I’m sure it’s posted somewhere, but what does constitute reasonable suspicion that someone’s an illegal alien? It’s one thing if someone is seen climbing over a border fence and then running like hell. But, how about IRL away from the fence?
It’s not even intended to. It’s just a hateful, xenophobic piece of totalitarian legislation intended to intimidate an entire race of people.
There is one condition under which this might well apply. That is the condition that all of our police officers are paragons of civic virtue, that they are universally and without exception persons of spotless personal commitment to the values of a free society. Officers like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, for instance? Peace officers of such faultless virtue as to shame the angels, they will not abuse such liberties.
Ordinary people, I fear, might not be so perfect. And what if, by some malign miracle, a person of lesser moral fiber than the legendary Sheriff Joe, what if one of them should slip through our rigorous screening? What if an actual bad person were, by some dreadful oversight, were allowed to pin the holy badge of merit to his shirt?
I have met some policemen who, in my opinion, truly and sincerely believe in the motto To Protect and To Serve. My admiration for such men is boundless. I’ve nothing whatever to fear from such men.
I’ve also met the other kind. Have you?
“Very well, citzen, your papers are in order. Please remove your trousers. so that we may check that your phallic dimensions fall within legal limits. Rather small, isn’t it, sir? Are you Japanese, by any chance, or Republican?..”
Don’t give Sheriff Arpaio **more **ideas.
And someone said that we should give presumption of innocence to the police when enforcing this law, Arpaio’s history says otherwise.
You can argue that it is a violation of the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. You can also argue that it is a restriction of your right to travel and/or infringes on your right of privacy. That would make it counter to the 1st Amendment.
I can see big time court cases being generated by Arizonan prejudice.
Like Bernie Kerik?
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Bernie’d’ve had this ‘license to hassle’ implemented years ago.
We really should start stopping ‘possible tea partiers’ to check that their concealed carry permits are in order.
Well that’s not disingenuous at all. You may disagree that it should be illegal, but I don’t need to troll through congressional law books to prove to you that it’s illegal to enter this country by sneaking across a border, or to stay and work without authorization.
So, again, are you of the opinion that there should be no immigration control in this country? Anybody who gets here, by whatever means, and in whatever numbers, should, in effect, have the rights of citizenship…? Or does this only apply to Mexicans trying to enter land won (or if you like, stolen) in the Mexican-American War? Seriously, I’m curious.
Racial discrimination.
Irrelevant
It’s not their job to go after illegals, and no, it doesn’t make it ok to profile Hispanics. Most Hispanic people in the US are here legally.
No, you should be looking for people you have reason to believe are in a meth ring, and it’s not about “looking,” it’s about legally requiring people of a target ethnic group to conform to a law that is not required of people outside that group. It’s racist discrimination which presumes that anyboy with brown skin is guilty of a crime until proven otherwise.
This idea of “doing next to nothing to stop illegal immigration” is patently false. I’ve spent plenty of time in southern Arizona and the change in the number of Border patrol agents you see is astounding compared to what you would have seen 10 years ago. Last November I was in the Chiricahuas and the place was literally crawling with the Border Patrol, and I saw the same level of saturation of BP all the way to Organ Pipe. Any of the posters here from Arizona can attest to that. In fact, it’s the same all along the border, I’ve seen the same in New Mexico and Texas.
Now it is true that this had been in response to the drug smuggling as much, if not more so, than the immigrants, but to call it next to nothing is to illustrate your ignorance on what is being done.
The Constitution vests Congress with the power to handle immigration laws.
Article I, Section 8 says, in relevant part: “The Congress shall have Power…To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”
Notice the word “uniform.” That means Congress gets to decide how to enforce the laws of immigration and citizenship, NOT Arizona. To claim otherwise would mean we’d be forced to deal with a hodgepodge of 50 different sets of regulations about U.S citizenship.
You obviously are. That isn’t even close to being the tenor of this thread.
The general tenor of this thread is that the law is so vague and poorly written that it appears to give police officers the ability to stop and question anyone on suspicion of being an illegal alien for no particular reason, and that the law could be used to harass people on the basis of their race. Furthermore, the law could cause considerable problems for American citizens who don’t happen to be carrying identification that proves their citizenship.
That’s what I’m seeing in this thread so far.
That’s fine, but I wasn’t responding to the legality (or otherwise) of this particular law. Cisco had claimed that illegal immigrants are not…illegal. When I questioned this, he asked me to show him the law they were breaking. That’s what I was responding to.
I really hope this law gets turned on the dumb conservatives who thinks it’ll help them get rid of anyone who’s not white.
If I were a cop there, I would encourage all cops to stop only white people to check their papers. The law’s written so subjectively that there’s not one damn thing they can do about it. Children too. In fact, sweep through schools during recess, apprehend all those illegal white children, and tell their parents to bring a picture ID in order to pick them up from jail.
I’m not about to trudge through all subsequent law, but a quick perusal of the Immigration and Naturalization Act kicks up sections 262, 266, and 275. If I cared enough to prove that illegal immigrants are illegal I could probably find more.
Illegal does not mean criminal. Which I think is the relevant distinction for state arrest purposes. The GD thread will probably end up exploring this distinction.
Congratulations, Trooper Smith! You’ve captured Col. Tom Parker!
Did I fucking say it was criminal? as a matter of fact I am on record on the SDMB as having said that while they are committing illegal acts, we specifically should not call them criminals.
ETA: which is not to say that some of those statutes are not criminal, in fact I found ones that were I just decided to not post them as they do not apply to every illegal immigrant.
Settle down now. I thought it was pretty much tautologically true that being in the country unlawfully is unlawful. And I’m pretty sure no one was doubting that statement. The only conceivably interesting point to be made is whether it is criminal. If you were looking up federal code to prove that A=A, that’s fine, but somehow it seemed reasonable to assume you wouldn’t look up evidence to disprove a logical impossibility.
Where does this demand that the law they are breaking is a felony. I looked it up on the offhand chance that the poster has some inside knowledge that congress never got around to making illegal immigration illegal sort of like LSD was not made illegal in many places for quite some time AFAIK. Of course it turns out that sneaking into this country is illegal, after all.
I don’t think it creates a law-abiding atmosphere to encourage breaking of our laws by preferential treatment of those who sneak in here successfully. If we were to be able to curb this there would be more room for those who choose to not break the laws when entering.
Is this Arizona law the proper means to enforce this? I’m not sure there is a proper means to enforce this that will not result in a lot of racial profiling of legal immigrants/citizens. All I am trying to say is that I am not opposed to trying to enforce our immigration laws.