Arizona is a Right to Carry state; this could have been much, much worse.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36703

Seems to me that this law puts teeth on the Federal Immigration Laws. I fear sounding like an insensitive prick, but if people are in the country illegally, they are already in violation of a Federal Law; no matter what race, creed or whatever. What does the opposition want, what is their grievance; if they want a free ride then they have to seek repealing of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, and its amendments.
The political doctrine of the "racist" is disgusting. See this; http://www.9500liberty.com/ . The problem is complicated, but racism or violence is not the answer.

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/immigration
Federal law.
http://uscode.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00000994----000-.html
States rights to legislate on immigration.
http://uscode.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00001251----000-.html

"5. Allows a law enforcement officer, without a warrant, to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the U.S."


"22. Specifies that it is unlawful for a person to do or attempt to do the following if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the U.S. in violation of law:

a) transport or move an alien in Arizona in a means of transportation;

b) conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any place in Arizona, including any building or means of transportation."

"conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any place in Arizona, including any building or means of transportation."

So if I ran a business in Arizona, and I saw an Hispanic person enter my store, my best bet, to be completely sure that I'm not accidentally harboring an illegal alien, would be to just tell them to get out. Either that, or demand to see their government ID before allowing them in.

Check.

>> ^KnivesOut:

"conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any place in Arizona, including any building or means of transportation."
So if I ran a business in Arizona, and I saw an Hispanic person enter my store, my best bet, to be completely sure that I'm not accidentally harboring an illegal alien, would be to just tell them to get out. Either that, or demand to see their government ID before allowing them in.
Check.


I'm still shaking my head at this. Your comment hits exactly how I feel about it.

This can't stand up to appeal. It just can't.

*equality *law

Adding video to channels (Equality, Law) - requested by burdturgler.

Is it just me, or is it always the conservative states that are so freaking backwards?

I live in Arizona and this is basically how it goes:

If a cop has reason to believe that someone is here illegally or is harboring illegals, they have the right to detain them until they can produce valid documentation that they are allowed to be in the US. If they can not produce valid documentation, they police now have the authority to deport them without having to go through the INS.

As a resident of the Phoenix metro area, I readily agree with this bill and approve of Gov. Brewer's actions. Illegal immigration here has a large impact on the society, mainly financially. From what I recall, up until now when police arrested one or two illegals, the INS simply let them go because it wasn't worth their time or effort to export a small number of individuals. No longer does Arizona have to suffer at the inaction of a federal branch.

I also live in Arizona and I strongly support the bill. I also support immigration that is legal and feel that most my social views are pretty liberal. We certainly need some sort of foreign-workers bill.

The big problems that I see in Arizona now are:
1. Environmental - I spend a lot of time in the backcountry and the once pristine wildness along the border now looks like a thousand mile trash dump. The illegals have dumped litter-ally tons of trash everywhere.
2. Taxes - Illegals don't pay taxes, but use the services that are paid for by citizens taxes.
3. Security - Not only have the Mexican drug lords become more violent along the border, but we've had middle eastern extremists sneak into our country.

I'm glad that this problem is getting some needed attention.

Civility be damned. What did the guy in the initial posted video do that everybody wanted to kill him? No matter what it was, the inappropriate and violent response by the crowd made me feel for the "racist" in this instance.

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I live in Arizona and this is basically how it goes:
If a cop has reason to believe that someone is here illegally or is harboring illegals, they have the right to detain them until they can produce valid documentation that they are allowed to be in the US. If they can not produce valid documentation, they police now have the authority to deport them without having to go through the INS.
As a resident of the Phoenix metro area, I readily agree with this bill and approve of Gov. Brewer's actions. Illegal immigration here has a large impact on the society, mainly financially. From what I recall, up until now when police arrested one or two illegals, the INS simply let them go because it wasn't worth their time or effort to export a small number of individuals. No longer does Arizona have to suffer at the inaction of a federal branch.


It doesn't take away from the fact that this is simply racial profiling. You aren't going to stop people of european decent or black people and ask for their papers. This is only for Mexicans, it's baldfaced profiling and that's wrong.

Here's a question...why not stop white people and ask them to provide papers that prove they are indeed Mexican residents since they are living on land that was Mexico before it was taken by the American empire. That's a silly notion but I'm doing it to point something out; this situation is a lot more complex than it appears and it deserves more discussion and debate than just giving the police such broad powers.

I have to say I'm very impressed by the Police and community members in this video. They didn't over-react they didn't make the situation worse than it already was. One person was shown running around possibly trying to escalate the situation a policeman pulled him aside and instead of billyclubbing him down or tasering or pepperspraying him he talked to him...probably advising him that if he continued to make a ruckus he would be arrested.

This is exactly how police should act...protecting members of the community who might be in danger and observing the rights of the public who may bring harm to others. They're doing their job well and I hope with this amount of maturity we can keep this debate civil rather than reactionary.

yeah, seems like decent policework here.

but...

show me your papers?

