Arizona bill 1070

[deep]

good idea

he may go there for MLK day,
you know they are one of the states that celebrate it.

[martha]

Originally Posted by Bluer White

Legal aliens are obligated to carry their green card on them, Mr. President. It's federal law.

How about this: My husband was going to go visit some friends of his mom's who live in Tucson. I advised him not to go. He doesn't have an Arizona driver's license, so if he gets stopped by a cop, and we do know that cops frequently stop motorcyclists for slim reasons, he has no way of proving he's an American citizen.

Oh wait. I guess he could carry his passport to Arizona. You know, that document you have to carry when you visit a foreign country.

But seriously, Bluer White, the only acceptable documents for this law are AZ driver's licenses, passports, and the various papers that legal immigrants have. What should he do?

[deep]

Originally Posted by martha

But seriously, Bluer White, the only acceptable documents for this law are AZ driver's licenses, passports, and the various papers that legal immigrants have.

I'd put a Glenn Beck bumper sticker on my car

and wear an NRA baseball cap.




\/ you're on the watch list.

[coolian2]

as a potential tourist, this grinds my gears.

luckily i'm white.

[deep]

I am watching this brown woman on Hannity ranting about immigration,
my head hurts

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by martha

How about this: My husband was going to go visit some friends of his mom's who live in Tucson. I advised him not to go. He doesn't have an Arizona driver's license, so if he gets stopped by a cop, and we do know that cops frequently stop motorcyclists for slim reasons, he has no way of proving he's an American citizen.

But seriously, Bluer White, the only acceptable documents for this law are AZ driver's licenses, passports, and the various papers that legal immigrants have. What should he do?

Surely they accept driver's licenses from other states?

[martha]

Originally Posted by Diemen

Surely they accept driver's licenses from other states?

The article I read specified AZ licenses.

[corianderstem]

Well gosh, that'll do wonders for their tourism business.

[martha]

I found a copy of the text of the law. It says:

Specifies that a person is presumed to be lawfully present if the person provides any of the following:
Ø A valid Arizona driver license.
Ø A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.
Ø A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.
Ø A valid federal, state or local government issued identification, if the issuing entity requires proof of legal presence before issuance.

California requires "proof of legal presence" for a DLso I guess Californians are off the hook.

[INDY500]

Claim: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

False. That’s simply not what the bill says at all. This page includes "SEC. 152. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE," which says that "[e]xcept as otherwise explicitly permitted by this Act and by subsequent regulations consistent with this Act, all health care and related services (including insurance coverage and public health activities) covered by this Act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services." However, the bill does explicitly say that illegal immigrants can’t get any government money to pay for health care. Page 143 states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States." And as we’ve said before, current law prohibits illegal immigrants from participating in government health care programs.

So hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, government aid agencies, pharmacies and doctors can ask for your "papers"... but not policemen in the coarse of their normal duties.

[corianderstem]

Thanks, martha. I was assuming the "AZ only" thing had to be wrong.

[martha]

Originally Posted by corianderstem

Thanks, martha. I was assuming the "AZ only" thing had to be wrong.

I was hoping, because it's rare, but Steve's been harassed by cops before.

[INDY500]

Originally Posted by martha

I was hoping, because it's rare, but Steve's been harassed by cops before.

Stop the presses. The police in America "harassed" a white man.

[martha]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Stop the presses. The police in America "harassed" a white man.

Imagine.

[INDY500]

Originally Posted by martha

Imagine.

Was it dark outside? Was his face covered with road grime? Was this a rookie cop? I mean, how does this happen in your Amerika The Racist?

[martha]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Was it dark outside? Was his face covered with road grime? Was this a rookie cop? I mean, how does this happen in your Amerika The Racist?

See, this is the problem. These experiences give us something you lack: empathy. We know it actually happens to people, no matter what some idiot commentator told us.

[U2387]

Originally Posted by martha

See, this is the problem. These experiences give us something you lack: empathy. We know it actually happens to people, no matter what some idiot commentator told us.

Well, it happens I guess, but I don't think it happens with the vast majority of police officers. Most of them want to do their job in good faith and go home at the end of the day.

I think the kind of racial profiling, forced interrogations, widespread harassment is a thing of the distant past. Ever since the professional policing wave, police departments have been some of the people most concerned with racial profiling and harassment of citizens in general.

Many police agencies are against the Arizona law because they feel that it will lead to profiling and will erode trust within the hispanic community, which they need to solve crimes. Drugs, guns and kidnappings have exploded in Phoenix and other Arizona cities, but the police know this law is not how to handle it. For one, most illegal immigrants are otherwise law abiding. Like all crime, the cartel violence is caused by a small minority wreaking a large majority of the havoc.

