Last week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a statewide law forcing local police officers to question and potentially detain anyone they "reasonably suspect" to be an undocumented immigrant. If you believe our local law enforcement agencies, who will be required to implement the mandates of this law, it will lead to mistrust between police and the people they have sworn to protect. The law violates due process, civil rights, and federal sovereignty over immigration policy. While I believe the courts will quickly overturn it, I am concerned that the damage to my home state's credibility has already been done.
Arizona has long been the epicenter of our national immigration debate. Unfortunately, that debate has been driven by extremists like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is under a federal investigation for civil rights abuses. Arpaio, like Gov. Brewer, seems to believe that every immigrant is equally capable of being a violent drug dealer to be dealt with harshly. Although this belief has no basis in fact, it has been the foundation of a fear-based campaign against immigrants and people of Hispanic descent for years.
Indeed, opportunistic political voices have worked hard to make a connection between crime and immigration where none exists. Forget the rhetoric for a moment and consider the facts. In 2008, the Immigration Policy Center found that on the national level, U.S.-born men aged 18 to 39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants. While the number of undocumented immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35 percent and property crimes by 26 percent over the same period.
Unfortunately, this information doesn't change the way people think about immigration. It's become a gut reaction issue. If you think immigrants are criminals, then a law targeting anyone "reasonably suspected" of being an immigrant sounds like a good idea. Even though prominent officials at all levels - from President Obama to border county sheriffs - have called the law unjust and counterproductive, there will always be a constituency for this kind of punitive measure.
Turning immigrants into scapegoats for every social and economic setback is not what America should be about. The new Arizona law has introduced the unspoken word "race" into the debate. By promoting racial profiling as a legal tool, it has effectively unmasked a very real motivation for some people to oppose meaningful immigration reform.
I believe we need comprehensive, nationwide immigration reform, and while we continue to debate what that should look like, I believe the laws of this country should be enforced and respected. Those laws include the principle that the federal government, not state or local authorities, sets immigration policy. States can no more supersede federal immigration law than enter into their own treaties with foreign governments. By inventing a new way for local officials to treat American citizens as potential criminals, Arizona has violated that principle. The state has said, in effect, that if you're walking down the street and forgot your wallet at home, you could be hauled downtown because you look like an undocumented immigrant. That's not how the rule of law works in this country.
On a practical level, local law enforcement agencies do not have the manpower or financial capacity to serve triple duty as street cops, Border Patrol agents and Immigration & Customs Enforcement officers. Conservatives who worry about government overreach and unfunded mandates should be up in arms about this law. Their silence is disappointing. This is not a left-right issue, it's a question of basic Constitutional process.
Voters should not be blind to the troubling aspects of this law: it sets a legal precedent that anyone "reasonably suspected" of a crime is subject to questioning and search without a warrant, and it suggests that other states should feel free to invent their own immigration laws. This is not a road we want to travel any further down than we already have. This law should be overturned without delay, and Congress should take up comprehensive reform the same day.
As far as what that reform should look like, I remain a proud co-sponsor of H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009. That bill takes a broad-based approach. It would protect our borders by requiring the development and implementation of border security initiatives, including information-sharing, international and federal-state-local coordination, technology exchanges, anti-smuggling initiatives, and other actions to secure the borders. It creates new opportunities for young people who were raised here, worked hard in school, and want to pursue higher education or serve their country in the military to adjust their immigration status. It requires employers to comply with new employee document verification requirements and creates a phased-in electronic employment verification system. It creates a path to legalization by requiring undocumented immigrants to register with the government, submit to a criminal background check, pay any back taxes and speak English.
This is what real reform looks like: focusing on the realities of our immigration system, not the myths and falsehoods that have led us to where we are now in Arizona.
There is already a verification system called "E-Verify" It was proven to work but but congress refuses to make it law for employers to use it. Put that into law with stiff penalties and I think it would help keep more employers on the straight and narrow.
Legalization, you say? The way it's described is easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens than those who do it right. Many people spend years, thousands of dollars and all of thier time in thier country for the right to come here and work.
So People who sneak in should have the difficult path to citizenship reduced to a formality?!!!
It is not racist or hateful to want everyone to have to follow the same path to citizenship.
In fact, amnesty is direspectful to everyone of any color or origin whose grandparents, parents or themselves have gone through the grind America requires to become a citizen. Becoming a citizen is not even easy for people in American territories, but you would make it easy for people who violated our laws? People should be outraged at that idea, not that Arizona proposes to enforce laws the Federal government does not.