Fine, something needed to be done, but this is a terrible law.

Targeting anyone who might "conceal, harbor or shield" potential illegals gives the local racists free license to discriminate against anyone they don't like.

"I don't know if these brown people in my shop are illegal, so I'm just not going to allow any brown people in my shop (cab, bus, hospital, school, library).">> ^MarineGunrock:

I live in Arizona and this is basically how it goes:
If a cop has reason to believe that someone is here illegally or is harboring illegals, they have the right to detain them until they can produce valid documentation that they are allowed to be in the US. If they can not produce valid documentation, they police now have the authority to deport them without having to go through the INS.
As a resident of the Phoenix metro area, I readily agree with this bill and approve of Gov. Brewer's actions. Illegal immigration here has a large impact on the society, mainly financially. From what I recall, up until now when police arrested one or two illegals, the INS simply let them go because it wasn't worth their time or effort to export a small number of individuals. No longer does Arizona have to suffer at the inaction of a federal branch.

"I don't know if these brown people in my shop are illegal, so I'm just not going to allow any brown people in my shop (cab, bus, hospital, school, library)."

Now you're just taking it too far. No cop is going to arrest a shop owner because an illegal was in there buying things. The act of concealing, harboring, or shielding an illegal is a little more well-defined than just having them in your presence.

As far as the giving local cops free license to discriminate? There is a HUGE number of people on the police force that are of Mexican origin or descent.

Well, I think you're just being naive. It's been shown time-and-again that loosely defined "probable cause" laws are rife with the potential for abuse.

I doubt you'd feel the way you do if you were of Latino descent.

Hmm. Thought I had posted a response but it didn't go through. It was something like

I won't argue that it's rife with potential for abuse. But all a cop needs to search your vehicle during a traffic stop is "probable cause" - so let me ask you this: When is the last time that you, a friend, family member or co-worker got pulled over and had your/their car searched?

Rife with potential for abuse does not mean rife with abuse.

And case in point: I just got back from a ride on my motorcycle that I had parked in some extra space next to my car. I was putting the cover on it when a painter (they're here to paint the covered parking) came up to me and asked in what was only barely passable broken English if I could move my car further away from the cover they were about to paint. It was something like "you move...car? We paint...spray....over there....we cover bike easy.... car big." I'll leave out the pronunciation effects like "jew move" so as not to be an ass, but let's say I had to think about what he was saying to actually understand it.

my point is this: This guy could very well be an illegal, and probably is. It's no secret that they're hired for unskilled labor such as this. While yes, he is working, if he is indeed illegally here, it means he's not paying taxes. That means if his residence catches on fire, he receives free services from the fire and police departments. I'm not saying that you or I would get a bill, but they are funded by our tax dollars. If he catches a stray bullet from a near-by gun fight, he goes to the hospital on our tax dollar. To be a little more realistic, bear this in mind: If a Mexican crosses our border illegally only to have birth three feet across it, that child is now an American citizen, and will receive post-natal health care in our hospitals on our dollar. This happens ALL the time.

I understand that you're concerned about "illegals" using public services that you feel they don't deserve.

What I'm saying is: this law is broken because it leaves the definition of what an illegal alien looks like up to individual police officers. The clear cases aren't the problem, its the unclear ones that make this law unconstitutional. These law-makers are inspired by racists, and are attempting to address a brutally complex issue with a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel.

If you were a legal, American-born Hispanic person, how would you feel about having to constantly carry your ID, for fear that you might be asked for it during your daily jog, for example? How would you feel the 1st time that a cop asked you to show your papers, when you're walking down the street minding your own business? The 5th? 10th? If you told him to piss off, because you know that you're legal and he has no right to ask (so says the Constitution), you've just given him probable cause to arrest you until you can prove your legality.

Probable cause is blank check for police abuse.

I understand what you're saying, but I think your approach is too broad. Being brown isn't probable cause. Getting pulled over and not speaking a lick of English? Probable cause. The law wasn't written to enact some 21st century witch hunt. It was written to give Arizona's LEOs the authority to deal with illegals when needed. It was written so that they have a plan of action when they do legitimately suspect that someone is an illegal instead of just passing their hunch up the chain of command.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, April 26th, 2010 5:48pm PDT - promote requested by KnivesOut.

http://videosift.com/video/Rachel-Maddow-Racist-Roots-of-Arizona-Law
This is why you are a moron MGR.

Nice to see you, too.

YEA YOU BIG DOPEY MORON!!!!!!!!!!!

Haha...I live in San Diego, our culture is defined by the...uh...less legal of immigrants. I feel that the resources they take up that MGR was mentioning is far surpassed by the tourist dollar that their culture in our city has helped bring in. Now I know Arizona is a flaming shit-hole that nobody wants to visit, but in my instance, I'm willing to let it slide under current conditions.

I think states trying to take charge of the illegal immigration problem is their responsibility, but the tricky wording you pointed out NR is to much liberty with liberties.