The Case For Arizona's Immigration Law



The Case For Arizona's Immigration Law

Wednesday, 05/05/10 1:35pm

Alan Greenblatt

Arizona's immigration law has gotten nothing but bad press since its enactment last month.

The law, which requires police to check the citizenship or residency status of anyone they have reason to suspect is an illegal immigrant, has already drawn several legal challenges. On Tuesday, the city councils of Flagstaff and Tucson each voted to sue the state. The Justice Department may sue as well.

The Arizona Republic devoted its entire front page Sunday to an editorial that criticized the law for intimidating "Latinos while doing nothing to curb illegal immigration." The measure has triggered protests and prompted boycotts of the state from multiple jurisdictions and organizations around the country.

Despite all the criticism, however, the new law retains considerable popular support. A nationwide Gallup Poll released last week found that Americans back it 51 percent to 39 percent.

A New York Times/CBS News poll released Monday also found that 51 percent of Americans support the law, with an additional 9 percent saying they believe it doesn't go far enough. Only 36 percent believe it goes too far.

NPR conducted separate interviews with two supporters of the law to talk about its appeal and intended effects. Bob Dane is director of communications for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based group that favors stricter immigration limits and helped draft the Arizona law. Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, another group in Washington that seeks lower immigration levels.

Why was the Arizona law necessary?

"It's an additional tool in the tool kit for police officers," Krikorian says. "This gives them a state offense to arrest or prosecute illegal immigrants for, in case the feds aren't interested.

"The bill has other parts to it. For instance, it prohibits sanctuary cities, making it a state law to bar cooperation with immigration authorities, which is already a federal law. Importantly, it permits citizens to sue jurisdictions that are blocking enforcement of federal law. That's something that's absent from federal law, which provides no penalties."

Dane says that every state has illegal immigration, "but the phenomenon in Arizona brings with it a disproportionate impact -- crime, kidnapping and drugs. You've had three police officers killed by illegal aliens in the last 10 years. It's not a surprise that a state with a tougher problem has a tougher law."

What effects do you expect the law to have on the illegal immigration problem?

"The net effect of the law most importantly will be that in Arizona police officers and the state will no longer be in a catch-and-release mode," Dane says. "If illegal aliens are identified through a lawful process, it's now required that they're transferred to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]."

Krikorian says the new law "will be modestly helpful. The point is supposed to be getting more cops inquiring more often about immigration status. The law says they have to, but also says, 'when practical.' It's an effort by the Legislature to encourage more use of immigration tools by the police.

"The real effect has already happened: The exaggeration of its effects has already scared illegals from the state," Krikorian says. "The fear-mongering has served the purposes of the bill's sponsors."

The bill has already drawn several lawsuits. Do you think it will survive these challenges?

"The lawsuits just don't have that much substance," Krikorian says. "To begin with, this bill wasn't cooked up on somebody's table. It was drafted by constitutional scholars specifically to withstand legal scrutiny.

"It doesn't create any new crimes; it just creates a state statute to parallel federal ones," he says. "The two contentious provisions -- that make it a requirement that an alien register with the government and then carry their paperwork with them at all times -- those have both been federal law since 1940. It's not like it resembles the federal law -- they're actually giving the U.S. code citations in the law."

Arizona has fended off legal challenges to previous immigration measures, Krikorian says.

But opponents say that enforcing the law will necessarily intrude on constitutional rights or result in racial profiling.

"There's been massive disinformation about this," Dane says. "Profiling is not part of the picture in this bill. The law affords every possible protection, not least of which are protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"People are beginning to understand that a police officer needs to abide by lawful contact," Dane says. "He has to have some other reason to pull you aside. While it remains absent from Page 1 of every newspaper in the country, it is in fact on Page 1 of the bill that no police officer can use race, ethnic origin, color or country of origin as a basis to form reasonable suspicion."

Do you think that this law will become a model for other states?

"As long as Washington diddles on enforcement and continues to dismantle meaningful enforcement, then you've got an emerging patchwork at the state level," Dane says. "It's the right and responsibility of local governments to discourage illegal immigrants.

"It is reasonable, it is legal, it is a fiscal necessity for jurisdictions to move legal residents to the front of the line and remove illegal aliens. If the states look the other way and try to help everybody, the lifeboat sinks and nobody is helped," Dane says.

Many anti-immigration measures that were considered controversial or harsh a few years ago have since won mainstream acceptance. Do you think that could happen over time with this law?

