This law is successful because it will do exactly the two things its creators intended it to do:
- Turn the backers of it into “heroes”.
- When it is overturned, turn the backers of it into “martyrs”.
You’re presuming that there is nothing between “arrest” and “let walk”. A person should, of course, have a reasonable chance to establish his citizenship (or that he otherwise has legal documents). If you think your status is in doubt and you know that you would be liable to be asked to prove your status, you would always attempt to carry your documentation with you. This is the way it is in Japan, for example. You have to carry your Foreigner’s Card with you. This is hardly a great onus. Now it is possible and likely that from time-to-time a person will forget to bring his card with him. One out of a thousand times this happens, he might get stopped by an officer. But in that case, the person cannot complain that he is missing out on work as the police drive him to his place of residence to certify his documentation. He forgot to bring his documentation with him. It’s his fault. He’s not being arrested. Nothing is being written down on his record. He’s being given a fair chance to prove himself.
- It takes 5 seconds to take your green card out of your wallet, display it, and return it to your wallet.
- A Latino person who does not know English well is far more likely to be an illegal immigrant than a legally documented resident at this current moment in time, in the US. Better than 50/50 odds is entirely reasonable suspicion. At such time as that ratio changes so that it is more likely that the person is innocent, then you can argue that it is unreasonable.
There is a middle ground, it’s called a stop. And there is a well-developed area of law on the subject. Police don’t get to stop someone for any old reason. The question is whether a violation of a federal immigration rule is grounds for a stop by local police. I’m not sure that’s been settled, but I’d say the odds are against it.
It is if it’s been made the new policy. The only question would be where all the old policy needs to be revised to allow the new policy to stand. Technically speaking the nation could become a Monarchy if all the proper amendments were passed. It’s just a question of reforming old law in the right order at the right levels via legal ballot. Court rulings simply state what the current status of law is and of which two conflicting laws which has priority. It doesn’t make the higher law eternal.
If you’re saying a constitutional amendment would cure the Fourth Amendment problem, you’re right. But so what? If you’re saying changing some statutes would solve the problem, it wouldn’t, because it is a constitutional question.
People have been speaking Spanish in Arizona for four hundred years, so that seems like pretty weak probable cause. Hundreds of thousands of legal residents of Arizona speak foreign languages. I mean, come on.
Women have been wearing sexy clothing for 400 years. If you see a woman dressed all sexy, standing on a street corner late at night, in a poor neighborhood, there’s still reasonable suspicion that she might be a prostitute. That’s not sexism. It’s recognizing real world statistics. Yes, there is a chance that she’s legal, but the situation does merit a harder look.
Yes, there are legal citizens and documented residents who can and will speak in a foreign language. But, that’s a minority of cases and the burden of showing your green card, worker visa, drivers permit, or whatever else is so minor that you’re not really saving anything by preventing the check.
I’m curious, though. What if I, right now, burn all my identifying documents? I was under the impression that I’m under no legal onus to own any form of state documentation whatsoever, nor am I under any requirement to provide any documentation to the police (absent such circumstances as my fishing, or driving a car, or whatever).
If I’m right, are the cops really allowed to arrest me for not having ID on me, or even to harass me until I provide such ID?
The idea that people whose status might be in doubt should attempt to carry documentation imposes exactly the sort of burden on brown-skinned citizens that, I suspect, would violate the fourteenth amendment.
Let me get something straight here: this law makes it more illegal to be an illegal immigrant. And from what I’ve read it gives the police more power to hassle anything they think is in the country illegally.
But what does the law actually do to keep illegals out? Throwing them in jail doesn’t do any good; that’s more expensive than putting them on welfare! What’s the point of having the toughest immigration law in the US if the border still leaks like a sieve?
Short of implanting chips in the skulls of newborns and naturalized citizens, there is no perfect solution. Even that probably isn’t. Shooting down legislation for being imperfect is silly. There is no better option than the best compromise of all solutions.
With Americans disliking central registration, they’ve essentially chosen to put the burden of proving their citizenship upon themselves. If they feel they are in danger of being deported, it’s up to them to make sure that they have a passport, social security number, drivers license, or something to demonstrate their citizenship. If they haven’t done that and their citizenship comes under question, they should be deported. I can’t say that I worry overly much about the one or two who can’t, except the mentally deficient. But I would be perfectly fine to solve that by providing care to people who tested as being mentally handicapped and not deporting them.
I think that you’re factually incorrect here. That is, I think I have zero legal burden to prove my citizenship. Can anyone address the legal facts involved?
That I can tell, unless you’re under the age of 5, you need to be able to prove you were born here or were naturalized.
Yet for some reason we’re not going to dislike having to carry a passport or birth certificate with us at all times to produce on demand? It’s not a minor burden.
That cite refers to receiving citizenship, and is irrelevant.
Do I, ambling along the street down to the 7-11, have a legal requirement to produce proof of citizenship to a policeman who stops and questions me? No, I do not. In fact, while I may have to identify myself verbally (depending on the conditions of the stop), there is no legal requirement that I must produce any physical ID at all.
That’s a long article, and in a skim, I’m not seeing anything to support your claim; words like “prove,” “proof,” “burden,” and “identif*” don’t show up anywhere in the link. Could you please quote the part that you believe supports your claim, or is this the result of sloppy Googling?
The closest that we come, I think, to a burden of identification is actually something that happens in reverse. If we otherwise meet the criteria for being arrested, the police may choose to release us on our own recognizance, based on the police’s belief that they really know who we are. This may be because we showed them identification, or because we otherwise credibly identified ourselves to the police.
But I’m pretty sure you’re wrong that we ever have the burden of proof that we’re citizens.
What will Arizona do with people they pick up under this law? Does a state have the power to deport someone? Or do they have to turn them over to the Feds (who may end up with an order to tell Arizona “no thanks”)?
So you wouldn’t mind your wife or daughter being asked to prove they are not whores when they are out and about.
This is already the state of things. Few of us carry around proof of citizenship because few of us feel any need to prove it until we apply for a job, a credit card, a driver’s license, or some other private or national service. Few of us feel like our nationality is in question.
If, when I lived in Japan, I was carded by every police officer who saw me because Canadians kept sneaking into the country illegally, I’d be angry at the Canadians not the Japanese government nor the police. They are the ones at fault and they are the ones putting me in this position. I’d hope that by doing this due diligence that the number of illegal Canadians would shrink and everyone left would be a legal resident who had followed the fully publicized laws of the land and I’d be left free. I certainly don’t mind being treated “unfairly” when it is indeed people of my social and ethnic background who are the ones misbehaving disproportionately, just the same as I didn’t complain as a teen for teens being charged more for car insurance. It was our own damn fault.