SPLC should just out-source their articles to me, I would charge less, and it always follows the exact same format. It’s like a Mad Lib where they just change a few adjectives and scapegoat a different group. Then they make a proclaimation that they fail to address, and then end with some sort of South Parkian nonsense of “This is what I learned today…”
As should shock virtually no one with two brain cells, SPLC is hyperventilating about the new Arizona law. I got the email alert this morning:
Morris and I — and the entire SPLC staff — are outraged over Arizona’s new immigration law. We’ve spent our careers working against discriminatory policies such as blatant racial profiling. SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer calls the law “a civil rights disaster and an insult to American values.” Please read Mary’s analysis on the dangers of this ill-advised law.
With your help, we’ll continue to expose the racist agenda behind those who promote these kind of laws and do what we can to counter them.
It’s pretty clear from reading the “analysis” that a) they have no idea what “analysis” means, and b) no one over there bothered to read the damn law before writing this. So, let’s look at this in-depth anal-ysis.
Arizona Immigration Law Violates Constitution, Guarantees Racial Profiling
By Mary Bauer, SPLC Legal DirectorArizona’s newly adopted immigration law is brazenly unconstitutional and will undoubtedly trample upon the civil rights of residents caught in its path.
Awesome! Hell of a start! Makes me want to know why it is unconstitutional.
By requiring local law enforcement to arrest a person when there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally, Arizona lawmakers have created a system that guarantees racial profiling. They also have usurped federal authority by attempting to enforce immigration law.
Is that what the law actually says? So if you just see a brown person at Home Depot you should arrest them? Somehow I missed that portion when I read it. What I saw was:
For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…
As for the unconstitutional part, Byron York of the Washington Examiner has done the best job of covering that aspect:
Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court.
That whole trampling the rights/racial profiling thing….
Critics have focused on the term “reasonable suspicion” to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics.
What fewer people have noticed is the phrase “lawful contact,” which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. “That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,” says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. “The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop.”
Back to the SPLC:
Quite simply, this law is a civil rights disaster and an insult to American values. No one in our country should be required to produce their “papers” on demand to prove their innocence. What kind of country are we becoming?
You produce papers when you did some other act that percipitated the legal contact. No law enforcement official can just randomly walk up to you and demand to see your papers. You can’t buy cold medicine without an ID lately, is it really so onerous to show an ID when you are talking to the police?
We all know what the outcome of all this double-talk will be. People with brown skin – regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens or legal residents – will be forced to prove their legal status to law enforcement officers time and again. One-third of Arizona’s population – those who are Latino – will be designated as second-class citizens, making anyone with brown skin a suspect even if their families have called Arizona home for generations.
Damn, all about the brown folks, eh?
As Latinos grow more fearful of law enforcement, they will be more reluctant to report crimes, and witnesses will be less likely to cooperate with police. Criminals will target the Latino community, confident their victims will keep quiet.
Then riddle me this bad hair guy, why is it then that among “whites”, “blacks” and “other” a majority of folks in Arizona support this? In my experience the people who are most against Amnesty are……..members of the Latino community who followed the law and emigrated here legally. No one wants to do the right thing, and then see some other person just cut the line.
But wait, this law had to have been written by Hitler or something, right? Why, naturlich:
Given the authors of this law, no one should be surprised about its intended targets. The law was drafted by a lawyer for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), whose founder has warned of a “Latin onslaught” and complained about Latinos’ alleged low “educability.” FAIR has accepted $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a racist foundation that was set up by Nazi sympathizers to fund studies of eugenics, the science of selective breeding to produce a “better” race. The legislation was sponsored by state Senator Russell Pearce, who once e-mailed an anti-Semitic article from the neo-Nazi National Alliance website to supporters.
It’s always some smear or other with these people. They never bother to actually “analyse” anything, they just engage in ad hominems on people who might not be even tangentially involved in the discussion.
And so Stan, did you learn anything today?
Lawmakers in other states are eager to replicate this ill-advised law. Their frustration with current immigration policy is understandable, but this system must be remedied by our Congress, which should enact fair immigration reform. The federal government must craft a policy that repairs our broken immigration system and, at the same time, protects our most cherished values. States that attempt to follow Arizona’s example will only succeed in sowing fear, discord and intolerance in our communities while undermining law enforcement and inviting costly constitutional challenges.
Apparently states that try to replicate this will also see a bunch of folks who aren’t there legally leave.
SPLC is right in one regard, the state wouldn’t have to do this crap if the Federal Gov’t would address this issue honestly. But of course no one on the federal level wants to do that because then they would have to make some hard decisions, and with folks like the SPLC demagoging the issue it would mean everyone in the GOP would be called racists and nativists, and most democrats would piss off your average working guy who believes that laws exist to be enforced.
And Mary, if you are going to be the Legal director, how about actually addressing the legal issues. Just declaring something “unconstitutional” doesn’t magically make it so. You might have discussed how Article I of the Constutition places immigration laws under the purview of Congress. But, why actually analyse something when its more fun to jump up and down like Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch. I mean sure, it is intellectually dishonest as hell, but isn’t that the new SPLC moniker?
Our immigration policy isn’t broken; our enforcement of existing federal law is. That falls to the feds, the leftists, ACLU, SPLC, Soros, blinky the clown, and last, but not least, Big Sis.
All this over a law that just instructs LEOs to enforce what was already the law. Sheesh, regular stupidity has gotten so mundane that they’ve started making it in layers…
“Lawful contact” does not require a previous law violation or some kind of previous detention. A cop can walk up to me at the mall and say “hi”, and when he does, he’s made “lawful contact.” Cops can even knock on your door for no reason. When they do, they’ve made “lawful contact.”
The cops will now be asking for the papers of anyone who they believe looks “illegal” and using their own standard of “reasonable suspicion.”
