Brandon's Personal Blog

Arizona and Immigration Reform

The argument that the Arizona immigration law is wrong because it opens up the door to racial profiling doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny.  Any law has the potential to be abused by those who wish to use it in the wrong way.  An officer with malicious intent could use laws against drunk driving as an excuse to pull over drivers of a certain race simply because he was prejudiced against them.  Does that make the drunk driving laws wrong, because they potentially open the door to the abuse of racial profiling?  The law is just a tool.  Like any tool, in the wrong hands it can be put to evil use.  A gun in the wrong hands can murder, but the gun in and of itself is not an instrument of murder.

The Arizona law has clear language prohibiting its abuse:

A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona constitution.

This section shall be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens.

The language that the law uses to enable officers to check on immigration status:

For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.

The phrase “reasonable suspicion” is not just words.  This is a US legal standard that was established back in 1968.  It does not leave things open to interpretation.  There are over 40 years of case history and legal precedent defining exactly what “reasonable suspicion” means.

If officers abuse the law and engage in racial profiling against hispanics, then they should be brought up on charges and expelled from the police force.  If this doesn’t happen, then we can condemn Arizona for enabling racial profiling.  This law in and of itself does not promote racism, and it does not open the door to racial profiling any more than many other laws that already exist and are enforced every day in states across America.

The importance of this law is that it is a vital first step towards true immigration reform.  In practice, legal immigration status means very little today.  We don’t tightly control who enters our country, and we don’t actively deport those we discover who entered illegally.  What meaning would immigration reform have now when immigration status itself is so meaningless.  Enforcement of our current immigration laws brings significance back to legal immigration process.  Then, and only then, can you truly pursue the immigration reform that America desperately needs.  The countless stories of legal aliens being detained in multi-decade waiting lists and deported for the most minor paperwork mistakes show that the laws must change, and they must change quickly.  It benefits no one to reform laws that mean nothing, however.

Americans in support of Arizona’s laws are not embracing the law because it’s the first such law to make it on the books.  We support it because we believe in what it truly stands for, and the necessary steps it will take towards resolving the terrible cancer of America’s illegal immigration problem.