Arizona Immigration Law Debate: Analysis
Much ado has been made of Arizona’s recently passed immigration bill. It is set to go into law officially at midnight. The Federal Government is actually suing the state of Arizona to prevent the law from ever going into effect. Having read many editorials and seen news reports of protests and boycotts of Arizona, I decided to take a deeper look into the bill and see what the details are. My research and subsequent notes reveal some interesting tidbits I will share below.
Like many political issues, I refuse to believe everything I see and hear on TV and the radio as absolute fact. If I believed everything in the news and popular beliefs of the day: the earth would have been flat for thousands of years, we were all going to die of a new ice age in the 1970s, and Barack Obama is really a bipolar president flipping identities between Lenin and Jesus.
Just before I started my own process of research by reading the actual bill, a thought popped into my head which will simply not go away. The same groups of people who protested and marched in support of government run health care, who trust the government to oversee their universal health care without bias; don’t trust the government when it comes to immigration policy? Huh? You think the government is going to implement a Nazi-like roundup of people who look different on a daily basis and, at the same time, you are willing to trust the government with your very lives on issues of your health, that they will always put your best interests first without regard to any social, race or age bias whatsoever? Wow, that must be some Kool Aid.
But, I still need to read the actual bill to see if cops are going to be simply engaged in Gringo Gestapo activity. For sure, if the bill calls for cops to simply randomly pull over suspected illegal aliens by profiling, no reasonable person, myself included, would support the bill’s passage in my state or any other, and no court in the land would allow it to stand.
So, how big is this bill? Is it hard to find? The entire bill is 747 lines of text. If you would like to read it for yourself, you can at: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf.
The bill is broken out into sections dealing with the various issues: Cooperation and assistance in enforcement of immigration laws; trespassing by illegal aliens; smuggling, unlawful stopping to hire and pick up passengers for work on public roadways; unlawful transportation, moving, and harboring of illegal aliens; knowingly employing illegal aliens; verification of employment eligibility; and vehicle immobilization or impoundment.
As I began reading the bill, the first section rendered one of the main arguments made against the law mute. It reads, "For any lawful contact by a law enforcement officer...". From all the protests, hub-bub and general diatribes in the news media, you would think Nazi agents were taking over Arizona and making everyone show papers in public. What the law actually says is "lawful contact". So, can officers legally run around now asking anyone who appears foreign for documentation? No. Hell no. It is called profiling and the state and federal courts have shown repeatedly over the years that is not legal. So, the main argument I have heard is hysteria from an uninformed public.
Also, in doing my research on this issue, I found this interesting tidbit of information: Rhode Island already has implemented this critical piece of the Arizona law, checking the immigration status of people stopped for traffic violations where there is a reasonable suspicion, and reporting all illegals to federal authorities for deportation. Yes, Rhode Island. Hardly a bastion of right-wing ultra conservatives. They are not being sued by the federal government. How interesting.
While we are on that particular provision and concern, let me ask: Are officers allowed to ask for official identification when they arrest, pull over, or otherwise detain someone? Yes. You may recall, "license and registration" on a traffic stop. It is completely legal and reasonable. An easy adjustment to the whole ordeal would be the procedures for getting a drivers license or state-issued ID. Require anyone with a foreign birth certificate to present immigration papers then, and just issue proper ID to those who are legally in the US. Problem solved. If they don't have a U.S. issued ID, then ask for their papers. Totally reasonable.
The portion of the bill which makes it illegal for so-called sanctuary cities and employment of illegal aliens are all perfectly legal and have so far passed the legal scrutiny. Having a group of people who refuse to enforce the law is itself a crime now, as it should be. And if there are no jobs for illegal aliens, then they will be inclined to go elsewhere. If any employer gives a job to an illegal alien over an American citizen, it should be a crime. We are in a major recession. We need all the jobs we can get.
The provisions making it against the law to have day laborers block traffic and for people to hire them on the side of the road and such is also a perfectly reasonable and legally enforceable act. I am surprised nobody has pointed out the other obvious benefit of this, as it will keep employers from putting day laborers into extremely dangerous situations simply because they can. Those employers should be punished, harshly. If that person is injured, even if they are not here legally, it is a crime against a fellow human being. The perpetrator should be prosecuted.
So, it appears the sticking point is all over the requirement of checking on someone's status. Something Rhode Island is already doing. I think the states can reasonably come up with some way of signifying a person's citizenship status on all state issued identification, with some changes for temporary workers and others here legally. This will mean an officer can check my citizenship status every time he pulls me (or ANYONE else) over too. As it should be.
Really I am at a loss to understand all the stink over this. We have a limited amount of education, health care and government dollars. We have a finite number of jobs in this country. Trying to ensure law abiding citizens are the ones who get these limited resources is not only the legal thing to do, it is the right thing to do.
In closing, it is obvious to most everyone, Uncle Sam pretending this isn't a problem sure has not worked in solving illegal immigration. I could cover the political conspiracy theories behind some of the protests too, but there is no need. Polling data shows between 65-75% of the population support the bill. The lawmakers who passed this bill will be subject to voting this November. If this bill is so remarkably bad, illegal and unpopular, there will be a tidal wave of change. But, I will bet the opposite is going to occur. Illegal immigration is a problem, and if AZ solves their problem with this bill, and drive non-legal aliens elsewhere, you will see other states react quickly by enacting the same kind of legislation.
The court battles will be quite interesting and I predict this will wind up in the Supreme Court before too long. The 10th Amendment provisions, issues of state's rights to enforce law when the federal government fails to uphold it's own laws, and the issues of legal immigration are all going to be central to the debate.