This bill will most definitely lead to profiling because it says "reasonable suspicion" of being in the country illegally is grounds for a stop. What constitutes reasonable suspicion? No one knows, but the most accepted answer is "looking Mexican." So under this bill, someone who came here legally in 1983 and got citizenship in 1992 could be pulled over in 2010, in compliance with all traffic/vehicle maintenance laws, merely because they suspect he may be in the country illegally. Why? He is Hispanic and is near a construction site, for example. This is why the Feds are taking issue with the bill, and why many police departments are taking issue with the bill. They understand the climate of mistrust it could create with law abiding citizens and legal aliens.

I don't think the Justice department would be challenging this law if it simply instructed officers who pull over or stop people for other legitimate violations to check a little more thoroughly than normal for legitimate identification as a US citizen or legal alien. "Pretext stops" have been upheld by liberals and conservatives in our court system as well within the bounds of the constitution.

Don't get me wrong, I have very little sympathy for those who illegally cross the border when so many others in the same circumstances get in line for legal immigration, residency and citizenship. If this law in Arizona leads to the arrest and deportation of 100 illegals the 1st day it is implemented, I will not particularly care or feel bad for them. Where my concern is is with the almost 100% chance that this will negatively impact many more innocent, law abiding citizens than it will illegal aliens. Just like with Bush's surveillance abuses, I care not that they wiretapped and caught some terrorist(which they could have done anyway, without violating the law) I care that they wiretapped a bunch of innocent Americans.

Either way, I hope both sides can agree that it is not the "nazi cops" who are responsible for the negative impacts of this Arizona law. They are just enforcing what the politicians passed, and many departments will undoubtedly not comply at all due to the negative implications mentioned or make it their lowest priority. I know a lot of cops and they are for the most part either very moderate Republicans or very moderate Democrats. They realize the situation on the ground in states like Arizona, and they have no use for politicians playing up the "fear the Mexican" card every election year while doing nothing in the interim.

Again, if we'd passed McCain-Kennedy in 06 or 07, we would have had better border control, more police units focused on drug cartels, kidnapping and gunrunning, and higher fines on employers of illegal immigrants.

[BVS]

I'll ask this again:

Originally Posted by BVS

For the last several days I keep hearing from talk radio that this law "only enforces the existing federal law", if that is the case then why not just execute a state memorandum?

Can some of you supporters explain this to me? And what precautions or wording is put in place so that this doesn't give free reign on racial profiling?

What do you honestly think will be gained by this law?

Here's the problem with this law:

I hear all the Tea Partiers commenting on Obama's 'if the family went out for ice cream' quote, and they all say this scenario is false, but have you read the law?

Everyone keeps saying the police won't ask for papers unless they are breaking the law, but this isn't true. The law states unless they are suspected of breaking a law. As of now a cop can approach a young looking 21 year old if they are drinking a beer and ask for ID if they suspect they are underage. What's from stopping the police from approaching someone who looks like they might be illegal? So what is the real point of this law? You conservatives have it all wrong if you think this is just about "upholding the already in place federal law".

[U2387]

Originally Posted by BVS

I hear all the Tea Partiers commenting on Obama's 'if the family went out for ice cream' quote, and they all say this scenario is false, but have you read the law?

The Obama comment was only "false" to the extent that it applied to legal aliens, who are supposed to have their green cards on them.

Suppose the large subset of Hispanic US Citizens in Arizona were walking down the street to get ice cream, not an action that requires having your license with you, and they were stopped?

All of a sudden, the President's reasoning becomes sound.

You are 100% right, though, the people who get stopped because of this do not have to be committing any crime of any nature, the law allows stops just based on reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally.

I do not know of one cop or lawyer(and I talk to quite a few, I work in the same complex that houses the MA State Police headquarters and many law firms) who could come up with a set of criteria for "reasonable suspicion of illegal status" besides "they look Hispanic."

Contrast that to crack dealers. Yes, they are usually black, but the police officer stopping them has come to reasonable suspicion based on them leaving a known drug house, driving down a street and exchanging something for money, etc. They don't just say "black in the city, he's probably a crack dealer, lets pull him over."

Contrast that to prostitutes. Yes, they are almost always women, but the police officer stopping them has come to reasonable suspicion based on them hanging out on a known "street walker" corner or going in and out of a different truck at a truck stop every 15 minutes. They don't just say "girl on the corner with short skirt, she's a hooker, lets stop her."

Contrast that to pot smokers. Yes, a lot of the times they are 22 yr old college kids who listen to DMB, but the cop comes to reasonable suspicion based on seeing them light something up in the car, smelling something funny or seeing the kid reach under the seat repeatedly as he approaches the car. He doesn't say "DMB listening college kid, Janis Joplin listening hippie, Jerry Garcia clone, he's a stoner, pull his ass over."

I could go on and on, but I, like you, BVS, hope the Tea Party can see the difference by now.

[zuropa_fit]

I'm not going to read all 11 pages of this thread, but I am absolutely embarrassed to live in AZ right now (even more so than usual).