Arizona Immigration Law

Recently the great state of Arizona passed a law concerning a particular section of criminals, namely illegal immigrants. The original law was AZ Senate Bill 1070. It was amended by AZ House Bill 2162. The law itself is rather short at 11 pages long (the unamended senate bill is 17 pages) in this official .pdf version. The amount of controversy generated by this bill, however, is anything but small. Thousands of citizens, aliens, pundits, commentators and lawmakers have protested this law even before it was signed. They object that it is a free pass to allow for racial profiling, that it will tread on the civil liberties of citizens, and that it is a power grab by the state of Arizona into the exclusively federal domain of immigration. President Obama called the measure “misguided”. The rhetoric continues to fly hot and heavy. What is a citizen to do?

After having a conversation with a police officer friend of mine who voiced concerns over the possible implications to civil liberties for true citizens I took it upon myself to become informed. I did something our lawmakers have recently forgotten how to do: I took time out of my day to sit down and read the document, from start to finish.

The law starts off running with sections 1-501. This section states that any person who applies for a federal benefit administered by the state that requires the person to be a citizen or lawful resident of the United States must prove that they are, in fact, a citizen or lawful resident. Section 1-502 is the state benefit mirror of 1-501. The proof required is very mundane. Simply presenting a valid AZ driver’s license is enough. Failing that, a birth certificate or passport will also suffice.

The high intensity legislation continues with Section 11-051. This is the section of the law which outlines how law enforcement agencies deal with illegal immigrants. Contrary to what you may have heard this Section does not allow for any police officer to pull any citizen off the street because they suspect they may be an illegal immigrant. The law actually states that it applies only to “any lawful stop, detention or arrest…in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States”. It goes on to say that a “reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person”. Also, “any person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status determined before the person is released” and “A law enforcement official or agency…may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection”.

In other words, you must already be breaking the law in some fashion before the police officer is allowed to do anything to ascertain your immigration status. Should you be arrested your immigration status will be checked. Note it does not matter what you were arrested for, what you look like, what your name is, or anything else. All that matters is that you were breaking the law and got caught.

Subsection C mandates that the federal agencies in charge of immigration be notified when an illegal immigrant is convicted of a crime and is released from custody. Subsection D makes the life of a law enforcement officer a bit easier by mandating that they may transport a confirmed illegal immigrant to a federal facility even if said facility is outside their normal boundaries of jurisdiction. So even if the facility is in the next county over Officer Jones can go ahead and send illegal immigrant Joe Smith to lockup.

Section 13-1509 is interesting in that it makes illegal immigration a bit more…well…illegal. Any person who is found to be in violation of the federal immigration laws and is present on any public or private land in Arizona is now also guilty of trespassing. While it is only a CL 1 misdemeanor the law stipulates that any person convicted of trespassing due to this section of the law is not eligible to have their sentence commuted or suspended. This gives the state greater latitude in enforcing immigration inside their own borders by adding a state charge to the federal list.

Sections 13-2928 and 13-2929 are what I would like to refer to as the “aiding and abetting” clauses of the law. They make picking up workers on the side of the road a crime if doing so impedes traffic. It criminalizes knowingly hiring an illegal. It even makes it criminal to “transport, move, shelter, or conceal from detection” an illegal alien. This is only a CL 1 misdemeanor, normally, but if the number of illegals is ten or more (can anybody say coyote?) it jumps up to a CL 6 felony.

Finally, Section 23-214 requires that every employee must be ran through the e-verify system in order to make certain they are legally allowed to work in the US.

At the end of the day this law goes a long way to make it easier for a law enforcement official to identify illegal immigrants who are already breaking the law, arrest said criminals, and transfer them to the appropriate federal facility for processing. It make life a little harder to the crooked businesses that hire these criminals. It makes sure that every employee in the state is e-verified to be certain that no illegal can take a job from a citizen or legal resident.

Having read the legislation I can say that this law has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It has everything to do with catching criminals and putting them away. It has to do with making it more difficult for people to stay in this country illegally. Both of these goals are right and appropriate for government.