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angelatc
04-27-2010, 03:42 PM
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/27/irresponsibility_on_immigration_105326.html

"Misguided and irresponsible" is how Arizona's new law pertaining to illegal immigration is characterized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She represents San Francisco, which calls itself a "sanctuary city," an exercise in exhibitionism that means it will be essentially uncooperative regarding enforcement of immigration laws. Yet as many states go to court to challenge the constitutionality of the federal mandate to buy health insurance, scandalized liberals invoke 19th-century specters of "nullification" and "interposition," anarchy and disunion. Strange.

It is passing strange for federal officials, including the president, to accuse Arizona of irresponsibility while the federal government is refusing to fulfill its responsibility to control the nation's borders. Such control is an essential attribute of national sovereignty. America is the only developed nation that has a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation, and the government's refusal to control that border is why there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona and why the nation, sensibly insisting on first things first, resists "comprehensive" immigration reform.

Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense -- being in the country illegally -- a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund attacks Gov. Jan Brewer's character and motives, saying she "caved to the radical fringe." This poses a semantic puzzle: Can the large majority of Arizonans who support the law be a "fringe" of their state?

Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy -- judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes -- because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences. The Constitution, the Supreme Court has said, puts certain things "beyond the reach of majorities."

But Arizona's statute is not presumptively unconstitutional merely because it says that police officers are required to try to make "a reasonable attempt" to determine the status of a person "where reasonable suspicion exists" that the person is here illegally. The fact that the meaning of "reasonable" will not be obvious in many contexts does not make the law obviously too vague to stand. The Bill of Rights -- the Fourth Amendment -- proscribes "unreasonable searches and seizures." What "reasonable" means in practice is still being refined by case law -- as is that amendment's stipulation that no warrants shall be issued "but upon probable cause." There has also been careful case-by-case refinement of the familiar and indispensable concept of "reasonable suspicion."

Brewer says, "We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color, accent or social status." Because the nation thinks as Brewer does, airport passenger screeners wand Norwegian grandmothers. This is an acceptable, even admirable, homage to the virtue of "evenness" as we seek to deter violence by a few, mostly Middle Eastern, young men.

Some critics say Arizona's law is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" prevents the government from basing action on the basis of race. Liberals, however, cannot comfortably make this argument because they support racial set-asides in government contracting, racial preferences in college admissions, racial gerrymandering of legislative districts and other aspects of a racial spoils system. Although liberals are appalled by racial profiling, some seem to think vocational profiling (police officers are insensitive incompetents) is merely intellectual efficiency, as is state profiling (Arizonans are xenophobic).

Probably 30 percent of Arizona's residents are Hispanics. Arizona police officers, like officers everywhere, have enough to do without being required to seek arrests by violating settled law with random stops of people who speak Spanish. In the practice of the complex and demanding craft of policing, good officers -- the vast majority -- routinely make nuanced judgments about when there is probable cause for acting on reasonable suspicions of illegality.

Arizona's law might give the nation information about whether judicious enforcement discourages illegality. If so, it is a worthwhile experiment in federalism.

Non-Hispanic Arizonans of all sorts live congenially with all sorts of persons of Hispanic descent. These include some whose ancestors got to Arizona before statehood -- some even before it was a territory. They were in America before most Americans' ancestors arrived. Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their back yards at 3 a.m.

MelissaWV
04-27-2010, 03:49 PM
...

Probably 30 percent of Arizona's residents are Hispanics. Arizona police officers, like officers everywhere, have enough to do without being required to seek arrests by violating settled law with random stops of people who speak Spanish. In the practice of the complex and demanding craft of policing, good officers -- the vast majority -- routinely make nuanced judgments about when there is probable cause for acting on reasonable suspicions of illegality.

Arizona's law might give the nation information about whether judicious enforcement discourages illegality. If so, it is a worthwhile experiment in federalism.

Non-Hispanic Arizonans of all sorts live congenially with all sorts of persons of Hispanic descent. These include some whose ancestors got to Arizona before statehood -- some even before it was a territory. They were in America before most Americans' ancestors arrived. Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their back yards at 3 a.m.

:rolleyes: I know they're talking about Pelosi, but that's pretty damned silly... and many of those busboys and lawncare workers are of dubious legality. As for assurances that police, even IF they could do so, are just too busy to go around stopping people for speaking Spanish... somehow I'm not comforted.

Jeremy
04-27-2010, 03:54 PM
I don't get it. His only defense of the bill when it comes to violating the Constituion is that liberals are hypocrites? "The liberals violate the Constitution so we can too."

John Taylor
04-27-2010, 04:26 PM
I don't get it. His only defense of the bill when it comes to violating the Constituion is that liberals are hypocrites? "The liberals violate the Constitution so we can too."

I don't see any constitutional violation here, so long as the original, underlying reason for being first stopped by a police officer is one based on probable cause or a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

MelissaWV
04-27-2010, 05:04 PM
I don't see any constitutional violation here, so long as the original, underlying reason for being first stopped by a police officer is one based on probable cause or a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

Being here illegally is criminal activity. You have still not answered to anyone's satisfaction what "reasonable suspicion of illegality" would be based upon.

angelatc
04-27-2010, 05:11 PM
Being here illegally is criminal activity. You have still not answered to anyone's satisfaction what "reasonable suspicion of illegality" would be based upon.

I saw Danno mention that the "lawful eocounter" thing had been debunked. Can you point me to that thread, if you remember where it is? I need to catch up on the talking points.

MelissaWV
04-27-2010, 05:17 PM
I saw Danno mention that the "lawful eocounter" thing had been debunked. Can you point me to that thread, if you remember where it is? I need to catch up on the talking points.

I'm going off of what the bill says. If that's not what they meant to say, then someone goofed up bigtime. If this, as John Taylor says, has been the way it's written for 50 years, then someone who's probably on Social Security or dead (likely the latter) goofed up bigtime :p

I read it as an "or" not a requirement. In other words, there is a lawful contact provision, sure. I don't think there is a single person who disagrees with asking who someone is when they have committed a crime, fit the profile of a criminal (though of course one can choose to remain silent on the issue), and so on. There is another section which discusses detention for suspicion of removable offense. That is what I continue to come back to. They are not the same thing.

Lawful contact:


20 B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY
21 OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS
22 STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS
23 UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
24 WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE
25 PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
26 PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).

Removable offense:


37 E. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON
38 IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED
39 ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.

Being here illegally is a removable offense.

Hamer
04-27-2010, 05:17 PM
I saw Danno mention that the "lawful eocounter" thing had been debunked. Can you point me to that thread, if you remember where it is? I need to catch up on the talking points.

I think this is what you are looking for?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=242067

silus
04-27-2010, 05:31 PM
Some critics say Arizona's law is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" prevents the government from basing action on the basis of race. Liberals, however, cannot comfortably make this argument because they support racial set-asides in government contracting, racial preferences in college admissions, racial gerrymandering of legislative districts and other aspects of a racial spoils system.
Exactly what is wrong in America. People think identifying hypocrisy in the opposition is an argument for implementing something. Why would you even post this trash?