The 14th and 4th amendments activey addressed these issues long before the Hispanics strated to spread racially motivated hysteria. Minority rights derive from the constitution and laws. What is troubling is the spin that everyone is putting on it. Selective morality is what got us into this mess.
We have to strat somewhere and this is a good a place as any. We do however have to respect peoples rights and apply the law even handedly. So I ask what will be the first thing that happens when the officials encounter someone who speaks spanish and has no english. Chances are that a hispanic police officer will be asked to conduct the interview. Not some white cop who is looking for excuses to discriminate against brown people.
Probable cause and reasonable suspicion are not terms invented to create panic. They derive preceident and meaning for case law - which is where this bill will be tested. Innocent till proven guilty - that should apply to this law as well. The presumption that all law enfoprcement are going to go on the rampage is rediculous.
Profiling is not automatically racism but if 1 in 20 drivers on the road is illegal I say put up road blocks and check everybody's drivers license.
Estimated Hispanic population of the USA = 47 million. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/013984.html
Estimated Illegal Mexican population 15 Million based on monies remitted to mexico in 2005 ( 16 million in 2005 and an estimated 1 million returned due to the economic downturn) with 4 - 6 million non mexican illegal immigrants
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/013984.html
Her claim of 80% of law enforcement officers killed by illegals is unsupported by the most recent data from the FBI if she is referring to Arizona or the Nation as a whole. She's pulling these numbers from somewhere other than legitimate sources.
12 OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL
13 SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE THAT ADOPTS OR IMPLEMENTS A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR
14 RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL
15 EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW. IF THERE IS A JUDICIAL FINDING THAT AN
16 ENTITY HAS VIOLATED THIS SECTION, THE COURT SHALL ORDER ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
17 1. THAT THE PERSON WHO BROUGHT THE ACTION RECOVER COURT COSTS AND
18 ATTORNEY FEES.
19 2. THAT THE ENTITY PAY A CIVIL PENALTY OF NOT LESS THAN ONE THOUSAND
20 DOLLARS AND NOT MORE THAN FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR EACH DAY THAT THE POLICY
21 HAS REMAINED IN EFFECT AFTER THE FILING OF AN ACTION PURSUANT TO THIS
22 SUBSECTION
These parts of the law say "they better care."
As far as the other laws you speak of, there has never been a cop ordered by the city not to arrest people for those crimes except the last. Congress orders them not to do that.
BTW, the executive branch of government at both the state and federal level is who sets the priorities and sets enforcement policy for law enforcement. So I call BS on your "Congress orders them not to do that" comment and challenge you to cite the Congressional bill or statute that orders federal or state law enforcement agents not to arrest white collar criminals.
NO AMNESTY. NO CITIZENSHIP. We should reform our guest worker program, to make it easier for migrant workers to come here to work for a living wage. But giving our illegals a path to citizenship? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
http://www.justice.gov/dea/fugitives/fuglist.htm
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/MostWanted.shtml#Most_Wanted_by_Organization
It would seem to me that the way to correct the problem in question is to correct the law, accepting drivers' licenses for those states that will confirm citizenship status. We should link the DoL and other databases anyway. At least, Arizona is doing something.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/the-cholla-jumps/2010/05/01/state-senator-sylvia-allen-responds-to-sb1070/
Illegals aliens, specifically mexicans, should go back and raise hell in their own country. Their weak presidente Calderon is doomed to lose his war on drugs. But he needs the money sent down south from good old Estados Unidos. He probably won't make it anyway. He is outmanned, and outgunned from the git go.
As for Bush being a "scapegoat," that GOP talking point borders on the risible. Bush maxed out our American Express card, entangled us in two strictly optional wars of empire, eviscerated the Department of Justice, dismantled our manufacturing base ... I could go on and on. Heckuva job, Bushie! Colorado got saddled with that [unprintable] self-absorbed horse association president Michael Brown, who belongs in prison for honest services mail fraud in connection with Katrina. No, there is nothing good that can be said about the Bush Error.
Tyson Foods.
McDonalds.
do a search online.
Just admit that you want to crush the US middle class and you will never secure the borders.
For the "Viva, Viva, Reconquista" crowd, I would suggest that you spend a little time south of the border, to see what America will look like if trends continue. Mexico is actually a fairly wealthy country, but wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few; it's GINI score approaches 70. This is the America you want?
NO AMNESTY. NO PATH TO CITIZENSHIP. LET'S PRESERVE THE MIDDLE CLASS.