A disbarred lawyer said I was stupid for saying the Arizona immigration law, 1070, was racist.  He then called me a liar when I said I’d read it.  He was incensed because I refused to engage in an email debate with him over 1) whether I’ve read the law and 2) why I think its racist.  I felt very Scott Greenfieldesque when I told him that I didn’t think I needed to answer to every schmoe who has access to my email address.

The fact that this guy is disbarred doesn’t automatically mean that I need to discount everything he says; but I will admit it does otherwise taint the weight I give to his opinion on my intellect or veracity.  I’m just saying.

But it got me thinking, which caused a modicum of pain.  I took a look at the law that was initially signed and it is bad.  I mean, poorly written, leaves a lot of room for horrible abuses by law enforcement officers and just sucked.  The original bill said there just needed to be ‘lawful contact’ and then ‘reasonable suspicion’ that someone was not here legally.  Lawful contact is anything.  Anything.  Seriously.  Once anything has happened between you and a police officer, well, then there needed to be ‘reasonable suspicion’ that you are here illegally before they could proceed according to the rest of the bill.  Reasonable suscpicion, as we know, also means anything that the cop could think of.  (Like maybe the color of his skin?  His ability to speak English? The color of his skin?) 

The new bill says that there needs to be a ‘lawful stop, detention or arrest’.  I don’t know if this is a change in substance or merely semantics made to replicate substance, but I’m hoping it means that there must be a lawful stop as in a traffic stop.  This makes the law marginally more palatable.  In the same way that boogers and phlegm are made more palatable with ketchup.

The other big difference, to me anyway, is the section on transporting illegal aliens.  The original bill read as follows:

13-2929. Unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring or shielding of unlawful aliens; vehicle
impoundment; classification
A. IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR A PERSON WHO IS IN VIOLATION OF A CRIMINAL
OFFENSE TO:
1. TRANSPORT OR MOVE OR ATTEMPT TO TRANSPORT OR MOVE AN ALIEN IN THIS STATE IN A MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION IF THE PERSON KNOWS OR RECKLESSLY DISREGARDS THE FACT THAT THE ALIEN HAS COME TO, HAS ENTERED OR REMAINS IN THE UNITED STATES IN VIOLATION OF LAW.

Basically, this meant that if you took an undocumented alien to the grocery store, you were in violation of this law.  The new law specifically says that the transport has to be “in furtherance of the illegal presence” which, I guess could still mean taking someone to the grocery store since, if they had no food and were starving to death, maybe they’d go back home.

But really, the law isn’t racist.  How do I know?  Because IT SAYS SO.  Right there.  On page one.  And then again on page three, five, six and nine.  People!  Come on!  It says that you cannot consider race, color, or national origin in implementing this law.  It says it FIVE times in a 13 page document.  FIVE TIMES.  I don’t know what else its going to take to convince you of the absolute race neutrality of this law? Huh?  Huh?

So see, disbarred lawyer guy was right.  I’m stupid because I didn’t read the law which clearly says you cannot use racial profiling in implementing it.  And, we all know that if it is expressly prohibited then it won’t happen.

There are great articles out there that make this law seem so reasonable, you could seriously fall in love with it if you’ve had a couple of drinks at a tea party. My favorite part of the linked-to interview from NPR is when the politician lays out the scenarios of how all of this would escalate in the ‘real world’.  It’s a prosector’s wet dream – there are no furtive movements made by a dark skinned hispanic, maybe the guy is driving down the wrong way on a one way street, at night, without his headlights on, maybe even driving on the median – there are twenty people hiding under a tarp in the back of a mini-van, and the driver doesn’t have any license or registration.  Oh, and he can’t speak English. And he says he’s illegal.  I mean, the law totally makes sense then, right?

I mean, I don’t want to be a cynic, but I have my doubts that that’s how this will work out.  But, I am stupid.  So, I could be completely wrong.

I live in the DC beltway.  We have undocumented aliens here.  A lot of them.  If we didn’t, I would have no work and I have a fair amount of it.  I’ve lived in New York, we have undocumenteds there too.  I know its hard to believe that the East Coast has immigration issues since we’ve got colleges where smart people go and you know, Central Park and whatnot, but we do.  Oh, and California too.  They’ve got their share as well.  So the argument that the folks in the liberal cities don’t understand the plight of illegal immigration is weak.

I think the people who don’t live in Arizona would like a little honesty.

Arizona – stop saying your law is like the federal immigration laws.  This doesn’t help you for a lot of reasons that are really too complex to go into in this little post; but suffice it to say that its absurd that you copied a set of laws that already don’t work.  If they did, you, Arizona, would not have felt the need to re-implement your own. Instead of being forward thinking and trying to find a way out of your current situation, you just mimiced an already broken system.  How well do you really think this is going to work?

Tell us the truth, that the inherent racism in the law is simply a collateral effect that people have to live with in order to accomplish the main goal of the law which is to make sure all those Mexicans go to New Mexico. 

Arizona – your new law is racist.  If you don’t believe it is, re-read this post.  I’ve said it six times.