arizona spends in excess of 1 billion dollars a year in support for people in this nation illegally. During one of the worse economic downturns since the great depression only a liberal would want to spend money for people illegally obtaining state and federal services, but cut police budgets in cites around the country.

Added in response to somerandomdude's addition. He wrote, "This means if you have a friend who was born and raised in Arizona, but is of Hispanic ethnicity, and this friend is stopped simply due to the potential that he may be an illegal alien but ..." The Arizona law would not allow for a stop or integration for a potential of being an illegal alien. Unless your is stop for an issue unrelated to his immigration status, and unless he is suspected of being in this country illegally for some reason other than his ethnicity, he cannot be asked about his immigration status under the new Arizona law.

Its like this, an officer pulls over a speeding van on a deserted out of the way highway, heading north, with 10 Hispanic males, all dirty, looking scared, none of whom speak English, the officer could not inquire about their immigration status under the old law. Under the new law, he can.

Change the scenario, a bit. Instead of Hispanic, the men are all Arabs, none speak English and all dirty, all are crammed in a van heading north from one of the most porous borders in the world. Would you want an officer to demand some identification or would you prefer the officer just say. "Aw shucks, guys. Have a good day."

LeAnne

In a nut shell, if the federal government won't enforce the laws on immigration, I expect more states will follow Arizona's example.
States and cities cannot survive economically with sanctuary cities and social benefits for anyone who chooses to wade across the Rio Grandee.
Any other argument is simply humanitarian idealism and not based in reality.

Mr. Potato Dick

It's a good start, and 17 more states are proposing similar legislation.

@r1b1c*. "Illegal immigrant" is not a race.

Michelle

Illegal immigrants are here illegally. surprise surprise.

I am for it, because they shouldn't be here in the first place. It is sad that we have to resort to these measures to ensure our country is composed of actual legitimate citizens, but we have to.

People who are here illegally pay less taxes, yet often draw upon government assistance. I have a friend who needed emergency surgery, but medicare would not pay for it because she was not a mother and not here illegally. That is just outright messed up.

Also, with the employment crisis, many jobs are being taken by illegals which are desperately needed by law abiding citizens.

It is awesome that people see America as a land of opportunity, but they need to realize that this is also a nation of law. They can come here, but they need to do it legally. Is that too much to ask?

somerandomdude

I was mostly for it originally, but I had strong concerns about the wording. The original law required only "lawful contact" with an individual before efforts to identify him or her began. While this may not have been the intent of the writers, the door was definitely left open for a less-than-scrupulous police officer to apply his or her own definition to "lawful contact," be that as simple as contact, which does not otherwise violate the law. "Excuse me, Ma'am, but do you have the time? Oh, by the way, papers please?" One of the things US citizens are not supposed to have to worry about is having their 'papers' about them at all times. Using a required document to operate a vehicle or in the course of employment is one thing, but when you're walking to the ice cream stand, you shouldn't have to have ID on you. While the vast majority of law enforcement would have served the intent of the law, there are always some who would have used this as an excuse to detain and identify anyone they pleased, and certainly those of hispanic origin would have borne the brunt of this. While I have no sympathy for illegal immigrants (which I view as a slap in the face of the millions who jumped through the hoops and did it the right way) I think we can all agree that US citizens, regardless of race, should be free of such petty and invasive stops.

The new version, I am led to understand, has more-carefully defined the requirements of a lawful contact to mean that probable cause to stop has to already exist for another reason. (Stop them for running a red light and believe they might be illegal, then ID them, rather than the previous pitifully-vague definition) This does not trouble me as much as the original, though I do suspect we will see some very creative interpretations of probable cause in the near future.

At the very least, however, a police officer is now forced to choose one of two options. They must either see genuine probable cause to stop, or they must lie and create it where there is none. This may not be a very big protection, but it does prevent them from acting with legal impunity. Now, they would have to risk their credibility if they want to "shake down" someone without good reason.

As far as the concept of hispanics being stopped more often than others, I don't know if there is a way to avoid that. If the root of the problem was Canadian illegals rather than Mexican illegals, it would simply be more caucasians being stopped. The problem there is that people will use whatever they can as a shield, including the race issue, while the only way to identify illegals from Mexico is to stop hispanics. This pushes the government into two choices. Inconvenience US citizens during the search for illegals or simply not try to stop the illegals. There's a middle ground in there somewhere, which everyone can if not support then tolerate, but it will take a good amount of experimentation and probably many legal battles to find it.

You would probably find the argument about racial profiling vs. criminal profiling to be interesting and possibly enlightening. It's not as easy as you may think to draw a heavy, visible line between the two. One is necessary for law enforcement to be the least bit effective and the other is simply racism used in the abuse of authority.

* added:

One thing I would like to have seen in the revision was a stipulation to further protect the US citizen from the relaxed probable cause requirement. One of the protections US citizens enjoy is the freedom from unlawful search and seizure. This means, unless they present the police with probable cause or at the very least reasonable suspicion (weapons) they are free to come and go as they please. While it is easy to say "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about," it is also easy to realize that the average person cannot go about their day without, at some point, doing something wrong. Each State has volume after volume of laws, many of which are unknown to the common citizen, and many laws are broken in the course of a day for that reason. Imagine the police no longer needing probable cause to search you. Simply put, they "decide" you might be illegal and attempt to identify you. If you cannot properly identify yourself as a legal citizen, you will be taken into custody and with that comes a search incident to arrest.

While the probable cause requirement in this revision is somewhat comforting, I would have liked to see a restriction, in that any evidence seized or discovered during an immigration stop can not be used for any other evidential purpose than the illegal immigration trial. This means if you have a friend who was born and raised in Arizona, but is of hispanic ethnicity, and this friend is stopped simply due to the potential that he may be an illegal alien but is found with a weapon for personal protection, alcohol under age, or even a body in the trunk, the evidence is suppressed due to the use of relaxed probable cause standards in the stop. Of course, if he behaves in a way that presents probable cause to believe he's committed these crimes then it would still stand, but it would help to prevent the immigration provision being used as a tool of violating the provisions of the 4th Amendment which would otherwise protect us all from unreasonable search.

** edit **

David, I guess I didn't write that well. I was trying to point out what I feel to be the difference between the original law, when "lawful contact" was not defined, and the revision. I think the revision helps.

GoGo Girls

I support it 100%. I hate law breakers.

Nina

Its freakin racist!!! Now we're gonna have a bunch of Mexicans getting tickets just because police are looking for people to deport.

r1b1c*

It is unconstitutional and will not stand up to the legal challenges it faces.

I disapprove of it for those reasons and because at it's core it is an inherently racist law. We, as a nation, are not racists.

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