Immigration Law

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Oh yes, BTA, it is illegal here for them to have them as well, but they still have them. And I understand your point. But even to open a credit account most stores now require two forms of government issued ID documents, since a DL itself is no longer a solid ID.

I think it's probably time for an official ID card -- as much as it pains me -- but someone will still have to be paid.

 

No. You are just a remarkably credulous person. No offence.

 

There are also illegals with social security cards, but those are still accepted. Anything can and, if there's enough drive to do so, will be faked.

Good thing I live in Texas -- Everybody here just wants to be paid.

Who cares what the 'purpose' is. We're looking at the actual, in-practice uses.

We are all credulous when it comes to the things we want to believe. *looks at most recent racism topics*

I stand by my claim, however, that when you start passing off you're worst-case assumptions as absolute fact of what will happen, it becomes a smear.

 

Hence, as you yourself pointed out, they are poor substitutes for something they are not intended to be used for.

 

Provide me an example that has nothing to do with either one. Tell me just exactly how an officer would have "just cause" to suspect someone of being illegal on a routine contact without considering such factors. If the car is filled with people hiding in the trunk, that's one thing, but the laws on the books already sufficiently address that type of incident, so that can't be what they were thinking about when they crafted the new law. Tell me, just what will these factors that have nothing to do with race, language proficiency, or accent be? I'd really like to know.

A slight correction -- an Arizona drivers license is valid as "your papers". If you are licensed in the wrong state, you may well be ****ed. Your point is well taken, insofar as it applies to Arizonans on routine traffic stops, but there's wiggle room in the law for detaining licensed drivers from other states. If the bill said that any license would suffice for "your papers," that would be one thing, but it sadly stops short of making such a distinction. This is a problem.

Also problematic is the fact that your apocryphal jogger* who happens to be in the wrong place and wrong time may well end up getting detained instead of asked 3 questions and sent on his merry way.

* Seriously, who carries ID when they go jogging? I sure don't.

 

The law doesn't say application is limited to sanctuary communities. And it is not directed against communities that disobey the law, but against communities that enforce laws to less than the full extent permitted. Big difference.

It is formulated broadly. Application will not be limited to sanctuary communities. Because that can happen it will happen. Beyond sanctuary communities, how will a state agency or a county, city, town or other political subdivision sued under the law prove that they did and do enforce immigration laws to the fullest? With statistics. If you know any other way I'd be curious to learn it.

 

And what crime will this phantom jogger commit that would make the police stop him and start questioning him, or have you slipped back into thinking that the police will stop everyone who looks Mexican because it is fun?

 

NOG, if you don't see why this law is crazy, then I suggest you stop typing, sit back in your chair for a minute, and think.

According to this law, the police can check your ID at any time they please. And if you don't have a birth certificate or passport on you, they can arrest you. This doesn't just affect illegal aliens, or even legal immigrants, it affects everyone. Almost everyone is at risk of being arrested under this law, because almost everyone doesn't carry proof of citizenship on them (ie. Birth certificate or passport). Regardless of how you feel about immigration, you should be repelled by the very thought that the cops can arrest you simply because you can't produce proof of citizenship on the spot.

I also think you're being willfully ignorant in regards to acknowledging which racial groups will be subjected to this law. The 'illegal immigrant' is often portrayed as your brown Hispanic. White people who have overstayed their Visas are rarely demonised or targeted by anti-immigration measures.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read the law

Spoiler

Enforcement



1. Requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person during any legitimate contact made by an official or agency of the state or a county, city, town or political subdivision (political subdivision) if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S.



2. Requires the person’s immigration status to be verified with the federal government pursuant to federal law.



3. Requires an alien unlawfully present in the U.S. who is convicted of a violation of state or local law to be transferred immediately to the custody of ICE or Customs and Border Protection, on discharge from imprisonment or assessment of any fine that is imposed.



4. Allows a law enforcement agency to securely transport an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S. and who is in the agency’s custody to:

a) a federal facility in this state or

b) any other point of transfer into federal custody that is outside the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency.



