just as a comparison what do you think would happen to an American that entered Mexico illegally?I don't think his civil rights would stand a chance in hell.

The Democratic politicians want the National Guard posted in Chicago to protect the citizens from law-breaking gang-bangers. Why are they against posting National Guard (or any other law enforcement force)in Arizona to protect the citizens of Arizona?

Over at The Corner, Mark Kerkorian notes that Greenhouse, brilliant legal scholar that she is, quotes the WRONG VERSION OF THE STATUTE.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjAxNTMxYTRlZDJkM2YxMWZhOTcyNzU2NWZlMGJlMGI=

I came here looking for free men to oppose laws that require free citizens to present their papers to the police or face being detained. I cannot believe you're on the side of those passing laws requiring US citizens to have to produce papers on the spot.

I'm stunned. Why are you OK with this? What happens next time, when it's not Latinos, but gun owners? We have to stand up for liberty now, before they pervert our Constitution to the point where it's not them, but us they come looking for.

This is Gestapo Territory when police can demand papers from a citizen who has done nothing wrong. To me, this isn't about illegals, it's about my freedom, and yours. This is the real first shot. First them, then us. First brown skin, then gun owners.

Open your eyes gentlemen. I heard about this site and thought I had found a place where free men would oppose facism. I have to say that I'm shocked. Be very careful what side you choose, free men.

JohnJohn,

Try to temper your disbelief with rational thought, and more importantly, and understanding of what the law is instead of what opponents claim it is.

The law is no where near "Gestopo Territory when police can demand papers from a citizen who has done nothing wrong." The law quite precisely states that officers must perform a legal stop. That means they cannot just randomly pull people over for "looking illegal" and ask for citizenship documentation.

In addition, non-citizens have been required to carry documentation on their persons since the 1940s (and citizens have to carry documentation if they want to drive a motor vehicle, purchase an alcoholic beverage, rent a car, etc...)

I somewhat suspect you are a moby, JohnJohn. There is no parallel between gun owners and illegal aliens. None.

Nice try.

No... actually, it wasn't even that.

JohNohn, They are investigating a crime. If they have reasonable suspicion the police can keep you on the side of the road and question you, search your car, search your person. They can ask if you have an alibi for last Thursday, but it pisses you off that they can ask if you are here legally?

The facts on the ground show that this is much ado about nothing.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has already been doing exactly what the "new" law spells out, for several years now. Obambi's inJustice Department has been on Joe's butt for more than a year, and has yet to make a single case of racial profiling stick.

There's a reason the Holder et al can't make anything stick, and it's because the Sheriff's Department doesn't racially profile, because they CAN'T racially profile.

Between the legal aliens, the Natives, the Chicanos, anybody of Mediterranean descent, and the illegals, people with brown skin make up the majority of the population. This ain't Minneapolis or Duluth we're talking about here, get a grip folks!

What's a moby?

I saw the case yesterday of a Latino US Citizen trucker who stopped at a weigh station and was asked for proof of citizenship. He presented a SS card and his drivers license and because he didn't have his birth certificate on him he was handcuffed and taken in until his wife could produce a valid certificate. That happened yesterday. If they can do that to him - a legal citizen - well, we're in trouble.

Our rights don't just go away. They erode. What's the best way to start a ball rolling? Not by attacking the majority, go after a minority, get the precedent on the books....

CY - lots of rational thought here. I teach high school American history and the Constitution. I teach my kids to be protective of their rights. I don't like this - it seems to be slipping something in under the radar. Get people riled up about illegals and they'll say yes to anything. That was paraphrasing Goebbels, I believe.

Now please know, I think we need to deal with illegals. Bush was on the right track but it didn't happen. But a law that erodes rights?

No.... my freedom, real freedom to move about and be left alone by law enforcement, that means too much to me.

Just auditioning your site to see if I've found a home here.....

JJ

JohnJohn...try not to be dumbdumb. We all have to show "papers" every time we have an auto accident, file a tax form, have any out of the ordinary encounter with officialdom within our lawful society. You're setting up straw men here, and we are not falling for it. How much do you really know about Hitler and the Third Reich? I'm 82 years old and I lived in and observed the Second World War, and lost my fiance in it. There is no resemblance between the dictatorship of the Third Reich and a state of the United States of America trying to halt a flood of illegal aliens [now reaching a total of 500,000] coming across its borders. There are already federal laws against our borders being invaded. Arizona is merely enforcing them by its own law, since our Federal government is curiously reluctant to do it.

You might want to do some remedial reading of American history.

Marianne Matthews

Having served as a police office for nearly two decades, perhaps I can provide some insight.

(1) The police always engage in profiling, but criminal profiling, not racial profiling. If, for example, an officer is assigned to patrol a district where 90% of the crime is committed by black males between the ages of 16 and 24, they would be an idiot, and likely to rightfully lose their job, if they ignored that salient fact. Officers engage in criminal profiling, using what they know about those most likely to commit crimes and giving those potential criminals special attention. It’s exactly what we pay the police to do.

