Legal Commentary

AZ to Criminalize Undocumented Presence in State

By Jeralyn

The Arizona House has passed a bill similar to one passed by the state Senate criminalizing undocumented presence in the state. With some minor reconciliation changes, it will go to the Governor for signing into law. Included in the bill are provisions that:

• Create a new state misdemeanor crime of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document.
• Allow officers to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they're legally in the country.
• Ban so-called soft immigration policies at local police agencies and allow people to sue if they feel a government agency has adopted a policy that hinders the enforcement of illegal immigration laws.
• Prohibit people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on street corners.
• Make it illegal for people to transport illegal immigrants if the drivers of vehicles know their passengers are in the country illegally and if the transportation furthers their illegal presence in the country.

This bill gives cops the power to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being undocumented. What a mandate for racial profiling. I hope people boycott Arizona and products made there if this bill gets signed into law. Let their tourism industry suffer the consequences. Visit New Mexico or Colorado instead. [More...]

Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, suggested the House bill is the work of racists.

"Arizona has long been a laboratory for anti-immigrant experimentation, and its demagogue leaders have become folk heroes for white supremacists throughout the United States," Newman said. "But this bill ushers in a new chapter of disgrace for the state that resisted celebrating the life of Martin Luther King."

Your papers please? The Wall St. Journal reports under the bill, "Foreign nationals are required to carry proof of legal residency."

Where is Governor Jan Brewer on the bill? It needs a swift veto. She hasn't said, but she's a Republican who favors strong immigration laws.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 14, 2010 (boomark / email).