Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
I responded to the posts you responded to me, so if I skipped a couple pages that weren't addressing the issues I was bringing up, that is my fault.
Asking for ID to anyone stopped by a police officer on suspicion of committing a crime is normal procedure in any state in the union.
What you are saying is this law is meaningless, as it doesn't change anything about police procedures, as they will be doing what they would have been doing anyway.
- So why is the state of Arizona requesting 10+ million dollars from the Federal government to help train officers in the enforcing this law?
Because that simply isn't the case.
"Reasonable Suspicion" hasn't been defined by ANYONE in terms of this law. It simply says it cannot " solely" be based on race. That solely is a big word and one you have ignored until now.
It also says the officer must act. That is the " shall" part of the law regarding the officer's actions. So it is easy to paint situations where this law would be pretty meaningless and everything goes right.
Cop pulls over speeder. Speeder has no idea. Cop takes in speeder. Suspects he is illegal because he has no license AND he is dark-skinned and has an accent. [Of course there is the then what...is he jailed? Deported? Goes to trial? What?]
However, it is also easy to paint situations where this law does not go well.
Cop pulls over speeder. Driver has ID that looks legit, but he has four passengers in the car that claim to be his wife and children, but none of them have ID. They are dark-skinned and have accents. The officer would have to take them in under the same reasonable suspicion of the first situation.
If they were white with no accents that "reasonable suspicion" would be unfounded. There's the 800-pound gorilla.
Let's say I am a citizen of Arizona. I now have the right to SUE my local law enforcement agency if I believe they are not nabbing enough illegal immigrants in my neighborhood.
Tell me, is that state money well spent? |
First, you'll be glad to know that "
solely" is gone. That is another one of the changes they made, as I alluded to before. So that should settle that for you, right?
As for why AZ is asking for Federal Training, it's because the Federal govt has been training local law enforcement to arrest illegal aliens since 1996. It's called the 287 (g) program, and for 14 years it has worked rather successfully in
71 law enforcement agencies in 26 states. ICE has trained and certified more than
1,130 state and local officers to enforce immigration law. Since January 2006, the 287(g) program is credited with
identifying more than 160,000 potentially removable aliens – mostly at local jails.
You see, this is something you won't hear about on the mainstream media... Local law enforcement in more than half the states are already enforcing immigration laws, so claims that state and local law enforcement can't do it, it's unconstitutional, are rather silly because they've already been doing it for 14 years. So Arizona is asking for the standard ICE training that it gives to all the 287 (g) officers.
Section 287g
Section 287(g): State and Local Immigration Enforcement Efforts Are Working | The Heritage Foundation