Immigration...

Its the name of the game today, judging by the number of headlines that are connected with the topic. Jambo sent me a text from his work asking if the new law was "unconstitutional", and since I hadn't followed the story much before that, I went looking.

The "meat-and-potatoes" of the AZ law are as follows:

1) Makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally by specifically requiring immigrants to have proof of their immigration status. Violations are a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. Repeat offenses would be a felony.

This one is far tougher than it looks, I think. The very definition of the term means that being in the country (and specifically, in the State of Arizona) "illegally" is a crime already. What AZ has done is to require honest, law-abiding citizens to "prove" their status on demand, since an illegal immigrant couldn't do that anyway. When liberals and pro-illegal elements in our society fight this sort of legislation, and this legislation in particular, it will be this portion that they focus on.

I think the wording is alright, in that it specifies that the alleged illegal must provide proof, not the upstanding citizen, but the application of this law is what is going to cause the grief. The first time an actual citizen is hassled for "looking like an illegal" and then finding he left his ID in his other pants, there is going to be some serious fallout. I can already see the media flashing images of shadowy men wearing dark leather trench coats and fedoras saying "Papiere, bitte!" to elicit memories of the Gestapo in the 30's and 40's.

2) Requires police officers to "make a reasonable attempt" to determine the immigration status of a person if there is a "reasonable suspicion" that he or she is an illegal immigrant. Race, color or national origin may not be the only things considered in implementation. Exceptions can be made if the attempt would hinder an investigation, but I can't find what sort of investigations these exemptions would apply to.

This seems the most problematic of the laws components, since the court system will have to very clearly define what "reasonable" means in this context, and since no one can foresee all the variables, and the traditional burden of proof always lays with the investigative agency, I'm not seeing how this is going to stand very long under appellate or supreme court scrutiny.

3) Allow lawsuits against local or state government agencies that have policies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws. Would impose daily civil fines of $1,000-$5,000. There is pending follow-up legislation to halve the minimum to $500. This one surprised me... I mean, its much the same as saying "If you don't think we, the State of Arizona or your local law enforcement agencies, are doing the job right, feel free to file suit." Hindering enforcement could be as simple as failure to report possible violations in a timely manner, and even AZ is a large enough government establishment to have conflicting interests between agencies and departments, not to mention simple breakdowns in communication between the same.

4) Targets hiring of illegal immigrants as day laborers by prohibiting people from stopping a vehicle on a road to offer employment and by prohibiting a person from getting into a stopped vehicle on a street to be hired for work if it impedes traffic.

This last is one I think I can support, especially at a local or state level. The bulk of the illegal immigrant problem can be addressed best by making life for those that employ them very, very expensive... so expensive that hiring illegals is simply too risky to be worth the possible savings to the company. I'm not sure that such specific means of targeting these employers as limiting it to those that would drive up in a stake-bed truck is such a good idea, but it might be a start.

My thoughts can be summed up as such: I don't think this will stand up to court scrutiny... but as a supporter of the Tenth Amendment, I think it is the right and duty of the individual States to manage their own affairs as they see fit, and to allow the Courts to determine, through the course of established legal means, when such management and enforcement is "unconstitutional". It certainly isn't the role of media and the press to determine the legality of such efforts.