The Automatik

It’s likely an understatement that the new Arizona law (SB 1070) regarding undocumented immigrants* has caused a huge controversy in the last couple of weeks.

There was a clip of Sheriff Joe Arpaio on TV saying that this law (paraphrasing here) doesn’t require police officers to just randomly ask people that look suspicious for their papers, it’s only done so with respect to a crime being committed.

“I’m smiling because I’m America’s Toughest Sheriff! If you don’t agree, you must be an ILLEGAL!”

That seemed like a pretty major oversight on the part of everyone who is upset over this, so I went ahead and looked up the actual text.

Here is what I discovered, copied and pasted DIRECTLY from the text of the law, no changes made, no emphasis made, nothing amended.

Provisions:

• Prohibits law enforcement officials and law enforcement agencies of this state or counties, municipalities and political subdivisions from restricting or limiting the enforcement of the federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.
• Requires officials and agencies to reasonably attempt to determine the immigration status of a person involved in a lawful contact where reasonable suspicion exists regarding the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.
• Stipulates that if the person is arrested, the person’s immigration status must be determined before the person is released and must be verified with the federal government.
• Stipulates that a law enforcement official or agency cannot solely consider race, color or national origin when implementing these provisions, except as permitted by the U.S. or Arizona Constitution.

Please note that the second bullet requires (not “allows”) officials and agencies to try and figure out the status of a person “involved in a lawful contact where reasonable suspicion exists” regarding their status.

The next bullet indicates that if “the person” is arrested, their status “must be determined.”

Note that the third bullet addresses the “racial profiling” aspect of the law “except as permitted by the U.S. or Arizona Constitution.” So no racial profiling, except for the racial profiling we have already codified into law. FAIL.

So what I want to know is what is “lawful contact”?

According to this:

“Police officers do this every day. It’s called a ‘Terry Stop,’ after the Terry v. Ohio case,” Mann said. “Let’s say there are some guys playing basketball in a park. The officer walks up and says, ‘Hey guys. How’s it going?’ That’s lawful contact. It’s a standard voluntary stop.”

So basically, “lawful contact” means whatever the fuck the cops want it to mean. Yet this Washington Examiner Op Ed writer Byron York feels differently.

Not surprisingly, the National Review thinks these are just “hysterical charges of racism” and goes into detail about this whole “lawful stop” business:

Instead, the officer is permitted to attempt to determine the person’s immigration status only if, in addition to the initial contact being lawful, there also exists specific “reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.” As I noted above, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence teaches that reasonable suspicion requires specific, articulable facts — not a hunch or generalized suspicion.

Really? I didn’t notice any “AND” between those first three bullet points in the law. Sure those are “just” semantics, but the law DOES NOT STATE “if in addition to. . . there also exists” so I think that it can be interpreted differently.

There is far much more FAIL involved in SB 1070 than just the “lawful stop” verbiage.

Scroll through to check out the “superior court action” section, civil penalties, the strange combination of immigration enforcement and GANG ENFORCEMENT into one team activity, “willful failure” to carry documents and the subsequent penalties, unlawfully picking up passengers for work (it’s okay unless the car “blocks or impedes the normal flow of traffic”), and my personal favorite, employer sanctions.

This bit is eye catching: “Provides employers with the affirmative defense that they were entrapped, but they must admit the substantial elements of the violation.” I SWEAR WE DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!

*NOTE: I do NOT condone the use of or personally use the term “illegals” or “illegal aliens” to describe undocumented immigrants/immigrants who are residing in the U.S. without legal status. Please refrain from using both of those terms on my Blog when discussing this and related issues. Thanks.