(2) Contrary to common misperceptions (and not a little purposeful lying), the police don’t just do whatever they want. They must be well educated about and extraordinarily careful about the laws they enforce in particular and the Constitution. If a person’s actions don’t match the elements of a given specific law or laws, no arrest (Yes, I know some cops are incompetent or make mistakes, but we have to hire the police from the human race, so we are somewhat limited).

(3) There are very few police officers relative to the population of any community and they simply don’t have the time to chase after every Hispanic-looking person in sight to check them for immigration status, even if they were so stupid or unprofessional that they wanted to do that.

(4) “Reasonable suspicion” is specifically mentioned in the Arizona law and is a fundamental principal of the Constitution studied and applied by the police every day. It basically means facts or circumstances that leads a reasonable police officer to believe that a crime has happened or is about to happen and a specific person or persons has committed or is about to commit it. With RS, an officer can detain a person for a short period–about 15 minutes or less–to identify the person and see if something illegal is up. They can conduct a pat search, and in some cases even use handcuffs, but they can certainly check for outstanding warrants and immigration status. All of this is long settled law and the Arizona statue does not in any way step outside the lines of this clear area of law, nor even approach the line.

(5) Having read the law today, it’s clear that “racial profiling” is clearly prohibited. The law does not command any action, but merely allows an officer to check immigration status “if practicable” when they are in contact with someone for any lawful reason. Keep in mind that if another citizen can walk up to you and engage you in conversation, so can the police.

(6) The law creates nothing new, merely restating well settled procedures under the Constitution and supporting, not contradicting, Federal law. It imposes no new burden on anyone that is not already either required under state or federal law (carrying a driver’s license or a green card if a guest in the country) and prohibits or makes illegal no conduct that would be otherwise perfectly legal.

The bottom line: If you’re a Hispanic who is going about his business, not obviously breaking the law, and not doing foolish things that would bring you to the direct attention of a police officer, your chances of being stopped and questioned are generally no greater than that of any other person of any color.

Again, the police just don’t have the time to focus on any single crime. Claims of rampant future police harassment and violation of civil rights are race-baiting hogwash.

Mike,

As a Hispanic (on one side, Irish on the other - how's that for a mix - you should have known my parents) if I am stopped in Arizona - say for rolling through a stop sign - the way things have already broken, I can be cuffed if I don't have my birth certificate on me. It happened yesterday.

My brother is in law enforcement - I know how it's supposed to work and i know how it really does work.

I'm a 3rd generation American, a Marine veteran with a son in the service, a gun owner and hunter, a community volunteer and a Republican. I am an American, but this law makes the color of my skin "reasonable suspicion".

Bottom line: an officer stops me for speeding. I have brown skin. He now has license to ask me about my immigration status. Apparently - as has been shown - my driver's license and social security aren't enough to keep me out of cuffs and a trip to jail until my wife can dig my birth certificate out of the safe.

Any dispute on these facts? If not, does this seem right to do to an American citizen?

I'm finding the people who are saying things like "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" are all caucasian-looking. You don't know what it's like to be me and to deal with law enforcement when you have brown skin in a bad area.

I'm also finding this site prickly and unwelcoming. Apparently there is a line that I'm not toeing by asking questions and for that I get insulted as dumbdumb, when I guarantee you I know more about the subject than the person who suggested I need remedial training. (Marianne - JohnJohn was a nickname my grandmother gave me - the Irish one. There's too many John's on the Internet so JohnJohn is an easy name to register. SatisfiedSatisfied?)

You don't represent yourself well to newcomers who share a lot of your views.

So, JohnJohn, are you claiming new Arizona's law is responsible for your being cuffed and taken to jail yesterday?

"I saw the case yesterday of a Latino US Citizen trucker who stopped at a weigh station and was asked for proof of citizenship. He presented a SS card and his drivers license and because he didn't have his birth certificate on him he was handcuffed and taken in until his wife could produce a valid certificate."

Sorry, I gotta call BS on that one. As a CDL holder, this one didn't even pass the smell test.

In the reports, the driver is indirectly quoted as saying he provided his CDL and SS#, only.

First problem is, all CDLs are linked to an SS#, you can't even renew an existing CDL without the actual SS card, so there is no need to carry an SS card, and the scalehouse wouldn't ask for it. If he presented a proper CDL, any discussion of the SS# would be redundant.

Next problem is the following indirect quote, "she had to leave work to drive home and grab other documents like his birth certificate."

Given the previous statement about providing only his CDL and SS#, could that other document "like" a birth certificate be the MEDICAL CERTIFICATE that every CDL driver is required to have on his person when operating any commercial vehicle?

Between the fishy quotes and the one bit of video I found on the web, it would appear that this driver's paperwork problems were compounded by a poor command of the English language. While you may be able to get a car license without knowing a word of English, a service requirement for all CDL operators in the U.S., even lily-white French Canadians, is the ability to effectively communicate in English, no habla = Out Of Service.