5. Allows a law enforcement officer, without a warrant, to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the U.S.



6. Prohibits officials or agencies of the state and political subdivisions from being prevented or restricted from sending, receiving or maintaining an individual’s immigration status information or exchanging that information with any other governmental entity for the following official purposes:

a) determining eligibility for any public benefit, service or license provided by any federal, state, local or other political subdivision of this state;

b) verifying any claim of residence or domicile if that verification is required under state law or a judicial order issued pursuant to a civil or criminal proceeding in the state;

c) confirming a detainee’s identity; and

d) if the person is an alien, determining whether the person is in compliance with federal alien registration laws.



7. Disallows officials or agencies of the state or political subdivisions from adopting or implementing policies that limit immigration enforcement to less than the full extent permitted by federal law, and allows a person to bring an action in superior court to challenge an official or agency that does so.



8. Requires the court, if there is a judicial finding that an entity has committed a violation, to order any of the following:

a) that the plaintiff recover court costs and attorney fees;

b) that the defendant pay a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000 for each day that the policy has remained in effect after the filing of the action.



9. Requires the court to collect and remit the civil penalty to the Department of Public Safety (DPS), which must establish a special subaccount for the monies in the account established for the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission (GIITEM) appropriation.



10. Specifies that law enforcement officers are indemnified by their agencies against reasonable costs and expenses, including attorney fees, incurred by the officer in connection with any action, suit or proceeding brought pursuant to this statute to which the officer may be a party by reason of the officer being or having been a member of the law enforcement agency, except in relation to matters in which the officer is adjudged to have acted in bad faith.

The police can not randomly pick people up off the street and ask for papers.
It has to be a legitimate contact made by an official or agency of the state or a county, city, town.

This has been twisted by the "open border" supporters into racial profiling and that the cops will go out of their way to find a crime being committed by everyone who looks Mexican.

 

Snook,
don't kid yourself. What a cop bases his actions on and how he later justifies them are two separate issues.

Arizona police agencies under SB 1070 are, under threat of fines, compelled to enforce immigration laws to no less than the full extent permitted under the law. That means you have a built in pressure to maximise lawful contacts, be it only to avoid being sued for enforcing immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted.

A very easy, probably the easiest way to maximise lawful contacts with potential immigration law offenders is stopping and checking people who don't speak English and look Hispanic - because of erratic driving, avoiding eye contact suggesting they may have something to hide, checking on the roadworthiness of a vehicle in the interest of traffic safety, malfunctioning traffic lights or whatever else may come to mind. Cops will do what they gotta do.

That is precisely what will happen.

That is also precisely why Arizona cops who will have to implement SB 1070 have opposed it: When they enforce SB 1070 as written they will be sued for racial profiling, and if they don't they'll be sued for enforcing immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted.

 

And you are delusional if you think that the cops want to spend all day asking people for their proof of legal entry to the country. I also beleive you are giving way too much credit to the monitoring part of the law. When I read that part it makes it far more apparant it is there to make sure that the officers/government workers don't decide to voluntarily ignore the law. You have to remember that it isn't just written for police officers, it is applicable to government workers (welfare, housing, medicaid, dmv, etc.) to make sure that they aren't giving out benefits/services to people who are in AZ illegally.

 

I don't say they want to. I say they have to.

I think you misunderstand the provision: First, think about what exactly 'failing to enforce immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted under the law' means - it is a very high treshold to prove for an agency that they indeed did that.

The passage was written specifically as a venue for anti-immigration groups to sue government entities at no expense (Sec. 2 G 1. of SB 1070) if they think that a Arizona government entity failed to enforce immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted under the law.

Think of this example: Say there is a specific enforcement measure that a state agency judges to be illegal or unconstitutional and that they thus don't use, or even criticise or oppose. If they do so in order to not violate the law, they open themselves up to being sued under Sec. 2 G SB 1070 anyway. They will have right wing anti immigration activists breathing down their neck all the way.

