I looked over the National Review commentary and it makes some excellent points on why this law is not the establishment of a police state in Arizona.
Defending Arizona
Its statute will withstand the inevitable — and already begun — challenges in court
KRIS W. KOBACH
A law that basically makes a few small, carefully considered changes in police procedure, Arizona’s S.B. 1070, has inspired a vastly disproportionate response. Few laws have ever been so grossly mischaracterized by so many leaders on the left. From President Obama on down, they rushed to the microphone after it was enacted to hyperventilate about an impending police state in Arizona. Excitable bloggers invoked Jim Crow, apartheid, and the Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany.
Their charges are completely false. Most stem from misunderstandings, perhaps willful and perhaps merely ignorant, of what the law is about and how it works. The false charges have been numerous, but the three most common are the following.
First, and most outrageously, critics incorrectly claim that the law would promote racial profiling...More surprising was the commentary from the country’s top lawyer. Attorney General Eric Holder sternly warned the nation on Meet the Press that the law “has the possibility of leading to racial profiling.” A few days later, when pressed about his comments in a House of Representatives committee hearing, Holder admitted that he hadn’t actually read the law. Another S.B. 1070 opponent, secretary of homeland security Janet Napolitano, says she has not read the law either.
If they had read it, Holder and Napolitano would have seen that S.B. 1070 expressly prohibits racial profiling. In four different sections, the law reiterates that a law-enforcement official “may not consider race, color, or national origin” in making any stops or determining an alien’s immigration status...
Second, critics have declared that the law will require aliens to carry documentation that they weren’t otherwise required to possess. President Obama claimed, “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers . . . you’re going to be harassed.” The president would do well to familiarize himself with current federal immigration laws. Since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens not to keep certain registration documents on their person or not to register with the federal government. The Arizona law prohibits aliens from violating these federal statutes (8 U.S.C. §§ 1304(a) and 1306(e)). In other words, the Arizona law simply adds a layer of state penalty to what was already a crime under federal law.
For legal permanent resident aliens, the relevant document is a green card. For short-term visitors from a visa-waiver country (one of 36 countries whose citizens may visit the United States for up to 90 days without a visa), the relevant document is an I-94 registration receipt, which is placed in their passport at the port of entry.
Third, critics have claimed that the law requires police officers to stop people in order to question them about their immigration status...The law operates in straightforward fashion. If a police officer, during a detention to investigate another offense, develops reasonable suspicion that the subject is an illegal alien, then the officer must take specific steps to verify or dispel that reasonable suspicion. And contrary to the claims of critics, “reasonable suspicion” is a well-defined concept.
In sum, the law does not make any radical changes. Rather, it gives Arizona police officers a few additional tools to use when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law-enforcement duties. It also ensures that local cooperation with ICE will occur more regularly. Other provisions that have received less media hype prohibit Arizona cities from restricting enforcement of immigration laws (for example, by preventing their officers from contacting ICE), and make it a misdemeanor for an alien who lacks work authorization to solicit work in a public place.
A point of law should be injected now. Thanks in large parts to idiots on TV and the movies, people believe a cop needs probably cause to initiate a traffic stop, stop on the street, etc. No, a cop needs reasonable suspicion to start a stop. Probably cause is the standard for an arrest. I wonder if Eric Holder knows that. If he does or not I have faith he will join the ACLU and attempt to go after this law in court.
In the Washington Times, David A. Ridenour has a great column on how to react to the usual suspects calling on people to boycott Arizona. Boycott San Francisco, LA, Washington, etc. Hey, good enough for the goose.
RIDENOUR: Boycott the boycotters
In San Francisco and here in the nation's capital, liberal politicians are preparing economic boycotts against Arizona because it had the guts to crack down on the illegal aliens who violate federal laws with sneering impunity. The District of Columbia Council, incompetent beyond imagining in governing the 599,000 overtaxed souls who inhabit its 68.2 square miles, has the audacity to demand that Arizona ignore the drug-runners, human traffickers and murderers who have wreaked havoc in the Grand Canyon State for much of the past decade.
Such chutzpah from a city whose license plates whine about alleged "Taxation without Representation," when, if they reflected reality, they would read "Taxation without Services."
Arizona, it should be noted, covers 114,000 square miles, has a nearly 6.6 million population and has been a sought-after haven by conventioneers, tourists and retirees.
San Francisco, one of the nation's first sanctuary cities and a bastion of left-wing lunacy since the mid-1960s, already has barred city employees from official travel to Arizona. Its board of supervisors is moving to boycott all Arizona businesses.
All of this because Arizona's legislature - after years waiting for the federal government to secure the state's 370-mile long border with Mexico - voted to make it a state crime to be in the state in violation of federal law. Polls show 70 percent of Arizonans support the new law, as do nearly 60 percent of Americans.
The new law directs Arizona law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of persons with whom they come into contact in the course of some other law enforcement activity if the officers have a "reasonable suspicion" - a term well-defined in law - that the person is violating federal immigration laws. The law explicitly forbids checking a person's immigration status if a person's "race, color or national origin" is the only basis for suspicion...
So why all this handwringing by people on the left - people whose hearts apparently bleed copiously for those who break our laws, but not for the Americans who often end up as their victims? Isn't a sovereign state responsible for defending its borders, its economy, its social safety net and its people?
Not according to Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney, who urged Washington Nationals fans to boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks when they play. He's also suggested that Major League Baseball move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix and relocate the spring training Cactus League.
I have a better idea. Let's encourage the 60 percent or so of Americans who, according to numerous polls, distrust the Obama administration and Congress, to shun both Washington and San Francisco this summer and travel to scenic Arizona instead.
After all, both cities are ridiculously expensive and often downright disdainful of people they consider to be yokels -that's the haughty urban code for "average Americans" - who swarm in from the Midwest, the South and the Rockies each summer to clog their streets and ogle their famous sites.
A couple of weeks ago my friend Darren posted on his blog on how San Diego is loosing convention business because the San Diego City Council passed a resolution condeming Arizona and stopping city business in the state...now the Zonies are going to schedule things in Arizona just to piss off the idiots in California, DC, etc. I am planning on sometime in the next few months riding my motorcycle to Arizona...
Things the San Diego embargo make me feel pround to be an American!
Happy Memorial Day!
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