Arizona- Guest Post by Heath Suddleson
The new law in Arizona is much maligned, but rarely read.
As of now, President Obama, Eric Holder, and Janet Napalitano have all cried foul with respect to Arizona’s newest law, and all have admitted that they have not read the mere 16 pages of text. I don’t know why we are surprised to hear they have not read the bill, since they all supported the 2,000 plus page health care bill without reading it either. Nor did they read the Cap and Trade legislation since it was voted on as pages were still coming off the printer.
Now what does Arizona’s new law do and why are so many people now boycotting the Grand Canyon state? In a word, the law does nothing that was not already on the books. It merely clarifies the procedures to be followed by local law enforcement at all levels within the state. Whether a state trooper, or a small town sheriff that doubles as the gas station cashier, they all have a single set of rules to follow. What does this law require them to do? It requires them to contact the Department of Homeland Security’s department of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hotline to verify a suspect’s immigration status. It should be noted that this hotline has been in existence for many years and receives over 1,000 calls per day from local law enforcement nation wide.
President Obama used the example of a family who is second generation American, but of Latino descent, going for ice cream and having to carry papers with them because they could be harassed by law enforcement as a result of this new law. Could this really happen under the new law? Well I have read all 16 pages of the law and what I can tell you is this, the law applies only to conditions in which someone has already been detained by law enforcement for what is called, “lawful contact” which means that the person is suspected of having committed some other crime to attract the attention of law enforcement. Since racial profiling is not lawful, it cannot by definition, be the basis for which a person’s immigration status is questioned. So for President Obama’s example to hold true, the second generation American must also be running from the ice cream shop with a bag full of cash or something similar.
The simple fact is that Arizona has done nothing but clarify for their law enforcement officers the procedure to be followed when questioning the immigration status of anyone already being detained or taken into custody by law enforcement. It does not make more stringent any federal rules, regulations, or procedures and it does not allow for anyone to be stopped or questioned solely for the purpose of checking immigration status.
Conversely, cities like San Francisco, Denver, and Washington DC are called Sanctuary Cities, in which it is expressly forbidden for local law enforcement to notify federal authorities of the presence of illegal immigrants, even when the status is known definitively. There were four sanctuary cities in Arizona (Chandler, Mesa, Phoenix, and Tucson) who are now required to contract federal authorities when they suspect or know of the presence of illegal immigrants.
At the end of the day, there remains the distinction between immigrants and illegal immigrants. I know many immigrants who are very unhappy about the efforts to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants for one very simple reason…legal immigrants spend many years and many thousands of dollars to go through our immigration process. How does it serve our country to reward those who broke the rules while we undercut those who followed the rules?
To read the Arizona law for yourself, go to-- law here
To learn more about sanctuary cities, go to sanctuary here
