Arizona Adopts Stricter Immigration Laws

[EpyonXero]

If local cops dont think you look American enough they can ask you to prove your citizenship, if you cant they can arrest you.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us...ig.html?ref=us

Arizona Endorses Immigration Curbs
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
While pressure increases on the Obama administration for a long-anticipated and much-promised overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, Arizona is moving ahead with anti-illegal-immigrant legislation widely considered among the most stringent in the states. It would hand the police in the state broad power under state law to check the legal status of people they reasonably suspect are illegal immigrants.

The legislation was approved by Arizona’s House of Representatives on Tuesday and is heading back to the Senate, which is expected to pass it and send it to Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican facing an election challenge from conservatives. Although she has not stated her position, people on both sides of the bill expect her to sign it.

The police would be authorized to arrest immigrants unable to show documents allowing them to be in the country and the legislation would leave drivers open to sanctions in some cases for knowingly transporting an illegal immigrant, even a relative. It expressly forbids cities from adopting “sanctuary” policies that restrict the police and public workers from immigration enforcement, though it was a matter of debate if any cities had such policies.

The bill, hotly debated by police, business and faith groups, represents a step back from an earlier proposal that would have broadened the state’s trespassing law to encompass being in the state illegally. But advocates for immigrants described it as a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling that is ripe for costly constitutional challenges and par for the course in a state where debate over immigration is as heated as the desert sun.

It is “the most anti-immigrant legislation the country has seen in a generation,” said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “Arizona has long been a laboratory for anti-immigrant experimentation, and its demagogue leaders have become folk heroes for white supremacists throughout the United States, but this bill ushers in a new chapter of disgrace for the state,” he said.

Muzaffar A. Christi, a lawyer and policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said Arizona would be the first state to allow the local police to determine a person’s immigration status based solely on their “reasonable suspicion” that they were in the country illegally. No other state, he added, makes it a state crime not to carry an alien registration card or other immigration document, though federal law requires legal immigrants to do so.

He said the Arizona law could face legal challenges. “How can you ‘reasonably believe’ someone is an undocumented immigrant if you are a local cop?” he said. “Federal agents have training on that, but local cops don’t know that.” Supporters of the bill, which included a handful of Republicans who doubted its effectiveness but voted for it anyway, said it reflected frustration with a federal government that they believed had fallen short on revamping immigration law and securing the border. More people and drugs cross illegally into the United States through Arizona than any other state.

The chief sponsor of the legislation, State Senator Russell Pearce, said in an interview that he hoped that the legislation, and other measures, would send the message to illegal immigrants that they were not welcome in Arizona. “That absolutely is what we are doing here,” he said.

He brushed aside concerns that immigrants would not cooperate with police investigations or report crime, noting that the law would allow officers not to ask about immigration status if it would hinder an investigation.

State Representative John Kavanagh, a Republican, noted that the flow of illegal immigration might have slowed during the recession. But the problem remained a top concern of his constituents, he said, and the bill would give the police additional tools to root out people without authorization to be in the country. “So when the new tsunami of illegal immigration comes, we will be ready for them,” he added.

The bill also serves as a reminder that, for all the back and forth in Washington, the states continue sewing a patchwork of legislation intended to answer local demands to confront illegal immigration.

Since an effort to overhaul federal immigration law collapsed in 2007, immigration-related bills in the states have surged, with more immigration bills than ever posted last year, including efforts to restrict public services and encouraging more local police cooperation with federal authorities, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

If the bill was a rebuke to the Obama administration, it was also a tweak to Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor who is now secretary of homeland security and a key adviser to the administration on immigration. Ms. Napolitano, a Democrat, had a contentious relationship with the Republican sponsors of the bill and had vetoed similar legislation as governor.

Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for Ms. Napolitano, declined to comment directly on the merits of the bill but defended federal enforcement of immigration law and border security. He said that the government concentrated on “smart, effective immigration enforcement” focused on removing illegal immigrants who committed crimes, and that it had bolstered border security.

“D.H.S. has replaced old policies that merely looked tough with new policies that remove convicted criminals and make our streets safer,” he said.

Immigration remains a potent issue in Arizona; during debate over the bill on Tuesday, a few legislators invoked the killing of a rancher at the border that the police theorized was related to smuggling. Governor Brewer’s campaign Web site features pictures of razor wire on a border fence, and she has sought to play up her toughness on immigration as she prepares for a challenge to a full term from candidates considered to be to the right of her.

A spokesman for Ms. Brewer said she would not take a position until the bill arrived on her desk.

Some Republicans called the bill flawed and promised to fix it later, but they supported it as a step forward. “This is not a comprehensive solution,” Kirk Adams, a Republican and the speaker of the House, said before casting his vote for it. “That’s not going to occur until the federal government takes up its responsibility to protect Arizona. But that doesn’t mean we should wait until then.”