Let's be clear: Arizona's new anti-immigrant law is not just racist, and unconstitutional, it's also dangerous to the law-abiding residents of Arizona. Anything that makes people afraid to come forward and cooperate with the police investigating crimes makes it harder for law enforcement to do its job, and that makes it easier for criminals to do theirs.
At her press conference where she actually signed the law, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said:
This bill, the "Support Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," strengthens the laws of our state. It protects all of us, every Arizona citizen and everyone here in our state lawfully. And it does so while ensuring the constitutional rights of all within Arizona remain solid, stable and steadfast.
That's just a pack of lies. And not just the part about constitutional rights. All of it is a pack of lies.
Since 1979, the Los Angeles Police Department has operated under Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers from "initiat(ing) police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." It was initiated by Chief Daryl Gates, who died just this past week. Gates had been called many things in his life, but "liberal" was not one of them. On April 9, The LA Times explained in an editorial:
The order was adopted in the late 1970s by then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, hardly a soft-on-crime liberal, who knew that the LAPD would be more effective if undocumented witnesses and victims felt free to speak with officers without fearing deportation. The order prevents officers from questioning people solely to determine their immigration status or arresting them solely for violations of immigration law. It does nothing to stop officers from arresting a violent suspect or calling in federal agents to investigate a person they believe illegally reentered the U.S. after deportation. It was good policy then and remains so today.
Special Order 40 is sound, sensible, effective and efficient police policy. It was initiated by a hard-ass conservative police chief. And it has worked for over 30 years--despite wingnut attacks based on lies and distortions (more on this below the fold).
On top of everything else, the Arizona law is clearly criminally stupid. Exactly what you'd expect from racist wingnuts. It is guaranteed to make law enforcement less efficient and less effective in Arizona. It is a pro-crime law. Period.
But what are we to do about it? Wait for the terminally risk-averse Obama Administration to accidentally find its backbone?
I don't think so. I think we need a massive wave of civil disobedience to overwhelm the Arizona criminal justice system, and make it overwhelmingly obvious that this law is morally unacceptable and unenforceable in America today. The only thing that gives me pause is the principle that I should not call for others to do what I am not willing to do myself. Which puts me in sort of bind. I have been arrested on principle before. I made the sacrifice then, because it was one I could consciously and fullly take on. If it meant two years--or possibly more--in prison to protest the Vietnam War at that time, I was willing to do it. But that doesn't count for anything now. I can't in good conscience be the one to lead this call. But I can say it is morally necessary, and I will fully support anyone who is willing to commit themselves and call on others to do the same. Waiting on the government and politicians to do the right thing is not sufficient, not when liberty, justice and equality are so viciously attacked.
As I said above, LA's Special Order 40 has worked for over 30 years--despite wingnut attacks based on lies and distortions. Here's what the same LA Times editorial had to say on the subject in its most recent incarnation:
The emotional heat of the immigration debate finally grew so intense that it opened up several alternate dimensions, where fact evaporates and folklore guides what passes for policy discussion. In one parallel Los Angeles, police officers see violent gang members whom they know to be illegal immigrants but can do nothing to stop them because of a politically correct edict known as Special Order 40. It has become common knowledge in this world that the order doomed young Jamiel Shaw II, the high school student gunned down by an illegal immigrant gang member who roamed the streets with impunity after being released from jail because local law protected him from deportation.
Back in the real world, where fact still holds sway, Special Order 40 had no role in Shaw's killing. Illegal immigrant and 18th Street Gang member Pedro Espinoza was arrested in November by Culver City police -- not the LAPD -- and jailed on a weapons charge. Espinoza should have been held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending deportation. Instead, he was released, and an innocent and promising high school student was shot to death. The tragedy exposes deplorable failures in the jailhouse processing of illegal immigrant criminals, but it has nothing to do with the LAPD, much less with Special Order 40.
This is completely typical of the fact-free manner in which racists have always argued all down through history. Nothing has changed--except that now racism requires including the ritual denial of racism as an essential part of its sacred lies.