Beyond this increasing the pressure it has practical political benefits. What I think of are cases like Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon getting in the way of people like Arpaio because he thought Arpaio violated the law with his anti-immigration sweeps. It is very likely that such personal experiences inspired the writers and sponsors of that bill.

Handily, that new provisions offers an extra venue of attack for such a case: Got Sheriff, Mayor you want to damage ahead of an election? Say the Mayor or Sheriff has, because of trifles like legality, abstained from measures a hard liner approves of? You sue him over his immigration enforcement. This will allow you to generate a lot of public pressure and negative publicity about him - an advantage in the next election.

It's a self-licking ice cream cone for anti-immigration groups, and considering that a lawyer who advised Arpaio wrote SB 1070, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

 

Aha ... [PDF]

(because then it will be law and they have no choice but to)

 

Perhaps. It is all hypothetical at this point, but I'd point out that I lived in Iowa for 3 years before I got an Iowa license and registration. Legal or not, lots of people don't change over their documentation until their out-of-state stuff expires. If an officer has reason to suspect you are an illegal, a drivers license from the wrong state may well be problematic for you under the new law. It depends on how they implement it, of course, but I have a lot less faith than you do that the state that will do it "right."

When language is a barrier, helping an officer verify your status may be difficult.


@Snook: Police non-randomly stop passers-by for questions all the time. A jogger near a crime scene is going to be stopped not because he's Latino, but because he's near the effing crime scene. Hell, that's happened to me. Police have lawful contact with non-lawbreakers all the time. If the non-lawbreaker "appears illegal" in the mind of the officer, the non-lawbreaker can then be legally detained until he can furnish proof of citizenship under the new Arizona law. If you wish to argue that this is perfectly fine and how it should be, that's one thing, but don't act as if I'm suggesting that police will be stopping brown people at random because of the new law when I've made no such suggestion.

 

Aha back at ya. Your article shows that the police chiefs aren't supporting it.

However the Arizona Police Association is.

The mis-truths being spread about SB1070 are amazing.

 

Snook,
right, I mixed up the organisations. From your article, that is incidentally titled Arizona Police Split on Immigration Crackdown:

That is, he has a big picture approach to the issue. I think he is right.

 

1.) has no driver's license
2.) has poor or no command of the english language (doesn't matter what language they do speak)
Those alone would raise my curiosity.

*raises hand*
I'm carrying my keys already, I may as well carry my ID, too. That's just me, though.

No, they can't. They have to suspect you've committed another crime already. And, again, if you bring up the case of 'manufactured crimes', that's already a problem, and results in a lot worse than someone asking for an ID. This law would change nothing.

Again, wrong. A driver's license is enough. In fact, I'm betting an expired license would be enough since it still shows you could get one (they actually take it away from you if you loose that right).

Exactly why it isn't racist. Thanks.

That all depends on where you look. Sure, in Arizona, most illegals are probably latino, but that doesn't mean a law banning illegal immigration is racist. On the other hand, in New York, a lot of the illegals are from Eastern Block states. In California, you seem to get a lot of hispanics, but also a lot of asian illegals. People want to come here from just about everywhere, and some of them are willing to break the law to do so.


As for the lawsuit threats, I think it's an overstated issue. The plaintiff would have to prove that the organization wasn't enforcing the law. How exactly do you do that if your complaint is that they aren't randomly pulling people over for no good reason?
"But officer, he looks like an illegal!"
"Yes, but he hasn't committed a crime that I know about. I legally can't investigate him."
"But look, he's just avoided eye contact with ya!" (most ridiculous situation ever, but still)
"Umm, he was looking at a trash can, not at me. Why do you suspect he was intentionally avoiding looking at me?"
"Because he's hispanic, and don't speak English well!"
"Hmm, you're rather tan, and I've noted several grammatical flaws in your speech so far..."


In short, unless the officer must have legal contact, and the accuser can prove there was reason to suspect other than race, I think they'd have a hard time showing the officer failed to enforce the law.