Immigration works when enforced. Since we’ve been ignoring the laws for decades, it’s not working. Maybe if we try it, we just might be surprised.
I heard a woman on the radio this morning bitching about how she has a nephew or somesuch that has been here illegally for a long time and they’ve spent $30k trying to get him legal and we’re saying that he has to go back to a country that he doesn’t know anything about because he was too young and is 21 now. She said that Mexico City and the drug cartels have made it to where people have to leave.
That’s all well and good, but what part about Mexico SUCKING means that the US has to open it’s borders to anyone who is tired of how bad Mexico SUCKS? How about rising up and fixing your OWN suckass country? It’s not the US’s fault that Mexico’s government is corrupt to the point of being owned by the drug cartels and the military and police are just pawns. Revolutions happen all over the world. It’s a pretty tough gig, but hey….some times ya gotta step up to protect what’s yours.
Mexico law states that visitors or legal immigrants are forbidden from taking part in any type of political protest or action. If caught……JAIL TIME AND DEPORTATION!! I wonder how many illegals will be exercising the right of free speech and free assembly that they DON’T HAVE here on May 1st?
Wow….America really must suck…….
/facepalm
BSG- Before I even go into what is wrong with your statement, where did you get your definition of “lawful contact”?
Actually, you don’t even need to answer it, I know where you got it, Media Matters.
Of course, that isn’t what the guy said. One could be a witness etc, but not just randomly walking up and initiating. You probably already know this, but profiling is against the law in Arizona, so if a police officer where to just walk up, say “hi” and demand papers, a cause of action would exist, and then that person would get a nice chunk of money.
Also- You might want to look at the Governors signing statement as well and then get back to me.
BTW- For anyone who is actually curious on whether that argument on “legal contact” has merit, go read Andy McCarthy over at the NRO corner, who contrary to just making shit up and using supposition, actually looks into the law.
BSG, (Big Sucking Goober), seems to be another of those wackos that think that an Illegal has civil rights. Get a grip, BSG, it is the legal residents that have the civil rights, such as, paying their own way, and not the way of the illegal entitlement program rider. Rights such as being a legal American of Mexican descent whose good name is brought down by ILLEGAL Immigrants. Rights such as having to obey ALL the laws, or to suffer the consequences. Rights such as having to know the language of the nation before voting, driving, getting a free ride on MY dime.
Illegals have no rights, none, nada!
If you think we are doing it all wrong, perhaps we should enforce our immigration position as Mexico does. Get a latino appearance about yourself and try to slip in from Honduras. They shoot ’em down there and then check their ID.
Illegals are given a pass on more law breaking than the Americans who support them.
Nuf Sed
While I’m an Arizona citizen, and a huge supporter of this recent bill, I think it’s important to point out something that keeps popping up in these discussions. The US Constitution is Not a Law determining the rights of citizens, it’s a Law limiting the scope of Federal power.
In my opinion it’s the wrong angle of approach to claim that illegal immigrants don’t have any ‘rights’ under the US Constitution, because frankly, none of us do, that’s not the Constitution’s purpose or design. By belief and by design, the Founders were fairly clear that ‘rights’ are not granted by law, but were given to all humanity by a creator or are assumed to be demonstrable under the auspices of ‘natural law’.Now does the new Arizona law step on any rights as understood by the definition I give? Nope, and frankly I don’t even believe anything as draconian as profiling does either.
Cheers
This might help…
First, the Arizona law is an almost word for word replication of federal law in its substantive portions. Makes the unconstitutional argument harder that way. What they might have is what is called a preemption argument.
Preemption is where the federal government is found to have so thoroughly occupied an area of law that there is no place for state law to fill in. Essentially that Arizona state police could just enforce federal law, which happens all the time in other contexts. The problem with that is it requires the defendant to be tried in federal court.
Which makes sense since Arizona is ill-equipped to deport people. Where do they drop them off? At the border will not likely work. And Arizona is not allowed to have formal relations with Mexico, that is a federal role. The Arizona law does state “a law enforcement agency may securely transport an alien who the agency has received verification is unlawfully present in the united states and who is in the agency’s custody to a federal facility in this state or to any other point of transfer into federal custody.”
But the feds are the ones Arizona is complaining about, so this law is bringing a federal crime into Arizona state court, which does have dubious constitutionality.
The other side is the liberals are stretching “lawful contact.” The dictionary does define as lawful anything which does not violate the law. This they stretch to mean any contact.
However, the law itself defines (at http://www.keytlaw.com/blog/2010/04/anti-illegal-immigration-law-part-1/ )
Lawful contact as “A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection.” And you can get out of it by providing a “Drivers license” or “Arizona nonoperating identification license.”
So, as usual, wrong argument, weak argument, but lots of emotional response.
JAG
Well from what I have read today the law is working. Many illegals are leaving and the people that have been hiring them have stopped.
I hate to post again but JAG must be a lawyer. From what I read in 8 USC 1325 he is exactly right. In all honesty it doesn’t take a law degree to read US Codes. The liars at SPLC claim to be lawyers. As far a I am concerned they are working there because nobody else would hire them.
So, as usual, wrong argument, weak argument, but lots of emotional response.
Yeah, but it allows Morris Dees and his merry band of window licking navel gazers to print up reams of fundraising materials and get Potock’s George Lucas hairdo plastered all over the news media.
Sorry, the ‘Anonymous’ above is me. 🙂
I have a first edition of heart of darkness if anyone would like it
I am OFFENDED AND OUTRAGED that I have to show my “papers” everytime I shop at the commissary! It’s unconstitutional. What kind of country are we becoming anyway? I also got stopped for speeding and had to show the SS Policeman my “papers”. What’s next? ID at the Emergency Room???