DOJ to sue AZ
Story here. My understanding is that the AZ law mimics federal law except that, you know, the state will actually enforce it. Seems to me that part of the fed’s case would be admitting that they do a crappy job of enforcing the law and that they do so for a reason.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:10 am
The government never admits to doing wrong period.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:41 am
So, let me get this straight. The Feds refuse to enforce a law, AZ decides to enforce it for themselves. So now the Feds will sue and let’s just say they win.
Will they enforce THAT law?
July 7th, 2010 at 10:42 am
My understanding is that the law requires a citizenship check if the officer detains some one for some reason.
If you are walking down the street they cannot stop you and ask you a question.
If you are running down the street carrying a TV, you could expect to be asked to show your papers, please.
All it does is codify the requirement to determine status when a citizen is detained by the law.
July 7th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Are we sure we want to go down the road of requiring a registry of citizens? Because we don’t have one now; for a number of good reasons. And without one, how are you supposed to determine residency on the street?
July 7th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Ian, no registry required. This is nothing that can’t be determined by a flash of a driver’s license, showing a Visa, and/or running NICS check.
Same shit as done at EVERY police stop from a busted tail light, to suspicion of murder. Just now when the cops find out that the guy with the busted tail light is also in the country illegally, they can DO something about it, rather than report it to ICE and have ICE do jack and shit.
July 7th, 2010 at 11:52 am
The gist of the government’s complaint is “…S.B. 1070’s mandatory enforcement scheme will conflict with and undermine the federal government’s careful balance of immigration enforcement priorities and objectives. ”
That and they fear so many referrals from Arizona that their efforts to keep Canada at bay will suffer due to resource constraints.
As for the determination of status of suspected illegals. All the law does is make such determination mandatory for AZ police rather than discretionary. Right now, today, they can ask about lawful status after developing reasonable suspicion. The 1st circuit court of appeals just ruled that a Rhode Island State Trooper acted appropriately when he followed up on reasonable suspicion of unauthorized status of passengers during a traffic stop (no id, library card and Guatemalan consulate issued id) and escorted the individuals to the local ICE office as requested.
July 7th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
wrong, weerd. i had a driver’s license while i was still waiting to receive my green card, i.e., before i was even a permanent resident. i certainly wasn’t carrying around my passport everywhere i went, back then or at any time since. didn’t actually have a visa either, due to the exact circumstances i entered the country under. and NICS check? why on earth would that have known jack about me then?
i have a U.S. passport now, but i don’t carry it around. my driver’s license still looks exactly the same, no bearing on my citizenship. i had to surrender my green card when i took the oath, so actually, i have LESS means to prove my residency status today than i used to carry every day before.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
At the current time, the front-seat passenger in a car is not required to carry any ID on them; but in many states a failure to wear a seatbelt is a primary offense (and therefore can be used to pull over the vehicle and interact with the front-seat passenger).
I don’t have a problem with the local level of law enforcement detaining someone they can generate reasonable suspicion of being in the country illegally on. I have a HUGE problem with requiring the arbitrary carriage of an ID that proves residency status. A database dip won’t do that; at least not if all you have to go on is name and physical description. You’d need DOB, address, and SSN at the very least, or you have the no-fly list…
Riddle me this – if we require someone to carry proof of legal residence on their person to be able to show to police during interaction why can’t we require them to carry proof that they are legally permitted to possess a firearm…
I have too many friends who are doing the legal immigration slog to have much sympathy for illegals; and I have none at all for the ones who are committing victim-affecting crimes, from welfare fraud and tax evasion through unlicensed driving to rape and murder. But checking immigration status of anyone the cops interact with is an exercise in futility. Is Juan Herrerro an illegal immigrant or a Puerto Rican born citizen of the US? Neither of them speak English so good, and neither one of them has a drivers license – but they’re both riding in the back of a van on the way to a work site when the driver coasts through a stop sign. How about if they’re both on that job site and a cop shows up looking for a hispanic male who grabbed some woman’s diamond necklace and ran into the construction site?
Once you’ve hauled them downtown and had Danno book them, you’ve got them fingerprinted, DNA’d etc, go ahead and see if those match known illegals. But at the same time, if our good buddy Juan Herrero goes dancing down the street after having celebrated St Paddy’s Day a little too strongly and left his pants with Robb Allen and can’t remember his name, much less his SSN; he should not be in danger of deportation because he can’t prove he’s a citizen. Feel free to mock him all you like.
Pardon me for finding it ironic that the same state that no longer requires an adult carry ID to possess a concealed firearm in public to prove that they aren’t a felon if a cop interacts wit them nevertheless requires them to carry proof of residency to prove they aren’t an illegal alien in case a cop interacts with them.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
If one reads the actual law, a driver’s license from any state other than Arizona is NOT proof of citizenship. New Mexico and other states give driver’s licenses to illegals.
July 7th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Apparently it works OK in Rhode Island where they do the same thing.
July 7th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I had been assured by supporters of the law that the drivers licenses of most other states would be accepted as proof of legal residency. Which caused me to do some cursory googling and discover that AZ was (as of a while back, anyway) one of the states opposed to REAL ID (though from what I can tell, under Gov Napolitano it was mainly due to the unfunded mandate aspect).
As it happens, I’m not arguing that the law won’t be effective – I’m sure it will reduce the number of illegals in AZ. At the margins, there will be people who will decamp to other states or back from whence they came. I’m arguing that it falls afould of Franklin’s dictum on freedom and security.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Arizona is hurting more from this illegal invasion more than any other state.
