Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis declared on the radio Wednesday that if he were governor he’d sign an immigration law similar to that just signed by Arizona’s governor.
You know, the law that requires police to determine the immigration status of people they suspect might be here illegally. Since it’s Arizona we’re talking about here, it’s Latinos in the law’s sights, Latinos who are more likely to be deemed suspicious, who are more likely to be stopped and questioned.
Because we can all tell those kinds of things, right? The olive-skinned guy wearing the ostrich-skin boots and cowboy hat. Probably an illegal. The Spanish-speaking woman holding up the line at the grocery store. Her too. The guys hammering shingles on the next-door neighbor’s roof, they’ve been listening to the Mexican polka-sounding stuff, accordions wheezing all the time. They gotta be illegal too.
Every one of these was cited to me as an example by readers who insist they can tell when a person is an illegal immigrant. Oh, and how could I forget? Mexicans — er, I mean, illegal immigrants — smell different. It’s the laundry detergent they use.
Some will protest that the fear of racial profiling is an overreaction. The Arizona law prohibits law enforcement from solely considering race, color or national origin when following the law’s mandates.
“Solely considering” is a nice turn of phrase. So are “reasonable suspicion” and “a reasonable attempt” and “lawful contact.” Together, they create a law that is a misguided triumph of ambiguity. Among other things.
Throw in un-American as well. In spirit, it is. In practice, discrimination is part of our history. I’ve long been convinced that much of the uproar over illegal immigration has less to do with the act of entering the country without papers than it does with the behavior, both perceived and real, of illegal immigrants once they get here. The ire over the use of the Spanish language, the belief that these newcomers fundamentally reject our ways and values and ideals.
The fear of the “other” and the insistence upon a fixed American identity is part of who we are. That same history tells us that we have a confluence of events leading us to this legal overreach: changing demographics, a weak economy, populist rage in the face of a federal government that has been not only ineffectual but complicit in the undermining of its basic duties toward its citizenry.
But let me quote from that Arizona state Senate research staff’s summary. “Requires a reasonable attempt to be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of a person: a) for any lawful contact made by a law enforcement agency or agency of the state or political subdivision and b) if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an unlawfully present alien.”
A helpful office staffer walks with me through this. Cop pulls over speeder. Speeder can produce no I.D., and her English is iffy. Is that “reasonable suspicion”? Could be, the staffer said. No one knows what “reasonable suspicion” means. The governor is asking Arizona’s Peace Officers Standards and Training Board to develop guidelines for the state’s 16,000 sworn peace officers. I presume that total includes the police chiefs whose association condemned the bill before it became law.
The Senate staffer told me the misconception is that police officers are going to willy-nilly stop people and demand papers. “Lawful contact” must be made first, the staffer said. I appreciate the distinction, but it does nothing to prevent abuses of power. The law says, too, that an officer can arrest — without a warrant — anyone he or she has probable cause to believe has committed an offense “that makes a person removable from the U.S.” Illegal presence falls under that category.
Enforcement of the law will require cooperation of the same federal government that has been so slow to respond in the past, of an immigration enforcement system that is understaffed and backlogged. In other words, enforcement will be sporadic, further revealing the law for what it is: a dangerous sideshow in the circus act that has become immigration reform.
This is the kind of law McInnis would sign in Colorado, where, as in Arizona, Latinos have a history that predates the establishment of statehood. He says if the feds won’t do something, the states must.
I get that people are tired of waiting for Congress to do something. Our representatives’ failure to act has created an untenable situation. I wish I could say the silver lining in all this is that Congress will finally act. All I’ve seen so far is a lot of pandering, Sen. John McCain and his rogue freeway drivers, Sen. Harry Reid looking for Latino votes. And McInnis, who, after his bold radio pronouncement, told my colleague Karen Crummy that he hadn’t read Arizona’s law yet.
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