So, you can either continue to blindly follow the news media and believe everything you see and hear on the news, or you can educate yourself and make an informed decision. I hope people everywhere at least take a stand based on their own beliefs and not simply following like lemmings, whether on the issue of immigration policy, gay marriage, abortion, property rights, gun rights, or whatever the topic.
Like many political issues, I refuse to believe everything I see and hear on TV and the radio as absolute fact. If I believed everything in the news and popular beliefs of the day: the earth would have been flat for thousands of years, we were all going to die of a new ice age in the 1970s, and Barack Obama is really a bipolar president flipping identities between Lenin and Jesus.
Just before I started my own process of research by reading the actual bill, a thought popped into my head which will simply not go away. The same groups of people who protested and marched in support of government run health care, who trust the government to oversee their universal health care without bias; don’t trust the government when it comes to immigration policy? Huh? You think the government is going to implement a Nazi-like roundup of people who look different on a daily basis and, at the same time, you are willing to trust the government with your very lives on issues of your health, that they will always put your best interests first without regard to any social, race or age bias whatsoever? Wow, that must be some Kool Aid.
But, I still need to read the actual bill to see if cops are going to be simply engaged in Gringo Gestapo activity. For sure, if the bill calls for cops to simply randomly pull over suspected illegal aliens by profiling, no reasonable person, myself included, would support the bill’s passage in my state or any other, and no court in the land would allow it to stand.
So, how big is this bill? Is it hard to find? The entire bill is 747 lines of text. If you would like to read it for yourself, you can at: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf.
The bill is broken out into sections dealing with the various issues: Cooperation and assistance in enforcement of immigration laws; trespassing by illegal aliens; smuggling, unlawful stopping to hire and pick up passengers for work on public roadways; unlawful transportation, moving, and harboring of illegal aliens; knowingly employing illegal aliens; verification of employment eligibility; and vehicle immobilization or impoundment.
As I began reading the bill, the first section rendered one of the main arguments made against the law mute. It reads, "For any lawful contact by a law enforcement officer...". From all the protests, hub-bub and general diatribes in the news media, you would think Nazi agents were taking over Arizona and making everyone show papers in public. What the law actually says is "lawful contact". So, can officers legally run around now asking anyone who appears foreign for documentation? No. Hell no. It is called profiling and the state and federal courts have shown repeatedly over the years that is not legal. So, the main argument I have heard is hysteria from an uninformed public.
Also, in doing my research on this issue, I found this interesting tidbit of information: Rhode Island already has implemented this critical piece of the Arizona law, checking the immigration status of people stopped for traffic violations where there is a reasonable suspicion, and reporting all illegals to federal authorities for deportation. Yes, Rhode Island. Hardly a bastion of right-wing ultra conservatives. They are not being sued by the federal government. How interesting.
While we are on that particular provision and concern, let me ask: Are officers allowed to ask for official identification when they arrest, pull over, or otherwise detain someone? Yes. You may recall, "license and registration" on a traffic stop. It is completely legal and reasonable. An easy adjustment to the whole ordeal would be the procedures for getting a drivers license or state-issued ID. Require anyone with a foreign birth certificate to present immigration papers then, and just issue proper ID to those who are legally in the US. Problem solved. If they don't have a U.S. issued ID, then ask for their papers. Totally reasonable.
The portion of the bill which makes it illegal for so-called sanctuary cities and employment of illegal aliens are all perfectly legal and have so far passed the legal scrutiny. Having a group of people who refuse to enforce the law is itself a crime now, as it should be. And if there are no jobs for illegal aliens, then they will be inclined to go elsewhere. If any employer gives a job to an illegal alien over an American citizen, it should be a crime. We are in a major recession. We need all the jobs we can get.
The provisions making it against the law to have day laborers block traffic and for people to hire them on the side of the road and such is also a perfectly reasonable and legally enforceable act. I am surprised nobody has pointed out the other obvious benefit of this, as it will keep employers from putting day laborers into extremely dangerous situations simply because they can. Those employers should be punished, harshly. If that person is injured, even if they are not here legally, it is a crime against a fellow human being. The perpetrator should be prosecuted.
So, it appears the sticking point is all over the requirement of checking on someone's status. Something Rhode Island is already doing. I think the states can reasonably come up with some way of signifying a person's citizenship status on all state issued identification, with some changes for temporary workers and others here legally. This will mean an officer can check my citizenship status every time he pulls me (or ANYONE else) over too. As it should be.
Really I am at a loss to understand all the stink over this. We have a limited amount of education, health care and government dollars. We have a finite number of jobs in this country. Trying to ensure law abiding citizens are the ones who get these limited resources is not only the legal thing to do, it is the right thing to do.
In closing, it is obvious to most everyone, Uncle Sam pretending this isn't a problem sure has not worked in solving illegal immigration. I could cover the political conspiracy theories behind some of the protests too, but there is no need. Polling data shows between 65-75% of the population support the bill. The lawmakers who passed this bill will be subject to voting this November. If this bill is so remarkably bad, illegal and unpopular, there will be a tidal wave of change. But, I will bet the opposite is going to occur. Illegal immigration is a problem, and if AZ solves their problem with this bill, and drive non-legal aliens elsewhere, you will see other states react quickly by enacting the same kind of legislation.
The court battles will be quite interesting and I predict this will wind up in the Supreme Court before too long. The 10th Amendment provisions, issues of state's rights to enforce law when the federal government fails to uphold it's own laws, and the issues of legal immigration are all going to be central to the debate.
So, you can either continue to blindly follow the news media and believe everything you see and hear on the news, or you can educate yourself and make an informed decision. I hope people everywhere at least take a stand based on their own beliefs and not simply following like lemmings, whether on the issue of immigration policy, gay marriage, abortion, property rights, gun rights, or whatever the topic.
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