The lawsuit from the feds doesn’t even address the racial aspect. It addresses the supremacy clause. Immigration is a federal issue they say, as they sit on their ass. Well, let’s see some lawsuits against sanctuary cities. They’re totally violating federal immigration laws.
For those of you who don’t like it, do you want to see some form of national id? It is the only other response.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
I would ask this. Why does the federal gov’t have standing to sue? That’s right, from where do they derive standing?
Remember all the cases brought by citizens against clearly unconsitutional federal laws that were dismissed because the plaintiff had no standing. Standing being determined the suffering of harm due to the unconstitutional law or harm due to the breaking of said law.
How does the federal government show they have been harmed by this law. Especially since it has not even become actve as of this date? Just one example, Parker became Heller because Parker couldn’t show that he had been harmed by DC’s unconstitutional law because he hadn’t broken it and he had abided by the realities of not being able to register handgun in Dc.
If this case is not dismissed immediately by the presiding judge, I predict the trial will be “fixed” to assure a federal victory.
Attorneys for Arizona should definitely raise the issue of “standing”.
July 8th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
It’s my understanding that it mirrors federal law except for the part where it says the police can detain you until you prove a negative—that you’re not here illegally—and it’s that part which has everyone upset, including American-born Hispanics who feel that this is going to be overwhelmingly used against them and others of vagely-swarthy-latino-looking kinda people.
July 8th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Well, that’s pretty bad. Not really a fan of this law.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
The old saying “you are known by the company you keep” applies here.
If native-born and legal-immigrant Hispanics don’t want to be confused with illegal immigrants… they should stop *defending* them. They should be the strongest voices in *opposing* illegal immigration.
But so many legal and native-born Hispanics *oppose* enforcing immigration law at any level because they see racial, ethnic, and familial loyalty as more important to them than the rule of law. “Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada” as they say.
“Racial profiling” would not be a problem with immigration enforcement if Hispanics were not over-represented among illegal immigrants and legal/native-born Hispanics were not rushing to defend the illegal activies of their ethnic brethren. But for them, blood is thicker than any ideology.
Hispanics have made their bed by supporting criminals simply because they share the same skin color. They should not be surprised when they’re treated as criminals for the same reason.
July 8th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
My favorite uncle came from Mexico, he would fully support this law. He loved this country and he had no love for people who didn’t. There was never a prouder or more protective American than my Uncle Trini.
July 8th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Has anyone here actually READ the law? Or are we going by press accounts? Read it yourself.
http://azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/SB_1070_Signed.pdf
1 The following IDs are acceptable: AZ drivers license or ID, tribal ID, any Federal or State ID from a state that requires proof of status to obtain said ID
2 reasonable suspicion is required for the stop
3 racial profiling prohibited
The real danger here is in the Federal Lawsuit. First, it would seem that if the court sides with the Feds and rules that the states cannot enforce any law where the Feds already regulate activity, all state laws concerning gun sales would instantly be struck down. At first blush, this would seem like a good thing, but the real danger here is that a case like this would destroy states’ rights.
July 9th, 2010 at 8:20 am
And of course there’s bank robbery, interstate flight, wire fraud, gun running, drug running, etc. etc. Should the federal government win this lawsuit does that mean the states should not apprehend or aid in the apprehension of any of these breakers of federal
law?
July 10th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Thanks, Divemedic. It’s your first bullet point that disturbs me. The second one is par for the course, and the third one is well-meaning but useless (human beings profile, nothing to be done about it, especially since it allows racial profiling if that is not the sole factor – which it rarely will be).
OTOH, having read a bit of the federal suit – it’s worse than nothing. The first bullet point has some constitutional issues. Full Faith and Credence is implicated here, and like I keep saying, the theory behind this law is very dangerous for nationallly recognized carry. If AZ doesn’t recognize for the purposes of ID some states’ drivers licenses; why do they have to recognize for the purposes of allowing carry some states’ permits. In one case, the state doesn’t determine the applicants’ residency status, in the other, their competence with a handgun…
What would happen if a state allows unrestricted carry, but *required* police to check prohibited-person status on each “lawful interaction” with someone who is carrying (remember, under Terry a cop is allowed to frisk for weapons in a “lawful interaction”, for officer safety). How many wookies would be shaking their bowcasters with one hand and Gasden Flags with the other?
At least there is a registry of prohibited persons that allows rapid lookup (more or less), NICS. There is no such registry of US Citizens; and any attempt to compile such is going to run into a firestorm of outrage.
Lawful interactions happen outside the context of stopping the driver of a vehicle, so you don’t have to have an ID. I know at least 2 people who don’t have drivers licenses and don’t even KNOW how to drive. Hell, for 6 months or so all the valid ID I possessed was a social security card. My previous drivers license had expired, I couldn’t find my birth certificate, as had my passport (which was from my childhood anyway). I was young and stupid and was in a state park after dusk, and was busted. There’s no chance in heck that I’m going to be suspected of being an alien – but what if I had been Juan Herrerro, born in Puerto Rico, and had english as my second language? (Or any other cicrumstances similar). The AZ law would necessitate hauling Juan off to the DHS lockup. Or if he’s carrying a bogus ID so he can drink (college students being known to do that)…
Someone said when I last brought up the implications for gun rights that “you have a right to a gun, you don’t have a right to be in the country illegally”. That’s apples and oranges – the correct comaprison is “you don’t have a right to be in the country illegally, and you don’t have a right to carry a gun if you’re a prohibited person”. So if the state has the power to detain and force you to prove immigration status, why don’t they have the power to detain and forc eyou to prove non-prohibited status? I’m far more worried about Sumdood with his gat than I am about Juan Herrerro the day laborer.