Arizona Goes Bonkers Over Immigration

This is the first time I've ever heard of an Arizona state issue gaining national attention. I'm talking about their new law about police stopping people to show proof of legal residence. To recap on why this has raised such controversy, the concern is that this is or will lead to racial profiling. The governor claims that the law has been constructed to prevent this from happening; however, even with the best of intentions, I don't see how illegal discrimination can be avoided. What sort of behaviors would tip someone off as being an illegal alien? The problem is that they do the exact same things as the rest of us. A typical day for an illegal alien probably goes something like this: wake up, go to work, rush home at the end of the day, eat dinner, watch TV, and go to bed. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? The only discernible difference in their behavior is the tendency to use of Spanish instead of English. I hate to point out the obvious, but speaking Spanish is not a crime (such a law would spit in the eye of the First Amendment); moreover, it far from being a suspicious behavior. Those who harbor suspicion for others who speak Spanish would rightly be labeled as discriminating.

Anyway, that's the basic argument against the law, which to me is obvious and uninteresting. The actual reason I started writing this was to respond to a caller on the Diane Rehm Show who probably represents a large (mis-informed) segment of the American population. The point he was trying to make was that Arizona is trying to enforce existing immigration law, and should not be vilified for it. Nobody is arguing that the Arizona is doing something wrong by trying to enforce existing laws. In fact, opponents (such as myself) are arguing that this law breaks other laws, and that it violates our values with respect to the Fourth Amendment. Basically, the police cannot stop someone based solely on the interest of stopping crime; they have to have good reason to suspect that someone is engaged in illegal activity. For example, let's say you're driving down the freeway without exhibiting any kind of illegal or even unusual behavior. If the police stop you, your rights have been violated. Unless the they give you a particularly bad time, you're probably better off just letting it go as a honest to goodness one-off mistake. The problem with this law is that it implicitly sanctions this kind of behavior a large scale. People's rights will be violated on a consistent and systematic basis.

The people I'm talking about here are those who "look like" illegal aliens (whatever that means), but who are actually here legally. Again, there's no way tell an illegal alien apart from anyone else as long as he or she is just going about his own business. White folks probably don't have much to worry in terms of the police bothering them about their residency status. On the other hand, anyone with brown skin, speaks Spanish, or speaks English with a Spanish accent will feel that they are under a higher level of suspicion, and they would probably be right. If this isn't a clear case of discrimination, I don't know what is.