Look, it's an illegal, right? (LA Times Op-Ed)

[pinto]

Probably every Op-Ed writer in the US has weighed in on AZ's illegal immigrant bill, but Mr. Rodriquez here notes the diversity of Mexicans' (the assumed targets of the bill) racial make-up and the range of physical characteristics among Mexicans. Interesting point. ~ pinto

Look, it's an illegal, right?
By Gregory Rodriguez
April 26, 2010 | 6:43 a.m.

If Arizona's Republican legislators weren't so dumb, they'd be dangerous. Or maybe they're dangerous because they're dumb.

Either way, once they stop celebrating the passage of what should be dubbed the "We really, really, really don't like illegal aliens" bill , they're going to have to figure out how law enforcement is supposed to identify the culprits.

It's always fun to read the text of silly legislation. Turn to Section 2, Paragraph B, which states: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state 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."

Did you catch the part about "reasonable suspicion"? How is a cop going to know by sight who is or isn't legal? What about a person will elicit suspicion?

Opponents of the measure argue that the open-ended nature of "reasonable suspicion" will lead to widespread racial profiling of all Latinos. They're probably overstating their case. Something tells me someone who looks like, say, blond Mexican pop singer Paulina Rubio won't be stopped.

The truth is that Mexicans are hard to racially profile. Five hundred years of racial mixture has given many Mexican families a decidedly kaleidoscopic racial quality. To wit: Not everyone with Mexican ancestry shares the same skin color.

<more at>

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez-20100426-14,0,7193964.column

[babylonsister]

1. Rec'd. Seems not a lot of thought went into this, and AZ is reaping

what they've sown. That's encouraging.

[Igel]

2. "any lawful contact"?

The law says "any lawful contact".

The position being argued against is that this is equivalent to "to know by sight."

There is no position that can be cited as to what "any lawful contact" means, of course, so it's hard to cite counter-evidence. On the other hand, it also makes "to know by sight" nothing more than a straw man.

Good rhetoric. Wonderfully based on fear, suspicion, and politics. Not so much on fact.

The law's not in force yet. One challenge now is that it's intruding on foreign policy and federal prerogatives. There are others, but all of them are fairly abstract. Everybody seems to be arguing in non-abstract terms, saying the law is unconstitutional because it will have disproportionate impact on selected "races" or ethnicities. "Will have" is iffy here.

It can't have an impact until there are guidelines so that "any lawful contact" and "reasonable suspicion" actually have some sort of definitions, definitions not imposed by people uninvolved in formulating law and policy but by those provided by the people who would see to it that the law is enforced. Then the guidelines and the law can be nailed for either discrimination based on the wording of the law's implementation or based on disproportionate impact.

Until then, you have people substituting their own definitions for what will actually be implemented, with lofty and quite conclusive arguments as to why using their own definitions leads to unconstitutionality and racist impacts. On the other hand, seldom do people set up straw men that they know they can't knock the stuffing out of.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I don't see "any lawful contact" as prohibiting the high probability of racial profiling.

Any lawful contact is not much if any protection against targeting a minority or even a majority if those in power abuse it, any lawful contact can mean a broken tail light, running a stop sign or just disturbing the peace, the possibilities are only limited to laws passed by the state regardless of how trivial or easily corruptible.

The racial targets are obvious, Arizona doesn't have a major issue with people of Japanese or Irish descent.

[bergie321]

4. The best part of the bill

Is that racists in Arizona can sue the police if they don't racially profile.

[TexasObserver]

5. recommend

outside the 24 hours for a recommend, but this should have wider readership