Arizona lawmakers approve racial and ethnic profiling

Arizona lawmakers approved the nation's toughest stance on immigration today, requiring police to determine a person's immigration status if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal immigrant.

The Los Angeles Times' Nicholas Riccardi reports that previous to this bill, known as SB 1070, police could only investigate one's immigration status if the person was a suspect in a separate crime. Under the new provision, lacking appropriate immigration paperwork would be a misdemeanor, and no city or agency within the state would have the jurisdiction to order police not to comply with the measure. In fact, citizens would be able to sue if they believed police agencies were not following the bill's orders.

As one would imagine, the bill has both staunch support and outraged opposition. As author of SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill, "takes the handcuffs off of law enforcement and let's them do their job." Outside of Arizona, Mark Krikorian of D.C.'s Center for Immigration Studies supports the measure, saying that Arizona's position as the number one passageway for illegal immigrants from Mexico necessitates harsher crackdowns.

According to Riccardi, those against the bill argue that it makes Arizona "a police state." Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network worry that the bill legalizes racial and ethnic profiling. President of the ACLU Alessandra Soler Meetze says the bill criminalizes "having an accent and leaving [one's] wallet [and immigration papers] at home."

SB 1070 passed 35 to 21 in the state House of Representative, and Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign the bill.

Now, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If I have a "reasonable suspicion" that a white man in a suit and shiny dress shoes is engaging in shady business practices--extortion, insider trading, doling out bonuses under the table--can I insist he show me his financial records? Surely we can think of enough times when white men in suits have committed such crimes to necessitate a law requiring such "finance screenings. (Bernie Madoff, Rod Blagojevich and Kenneth Lay, to name a few)

The answer is no. Lawmakers would never OK this. Laws this strict, laws that allow for the profiling of certain groups of people based on imprecise criteria like "reasonable suspicion," are laws driven by racism. Just as "with all deliberate speed" did little to desegregate southern schools after Brown v. Board of Education, "reasonable suspicion" allows ample room for police aggression toward innocent victims.

My feelings toward this bill are summed up in the last sentence of Riccardi's article. He quotes Rep. Tom Chabin, who says, "This bill, whether we intend it or not, terrorizes the people we wish to profit from."

This couldn't be more true. As I said in a previous post, nonwhite laborers (in this case immigrants) are willing to work harder, longer and for less. We make money off their willingness to do more for less. And now, we want to lump them all together and pluck out those about whom we have "reasonable suspicion." America, the land of opportunity, is looking less and less so.

The wording of the bill itself may be vague, but its purpose is not: SB 1070 is legal discrimination.

Photo Credit: Gerald L. Nino