Stop Texas Representavies Debbie Riddle and Leo Berman.

Texas Republicans Debbie Riddle of Tomball, TX and Leo Berman of Tyler, TX want to introduce an immigration law similar to Arizona's SB 1070. Do not let this happen. This law is not only unconstitutional but racist. The law, in an indirect method, will target minorities, allow for racial profiling and give to much power to police.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The problem I have with this law.

The following was taken directly from the state of Arizona's web site.

AZ SB1070
Requires officials and agencies to reasonably attempt to determine the immigration status of a person involved in a lawful contact where reasonable suspicion exists regarding the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.

The first problem I have with this is the wording "lawful contact". What does that mean? According to those that support the law, it means when a person has been detained, however brief, in suspicion that a crime that has happened or is about to happen. However, the way the law is worded I don't see that. For me, It means anytime I have an interaction with an officer of the law whether it be casual contact, even if initiated by me. Technicaly it's called non-custodial contact. I am not in custody. The officer under this law will then have the right to ask my immigration status, if he has reasonable suspicion. That brings me to my next problem, what is "reasonable suspicion"? Reasonable suspicion is critera used to make a decision if the law is being broken. For example, a driver is weaving in the lanes then the officer has reasonable suspicon that this driver is under the influence. What is reasonable suspicion in determining if a person is an illegal immigrant? What does an illegal immigrant look like? What are the objective criterias of determing what an illegal immigrant looks like? The Gov. Jan Brewer was asked how an illegal might look and her response was "I don't know what an illegal immigrant looks like. I can tell you that I think there are people in Arizona that assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like. I don't know if they know that for a fact or not." What? People assume to know what an illegal immigrant looks like? That's a problem.

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