CSM: State illegal immigration laws: What have they accomplished?

[pampango]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0323/State-illegal-immigration-laws-What-have-they-accomplished

From an enforcement standpoint, the impact of state anti-immigration laws like Arizona's controversial SB 1070 "is almost negligible," says Veronica Dahlberg, an immigrants' rights activist. The far greater impact has been social, Hispanic groups say. Laws targeting illegal immigrants have reflected and even intensified the rising anti-immigration movement, both in statehouses and on the streets. The result is a legislative record from Arizona to Florida that hasn't made much of a mark on illegal immigration, but has fueled a populist backlash against it.

Yet the track record for recent immigration legislation suggests that explicitly anti-illegal immigration bills are more the exception than the rule. Some 71 percent of the state immigration laws passed from 2006 to 2010 were neutral toward undocumented immigrants. A small portion of these laws could actually be said to be tolerant of unauthorized immigrants, such as a 2006 Nebraska law granting in-state tuition to some unauthorized immigrants. (See graphic.)



In Arizona, an estimated 100,000 Hispanics left the state in the months after SB 1070 was enacted, according to a BBVA Bancomer Research study. But according to Alicia Sandoval, who left Arizona for Ohio, this mass exodus was not just because of SB 1070. Ms. Sandoval, who came to the US from Mexico 10 years ago, says the law only formalized what had been going on for years. "When we first came to Arizona, there was no fear," Sandoval says through an interpreter.

"The police wouldn't treat you bad, even if you didn't have any papers." But that has changed. She points to the aggressive policies of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who helped deport 26,000 people from 2007 to 2010 – all before SB 1070. Sandoval worked at a bakery in the heavily Hispanic Phoenix neighborhood and often saw lines of cars pulled over by police officers when she got off work at 1 a.m. She says police would find reasons, such as expired tags, to pull over people.

[Oasis_]

1. ??

"She says police would find reasons, such as expired tags, to pull over people."

That isn't the police "finding" a reason to pull someone over. That IS a reason, and a very valid one at that. Anyone who drives with expired tags should be.

Oasis