Arizona's Harsh Anti-Immigration Law Sparks Anger

Arizona's Harsh Anti-Immigration Law Sparks Anger
More By Max Fisher on April 20, 2010 2:31pm
Arizona is not known for stretching a welcome mat across its long desert border with Mexico. The state's laws are among the country's harshest and most restrictive toward illegal immigrants. Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County was dubbed "America's toughest sheriff" for his sweeping arrests and sometimes rough treatment of suspected illegal immigrants. But Arizona's strict anti-immigration stance is about to get even stricter. The state senate has passed a new law that, if passed, will bring restrictions against suspected illegal immigrants, and relevant police powers, to unprecedented levels. Many national political pundits are stidently opposed or, in the case of many conservatives, conspicuously silent.

What the Bill Does The New York Times' Randal Archibold reports, "The bill makes it a state crime for immigrants not to carry authorization papers, requires the police 'when practicable' to check the immigration status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally and allows people to sue cities and counties if the law is not being enforced." Gawker's Alex Pareene summarizes, "Now any cop in Arizona can ask anyone to prove their immigration status, and every cop in Arizona is compelled, under threat of lawsuit, to enforce federal immigration laws." Police do not require warrants or the proof of probable cause to detain suspected illegal immigrants.
The Guy Behind It Citing the New York Times report, Gawker's Jeff Neumann calls the bill's author, state senator Russell Pearce, "a friend of neo-nazis." Neumann cites photographs of Pearce appearing with a man who was also the featured speaker at a neo-nazi gathering, Pearce's stated admiration of a 1950s program called "Operation Wetback," and an email he sent to supporters that included (mistakenly, he said) an attachment from a white supremacist group.
Reminiscent of 'Fascist Europe' The Los Angeles Times editorial board calls it "racial profiling," lamenting, "Even legal immigrants, in a move that harks back to fascist Europe, would be required to carry their papers at all times or risk arrest."
'Off the Deep End' The New York Times is appalled. "The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits."
Congressman: Mass Deportations Writing in the Huffington Post, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez warns, "The Obama administration has escalated mass deportation as our singular approach to immigrants ... We are now deporting people at a rate of 1,000 per day -- with nearly half of the arrests in the state of Arizona -- and now the state legislature is on the verge of escalating that pace dramatically."
Legislation Unlike Anything Since Jim Crow Arizona-based legal defender Isabel Garcia tells CNN that the bill "legalizes racial profiling." She says,"I think this bill represents the most dangerous precedent in this country, violating all of our due process rights. ... We have not seen this kind of legislation since the Jim Crow laws. And targeting our communities, it is the single most largest attack on our communities."
AZ Senators: We Don't All Support The Washington Independent's Julizza Trevino reports, "Several senators spoke out against the bill, arguing that Arizona could become the Alabama of the new century, that the bill may be unconstitutional and that it could turn family members of illegal immigrants into criminals. One senator called the bill 'un-American,' and another expressed concern over how Arizona might be viewed if the legislation were passed and whether tourism would suffer as a result."
Obama Could Have Averted This The American Prospect's Adam Serwer sighs, "this episode illustrates the folly of having tapped Janet Napolitanoto serve as Secretary of Homeland Security, given her past role as a check against the worst anti-immigrant impulses of Arizona politicians when she was the state's governor."

Wiesenthal Center Protest AZ Governor's Anti-Immigration Bill

This isn't about immigration, it's about discrimination. This law stigmatizes people of color as second class citizens and exposes them to intimidation and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias.

Wiesenthal Center Protests AZ Governor's Anti-Immigration Bill

"This isn't about immigration, it's about discrimination," says Center founder Rabbi Hier
NEW YORK, April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed disappointment that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the anti-immigration bill into law, that among other things makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires local law enforcement to determine an individual's legal status and arrest without warrant a person if there is "reasonable suspicion" that he or she is in the U.S. illegally.

"This isn't about immigration, it's about discrimination," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. "We should not forget that we're a nation of immigrants. This law makes no sense it guarantees and stigmatizes people of color as second-class citizens and exposes them to intimidation and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias," he concluded.

As part of its Tools for Tolerance® diversity programs, the Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and New York Tolerance Center in Manhattan include training law enforcement professionals across the country to address difficult questions and concerns over racial profiling. Law enforcement agencies across Arizona have participated in this program.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.


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Arizona's Effort to Bolster local Immigration Authority Divides Law Enforcement

I am against this law, totally racist and against the human rights.

vdebate reporter

NY Times

Arizona’s Effort to Bolster Local Immigration Authority Divides Law Enforcement
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

PHOENIX — A bill the Arizona Legislature passed this week that would hand the state and local police broad powers to enforce immigration law has split police groups and sown confusion over how the law would be applied.

While Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, has yet to say whether she will sign the bill into law, on Wednesday a national police group condemned it as likely to lead to racial and ethnic profiling and to threaten public safety if immigrants did not report crime or did not cooperate with the authorities out of fear of being deported.

The police group joined a growing list of organizations and religious and political leaders far from the state’s borders urging Ms. Brewer to veto the bill. Her spokesman said that of the 15,011 calls and letters her office had received on the bill, more than 85 percent opposed it.

The law would require the police “when practicable” to detain people they reasonably suspected were in the country without authorization. It would also allow the police to charge immigrants with a state crime for not carrying immigration documents. And it allows residents to sue cities if they believe the law is not being enforced.

Members of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, a group of police leaders pressing for a federal overhaul of immigration law, said they worried that other states would copy Arizona, despite the likelihood that the law will be challenged in federal court.

“Just because it is in Arizona doesn’t mean it’s likely to remain there,” said George Gascón, the chief of the San Francisco Police Department and a former chief in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb. “We are very concerned about what could happen to public safety.”

The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police and several sheriffs have also come out against the bill, calling it burdensome and an intrusion into a federal matter.

Most police agencies or jails here already check the immigration status of people charged with a crime, in consultation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the new law would expand that power and allows the police to stop people on the suspicion of being in the country without documents.

The Mexican Embassy released a statement expressing concern that the law would lead to racial profiling and damage cross-border relations.

But some of the largest rank-and-file police groups have come out strongly in favor of the bill.

The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the city police department’s largest union, has promoted the bill as a “common sense proactive step in the right direction in the continuing battle on illegal immigration.”

The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents 6,500 officers statewide, endorsed the bill but said it had reservations over the potential costs to departments and the lack of training for local officers to identify who might be in the country illegally.

Bryan Soller, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said if officers ended up arresting large numbers of illegal immigrants, that could add to already crowded jails and costs. Mr. Soller also said departments were worried about the expense of defending any lawsuits by people contending that the law was not being enforced.

But he said he thought many concerns were overblown. His group initially opposed the bill but endorsed it after language was included that he and sponsors believe give officers discretion to use it, in part to ward off federal civil rights claims.

“Some will go out and use it a lot,” Mr. Soller said. “But you are not going to see them doing things much different from what they do now.”

All sides agree that a federal overhaul to better control immigration would help, and advocacy groups, pointing to the Arizona bill, are pushing lawmakers to act soon. But several people involved in the negotiations in Washington said a federal bill was not close to being ready.

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York.