"About 10 years ago, the Clinton administration started audits of personnel records of Nebraska meatpacking plants, so they wouldn't have to do raids," Krikorian says. "Everyone went berserk; it was a cutting-edge thing. [Attorney General] Janet Reno was forced to fire the INS official who came up with the idea. [The Immigration and Naturalization Service was the forerunner agency to ICE.]

"Now, audits of personnel records are the Obama administration's fallback, their kinder, gentler version of enforcement," Krikorian says.

"The center of gravity is moving in the direction of the immigration hawks," he says.

Legalizing Racial Profiling? Arizona Immigration Bill Draws Fire

Gov. Jan Brewer Soon Will Decide on Bill to Make Being Undocumented in Arizona a Crime

By HUMA KHAN

April 22, 2010 —

An Arizona state bill that would give law enforcement greater authority over arresting illegal immigrants has caused national uproar and could set the stage for court battles over how far states can go when it comes to immigration policies.

The bill would it make it a crime for immigrants to have no alien registration document, and undocumented citizens would be charged with "trespassing" simply for being in Arizona. The bill allows police to question and arrest people without warrant if there is "reasonable suspicion" about their immigration status. It would become illegal for people to employ illegal immigrants or to transport them anywhere in the state, even if they are family members.

Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has until Saturday night to veto the bill, sign it or do nothing and let it automatically become law. Proponents of the bill say they are confident Brewer will sign it, but the governor has been facing intense pressure to do the opposite.

Thousands of people have written or called the governor's office, weighing in overwhelmingly against the bill. As of Wednesday afternoon, a spokeswoman said, the governor's office had tallied 1,356 people for the bill and 11,931 against it.

Outside the state Capitol in Phoenix, protestors have been standing day and night since Sunday, calling on the governor to veto the bill.

"It affects everyone not only in Arizona, but nationally. ... I don't think anything has been this extreme until this point," said Bridgette Gomez, a 24-year-old math tutor. "The evil is racial profiling, to think that you're going to always have to show identification. Because I'm tan, I must be illegal."

Critics of the bill charge that it essentially legalizes racial profiling, which will lead to an uptick in hate crimes.

"It is literally designed to make life so unbearable for undocumented immigrants that they leave the state," said Frank Sharry, founder and director of America's Voice, which pushes for comprehensive immigration reform. "And in doing so it puts a target on the back of every Latino-looking person in the state."

Others say it's also unconstitutional because it encroaches on federal government's power to enforce immigration policy. The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and other groups are preparing to challenge the legislation if it becomes law this week.

"The Constitution is pretty clear about having one set of rules," said Thomas A. Saenz, general counsel and president of MALDEF. "Now, you have the state of Arizona coming along and creating an obstacle to federally mandated priorities."

The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Russell Pearce, said he's merely trying to enforce law that's already on the books.

"Illegal is not a race. It's a crime and in Arizona. We're going to enforce the law ... without apologies," said Pearce, a former deputy in the Maricopa County Sherriff's Office, which is known for cracking down on illegal immigrants. "It's just that simple."

Pearce said he went through the bill line by line with the governor and is confident she will sign it.

Even if the bill were to become law, however, the state would have to solicit the partnership of Department of Homeland Security. Its secretary, Janet Napolitano, vetoed the same bill three times when she was governor of Arizona.

Pearce made no bones about the fact that the bill is designed to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to Arizona.

"Our cities and neighborhoods have turned into war zones," he said. "We have such silly restrictions. We know that what's coming across the border today are smugglers, gang members, drug dealers, bad people."

The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (known before its enactment as Arizona Senate Bill 1070 or simply Arizona SB 1070) is legislation signed into law in the U.S. state of Arizona by governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010. It is the broadest and strictest anti–illegal immigration measure in decades and has received national and international attention and spurred controversy. The act is scheduled to go into effect on July 28, 2010, ninety days after the end of the legislative session. Legal challenges over its constitutionality and compliance with civil rights law are expected.

The act makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying legal documents, steps up state and local law enforcement of Federal immigration laws, and cracks down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal aliens. The paragraph on intent in the legislation says it embodies an "attrition through enforcement" doctrine.

Critics of the legislation say it encourages racial profiling, while supporters say the law simply enforces existing federal law. The law was modified by Arizona House Bill 2162 within a week of its signing with the goal of addressing some of these concerns. There have been protests in opposition to the law in many U.S. cities, including calls for a boycott of Arizona. Polling found the law has majority support in Arizona and nationwide.

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