Anyone doubting the absurdity of the Arizona law should see Rachel Maddow's segment on the signing of the law last night [embedded below]. Picking up with a video of the governor making the statement I quoted above, here's part of what Maddow had to say in response:
[Video:]
Brewer: This bill, the "Support Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," strengthens the laws of our state. It protects all of us, every Arizona citizen and everyone here in our state lawfully. And it does so while ensuring the constitutional rights of all within Arizona remain solid, stable and steadfast.
Maddow: Just to be clear, the steadfast upholding of constitutional rights here means when this bill is enacted [90 days from signing] you are presumed to be illegal in the state of Arizona.
Anyone, anywhere in Arizona is eligible for arrest if a police officer thinks you might be an illegal immigrant and you can't on the spot prove otherwise.
US citizens can be arrested and held in jail if you don't have the right form of identification to show a police officer who doesn't think you look right.
If it turns out you were a legal immigrant to this country, but you weren't carrying all of your immigration paperwork at the time, that's 6 months in jail for you and a $500 fine.
Maddow went on to the "this isn't racial profiling" claim, aptly comparing it to Bush's "we don't torture" claim:
If this sounds like racial profiling to you, Governor Brewer wants to assure you it most assuredly is not.
[Video:]
Brewer: Racial profiling is illegal, it will not be tolerated in America and it certainly will not be tolerated in Arizona.
Maddow: Racial profiling illegal. It will remain illegal, except for the part where police officers now have to stop you if they think you look illegal.
Other than that, there won't be any racial profiling in Arizona, because that of course would be against the law.
It's like when George Bush said we don't torture, because that would be illegal, instead we just waterboard people, and yeah we used to put people in prison for waterboarding people 'cause it was torture. We do that now, but we don't torture, because that would be illegal.
Remember that argument? Same argument here.
Maddow then went on to focus on the fundamental question of how the law is supposed to be enforced in real life--the very first question asked at the press conference:
Maddow: The first question for Governor Brewer at the press conference today was about what basis a police officer could use to decide if someone looks illegal.
[Video:]
Reporter: It seems to me that while the bill says race and ethnicity may not be used as the sole factors, it does allow them to be used as a factor. How can that not lead to some form of racial profiling?
Brewer: No different than any other reasonable suspicion, Howie. I mean, we have to trust our law enforcement. You know, simple reality. Police officers are going to be respectful. They understand what their jobs are. They've taken [an] oath. And racial profiling is illegal.
Maddow: It is illegal!
What I found particularly noteworthy and bizarre is the way that Brewer sort of slipped into "Mommy explains about the nice policeman" mode. "We have to trust our law enforcement." Because we live in a police state, where we don't ask questions like you just asked, dumbfuck!
A part of your brain has to be missing for you to mistake that for an actual answer to the question that was asked.
Painfully aware of just how absurd Brewer's theater had become, Maddow proceeds to invoke Lewis Carrol in presenting us with the ultimate absurdity, the complete void at the center of the law:
Maddow: If you want to identify the exact moment when any suspicion you might have had that you had gone down the rabbit hole at this press conference was completely verified by what you were seeing, it was probably this unbelievable moment:
[Video:]
Reporter: What does an illegal immigrant look like?
Brewer: [Strange, half-laughing, almost gagging sound]
Reporter: Does it look like me?
Brewer: I do not know. I do not 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.
But I know that if AZ Post [Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board] gets theirself together, works on this law, puts down the description, that the law will be enforced civilly, fairly, and without discriminatory points to it.
Maddow: The law will be enforced without discriminatory points to it. As long as someone, somewhere in the state of Arizona can figure out what an illegal immigrant looks like.
The whole point of our Bill of Rights is to outlaw arbitrary and capricious state power, and protect the people against any such exercise of state power. This law is nothing but arbitrary and capricious state power. It's not that the law is "unconstitutionally vague" as courts most commonly find when such issues are raised. It's not vague around the edges. Its very core, its foundations are essentially and fundamentally vague to the point of being undefined and undefineable.
This is pure prejudice enshrined in law. It is racism run amuck. And it must be stopped by the same means that slavery was stopped, that Jim Crow was stopped: by a rising up of people of conscience, by those oppressed and those who stand with them, because they can do no other.
Watch the whole segment, which brings on New Mexico governor Bill Richardson shortly after the passages quoted above:
