According to the Washington Post these are the basic provisions of the new law:
Here’s what confuses me. Surely it’s always been a crime to be in the US illegally? Don’t the police routinely question people about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally? Isn’t it already against the law to knowingly hire or transport illegals? So why all the furore about what seems an unexceptional piece of legislation?
It’s controversial because immigration and immigration enforcement is a federal issue. Many argue that it’s inappropriate for state and local law enforcement to engage in immigration-related issues.
Yeah, but it’s a federal crime. There is a federal law enforcement agency to deal with it.
Local police generally do not, as it is outside their purview. Only if someone is arrested and charged with a serious crime will they bother to do so. Another aspect of the controversy is that requiring local police to question people about their immigration status will make it impossible for illegal immigrants to seek help from the police. (Even if you’re a criminal, you’re still entitled to basic rights.)
In theory, it’s against the law. In practice, the entire agricultural economy of the southwest is dependent on illegal migrant labor.
There are a couple of reasons in my opinion, the first being that many citizens of Arizona are Hispanic and they will be subject to being stopped and questioned for no reason other than the police think they may be illegal immigrants. Racial profiling isn’t something the police should be doing, but I doubt many white people will be stopped.
The second is that there is a little bit of hypocrisy involved, as state and local police will be enforcing Federal immigration law, in a state where law enforcement was dead set against enforcing background checks for firearm buyers, stating that it was an unfunded federal mandate. They need to make up their mind on whether they either want to enforce federal law or not. They shouldn’t pick and choose.
The best British corollary that I can think of for the “requires local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants” bit would be the old Sus law. In theory, police could stop someone who might be about to commit a crime, but in practice it was all about arresting people for wearing a loud shirt in a built up area.
I expect I’m being thick… but that’s all in the past tense, Tapioca Dextrin. My kids are stopped and searched all the time (mostly for walking around South London while black). So they got rid of the law after the Brixton riots, and then… they just brought it back?
Um… sort of, but not to the extent of today. It used to be quite typical for people to arrive on US soil without visa or passport up until around WWI or WWII. I don’t want to go over the entire history of US immigration, but suffice to say the rules do change every couple of decades.
No.
As noted, immigration is a Federal jurisdiction. The local and state level police do not get involved (at least, not outside Arizona) and in most cases have no desire to get involved. Anyone, regardless of immigration status, should have police protection if they need it. Having police involved in immigration law enforcement would make it even harder to police communities with large numbers of illegal immigrants.
Yes
It still happens.
Hell, there are illegal Mexicans in Canada, They didn’t just teleport there. There’s a continent-wide network of people smugglers and ways for illegals to get around.
Different levels of government in the US have different responsibilities. This is one sector of law enforcement attempting to usurp the domain of another sector.
It is especially problematic due to Arizona’s hypocritical past whining about background checks for firearms - you’re not allowed to pick and choose which laws you enforce.
It is especially problematic due to Arizona’s large Hispanic population - Arizona was held by Mexico before it was part of the US and thus the Spanish speakers were there before the English speakers. Their claim to the land is, in fact, of longer duration than the Anglos, but they are all too often treated as foreigners in their own home. This is a license for police to harass any Hispanic resident, legal or illegal, with constant requests to show papers or be deported. It has happened that America citizens have been deported by mistake so this fear is not entirely unfounded. There is considerable friction between Anglos and Hispanics in Arizona, with accusations of bias on both sides.
It creeps people out - the whole “show us your papers, please” meme seen in movies and television to depict Nazis and bad guy communists.
There is considerable sympathy for illegal Mexicans, to the point some believe immigrations laws are unfair and should be ignored. Some people believe there should be NO immigration laws and the border should be completely open. Some believe that, given the history of Arizona, Hispanics have more claim to it than Anglos. A certain number of Mexicans come to flee the drug wars south of the border and thus are refugees, which garners a lot of sympathy from a lot of Americans, given how many of the rest of us are descended from refugees and asylum seekers.
And lastly - immigration is deadly business in Arizona. People die every year attempting to cross the desert between Mexico and the US. Recently, a rancher on the boarder was murdered, it is believed by “coyotes” or human smugglers. Border patrol people have also been shot and killed on both sides of the border.
So, the legislation may seem innocuous to an outside but in context it is not.
Try to picture the following scenario. I am slightly dark. I am walking down the street in Phoenix (fat chance!) and a cop comes to me and says, “You look like a wetback; prove you aren’t.” “Here’s my driver’s license.” “Anybody can get a driver’s license. Into the slammer with you.” Say a judge releases me. Then a local citizen sues them for not prosecuting me.
Just for evidence that this could happen, I will mention the following true story. My brother was in the Air Force and we were a bus in southern Mississippi that stopped in some hick town. A guy wearing a border guard uniform got on the bus, came right back to our seat and asked to see his ID. Now no law (yet) requires anyone to carry ID (we always that’s what the French–and Soviets–do, not we Americans). So my brother showed his military ID and the guy went away. But I have long wondered what he would have done had my brother not had that ID. But at least that guy was doing the job he was hired to do. Local cops are supposed to enforce local and state laws, not federal laws.
Yes, that’s another thing - no one in the US is required to carry ID. It is in no way illegal to walk down a street or wander about town without an ID.
Except, apparently, in Arizona.
This pisses off a lot of Americans, mostly for reasons of culture. We don’t care if other countries require ID, making it illegal to be without ID is unAmerican to a lot of folks.
I just don’t get this! Your laws were made by immigrants, so why are they now as wanted as a revival of bubonic plague?
The problem is the law does not define “reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally” What reasons would those be that are not targeting Latinos unfairly? Is it likely that cops will question illegal immigrants from Canada?
The problem is not that Illegal immigrants might be deported; the problem is that legal immigrants or citizens will be subjected to harassment. What liberties are we willing to sacrifice in order to uphold a law?
But in this case aren’t we talking about the enforcement of a state - rather than a federal - law?
because they are already here …
If you look into the ‘racial’ history of the US, [generalizing here] first the Brits came, and the indentured class was welsh, irish and scots with a smattering of french, dutch and germans. They muddled around for about 30 years, and got settled in. Then the next wave was a bit influx of irish and scots [potato famine, and the shift from small farmers to industrial level sheepfarming driving the scots off their lands] and at that point in time, you would find prejudice against the scots and irish. Then they settled in, and the next batch were the italian, polish and chinese. They settled in and then came the caribbean and hispanics, and they were evil. Now more recently you still get the hispanics, but we also get eastern political refugees thanks to 2 different wars in southeast asia.
sigh
Each time, laws were enacted to restrict the newest ‘undesirable’ groups. Although pretty much the poor mexicans are the spearhead of central and south american immigrants. Now we have all the different flavors of hispanic that are ‘stealing our jobs’ except traditionally they take jobs that more established citizen caucasions tend to not want to work because the income is so marginal.
I always though that if someone was willing to come up and work for practically slave wages, they should be allowed to freely enter, register and after 5 years get their citizenship.
We should also mention that there isn’t one form of ID in the country. There’s a pretty large list of docs/IDs that can prove that you are in the country legally, and there’s no particular reason for the average policeman to be familiar with all of them. If we had a national ID card, then this might not be as problematic to enforce (although I still wouldn’t support the law), but we don’t, so it’s probably going to be a recipe for a lot of nastiness.
Immigration law is a Federal jurisdiction - the state has zero legal basis for writing immigration laws, or enforcing their own immigration laws. Arizona has no more right to legislate immigration than it has to enter into a legally binding treaty with, say Belgium. Which, just to be clear, it doesn’t - only the Federal government can make treaties with foreign nations. Only the Federal government deals with immigration.
And I wholeheartedly agree (and am British) 
A border guard in Mississippi?
One other point. You are required to prove you are in the US legally and subject to criminal penalties if you can’t. So you are presumed guilty. Presumption of guilt is highly unAmerican.
That you can be penalized for not having on you proof that you’re OK, even though you ARE, looks like they took from the law on driving licenses – there’s a penalty for not having it on you while driving even if you DO own a valid license. Problem is, as mentioned, there is NO obligation under law for Americans to carry proof of citizenship on their persons as a permit to walk the public streets. I sure hope all the Arizona legislators carry proof of citizenship or legal status at all times…
Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol officers have authority for immigration enforcement anywhere in the US, not only at the physical border or shoreline. If the described encounter was before 2003, the BP would have been under the Immigration and Naturalization Service and would have been even more so their enforcement unit. In either case they could and can intervene in transportation routes between ports of entry, e.g. a bus on the road from Biloxi.
It effectively requires any American citizen with brown skin (not white people, just people who look a little swarthy) to carry papers like they’re Jews in Nazi Germany. The issue is not what it does to undocumented residents, but that it selects out a particular group of legal residents, including American citizens, and requires them to be thrown in jail if they don’t carry their birth certificates around.
It’s an openly racist law. They might as well make Hispanics wear yellow triangles.
I’m kind of curious what Bricker thinks of this law, since he would be one of the people forced to carry his birth certificate around if he were to go to Arizona.
I think that racist, psychopath sheriff in Phoenix is behind this.
I agree 100%. There are several problems with the law, but the unstated requirement that legal immigrants will now have to carry papers with them everywhere is the worst.