The "news" reports of this encounter are one-sided and sketchy at best, so I'm not going to be like JohnJohn and pretend I know all the facts, but the details that were provided have pretty much bent the needle on the BS-o-Meter on this one.

Here lets see if I can help get this law repealed. I support it. No wait.
My dad would say why is it everytime I support something it fails. I don't know but say by to the Arizona law. The answer, is seal the border.

The question is am I playing upon peoples doing the opposite of what I want or not?

It seems that "JohnJohn" won't take the bait and admit that he is a fraud. While he claims to be partially Hispanic and the victim of an arrest Monday in Arizona, he first referred to Hispanics as "they" and then used the traffic story he lifted from a border stop reported elsewhere as his own.

Oh... and did I mention he's from Scanton, PA?

Buh-bye, moby.

There is a real problem here. This new law should not be needed. We have plenty of federal laws that sanction the search for and arrest of people in the US illegally. We have a whole Federal department for that am it used to be standard operating procedure for local police to assist in the process if not to arrest illegals when they break laws and then turn them over to INS for deportation. That is what we used to do. No problems. We used to have the IRS prosecute the people hiring illegals as tax cheates.

Now the White house and DHS have suspended any new INS raids and/or arrests of illegals and local law enforcement have been banned from enforcing these federal laws. Up to and including forcing locally elected sheriff's to not enforce federal immigration laws.

So the Whitehouse and DHS not only refuse but have used their considerable force to prohibit immigration laws from being enforced and at the same time refuse to secure the boards what are the states supposed to do? We have state and local budgets that are being blown-out by the cost of the illegals that we are being forced to provide for.

So now after years of petitioning the federal government to follow the law and do the job we pay them to do they refuse and tell us to shut up and mind our own business. Well Arizona finally put their foot down because of both the financial burden and the out of control crime and passed by all accounts a good law they can enforce to try and solve their problems in their state.

Now the good people of Arizona are being called racist and Nazi's for protecting themselves. I think this is insane and intolerable. I watched California crushed by this and I say God bless you in Arizona for standing up and trying to make a difference! We need other states to step up and do the same.

Another idea is if the feds won't have the IRS enforce the tax codes for the businesses and households that hire illegals then the state tax boards need to step in a start identifying these businesses and households and enforce the local tax codes and impose the maximum fines to recoup the cost of this mess and let the businesses know that we will not tolerate bringing these people into our communities! That illegal maid, nanny, gardener, and those workers in your factories? guess what? we are going to balance our budgets on your crimes! We can go back how many years that you have been breaking the law?

Your want to stop this, this one of the next steps. Lets dismantle all of these drags on our state and local economies.

Just a thought!

I didn't claim to be the victim of an arrest, I was citing a case that was on an AZ news site (Ch 3). And the they.... I don't identify as Hispanic (or Irish), but I certainly look like one and often get tagged as one. So "they"... yeah.... and I am from Scranton (not Scanton). So?

Look, believe what you want. I came here for discussion, not ridicule. I found your site on one where they were ridiculing you as closed-minded bigots. Bigots? Probably not. Closed minded and unwelcoming? Appears so.

And please tell what moby means.

and CY... learn to read. Check out my second post: "I saw the case yesterday of a Latino US Citizen trucker who stopped at a weigh station". Nowhere did I claim it was me.

So while you're encouraging rational thought, I'll encourage reading comprehension lessons.

Dear JohnJohn:

Unwelcoming and closed minded? Not so much. But folks who read this site tend to be pretty demanding of solid evidence. For example, you wrote:

"As a Hispanic (on one side, Irish on the other - how's that for a mix - you should have known my parents) if I am stopped in Arizona - say for rolling through a stop sign - the way things have already broken, I can be cuffed if I don't have my birth certificate on me. It happened yesterday."

These were the first two sentences of your post verbatim. You did not write that you were quoting from another anecdote and an entirely reasonable understanding of your writing would clearly be that you are Hispanic and were arrested in Arizona yesterday because you didn't have a birth certificate.

The anecdote you now say you were repeating is, as stated, completely insufficient grounds for arrest under any known statute, let alone the new Arizona statute which I believe has not yet gone into effect and which does not authorize arrest under the circumstances you have outlined. In fact, the statute does hold that a valid DL is presumed to be proof of citizenship. And you did mention that you were repeating a story in a second post, but only after you were called on that omission in your original post. Therefore, it's not quite fair to complain that you were misunderstood in your initial post.

I cannot, in fact, think of a circumstance where a street cop would need, want or ask to see a birth certificate. As identification for adults (for anyone, really), they are useless, and virtually no one carries one. Anyone presenting a BC as identification to the police would likely make them suspicious.

It might be wise to keep human nature in mind when hearing such tales. Few people will say "the cops stopped me and gave me a ticket and I deserved it. I was speeding." Rather, they'll commonly say, "the cops stopped me for no reason at all and gave me a ticket!" People generally try to make themselves look as good as possible.

I'm sure the police officer in your family would tell you that, based on the circumstances of the story as you've presented it here, it is almost certainly false.