Arizona passed a new immigration law, which effectively requires all immigrants, legal or illegal, to carry their papers with them at all times, and mandates that law enforcement officers stop and question anyone for whom they have "reasonable suspicion" of being an illegal "alien."
Republican Senator and former JAG lawyer Lindsay Graham believes the new law is unconstitutional, while former Under Secretary of Homeland Security Michael D. Brown goes off here about how the new law really isn't that big of a deal.
Unfortunately, our former Under Secretary of Homeland Security is functionally illiterate. His misunderstanding of the most controversial aspect of the new Arizona immigration law below:
"Consider just one paragraph of the bill:
FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.
Article 8, Section 11-1051, Paragraph B., lines 20-25
Consider that language again: a law enforcement office must first have 'lawful contact.' 'Reasonable suspicion' must exist that the person is here illegally. A 'reasonable attempt' is all the officer can make to determine the immigration status of the person and then, only when 'practicable.'
That's racist, Reverend Sharpton? Sounds like sound law enforcement to me."
PMB will now reinterpret this paragraph correctly (hopefully the Under Secretary is paying attention):
The former Under Secretary treats "lawful contact" and "reasonable suspicion" above as though they're two separate steps in the process of legally stopping and questioning someone, but this is wrong. "Lawful contact" in this case is not a precursor to "reasonable suspicion"; "lawful contact" requires "reasonable suspicion." "Lawful contact" here is basically interchangeable with "reasonable suspicion," though it's presented above by the former Under Secretary as a preexisting condition upon which "reasonable suspicion" can be (more safely) derived. This might seem like nitpicking, but it's actually the crux of the controversy regarding this new law: since there is much concern over what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" and how "reasonable suspicion" would be derived in order to legally stop and question someone on the street about their immigration status, those defending this law have the burden of explaining this mystery about how, practically, could "reasonable suspicion" be lawfully derived. The former Under Secretary attempts to assuage this concern by presenting "reasonable suspicion" as something based not on a guess about the way someone looks on the street, but as a second-order determination after something called "lawful contact" has already been made. Ah, but since "reasonable suspicion" is necessary for "lawful contact" and not the other way around, the former Under Secretary's interpretation is complete and total bullshit. He attempts to explain away the crux of the controversy circuitously, by arguing essentially that "reasonable suspicion will be attained in the context of lawful stops, because a lawful stop requires reasonable suspicion."
The question remains, then: how exactly would a law enforcement officer attain reasonable suspicion? It's easy to argue, as the Republicans are currently doing in their talking points, that the "reasonable suspicion" stops we're talking about here are things like speeding white vans with 16 passengers packed in the back and police cars tailing them (speeding/being in a car chase indeed meets the "reasonable suspicion" standard to make a stop, obviously); but what about the inevitable gray areas? Will the cops ask every white speeder they stop for his or her immigration papers, or will they profile for Mexican-looking people? Will law enforcement officers who see loiterers outside of the club or the grocery store and approach them for their immigration papers...if they're white? Hispanic? What constitutes reasonable suspicion, not just of a given traffic violation, but of illegal immigration status? And finally, do we expect all law enforcement officers, who can be prosecuted themselves under this law for failing to question the "reasonably suspicious" about their immigration status, to reasonably abide all of these nuances, and to avoid simply profiling for Mexican-looking people? This is most likely why law enforcement officers themselves have voiced serious opposition to this new law, doing so also years before when a similar law was on the table during Janet Napolitano's governorship.
PMB tends to agree with Senator Graham that not only is the new Arizona law unconstitutional, but it's also not a very smart or effective way forward for tackling immigration issues. As current head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has suggested, the law will likely result in the redistribution of immigration law enforcement resources away from concentrated areas of need (cartels and human trafficking) and toward the detaining of peaceful and productive people who happen to get stopped without their papers, and constitute a far lesser security risk.
Those in favor of the new Arizona law are calling it a way of fighting drug and human trafficking; yet the negative effects of this law will move far beyond its alleged toughness on real criminal behavior. John McCain talks about illegals bringing drugs across our borders as though Americans aren't the ones demanding and paying for the drugs that keep the cartels and their violent tactics in steady operation. If drug smuggling and all the nastiness that goes with it were really a concern among these politicians, then surely they'd have figured out by now that the best way to crush the cartels is to cut them out of their US market by legalizing and regulating certain drugs on our own soil. But PMB digresses...
The Arizona immigration law is just another example of shortsighted, xenophobic, fear-addled people compromising some of the most basic American values in order to attempt a quick fix. So long as certain Americans believe that Americans are the only ones in the world deserving of the fundamental rights that we daily proclaim our own, we threaten to erode these rights within our own communities. If you believe things like due process and habeas corpus are fundamental, INALIENABLE rights, then you must concede that they are universally INALIENABLE, even, ironically, for those we deem "aliens."
