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[MA] Why the Arizona Immigration Law Makes Sense Here, Too
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| Parent(s) |
Issue
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| Contributor | Jason |
| Last Edited | Jason Jun 17, 2010 05:46am |
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| Category | Opinion |
| Author | Michael Stopa |
| Media | Newspaper - Boston Globe |
| News Date | Tuesday, June 15, 2010 11:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | ARIZONA’S TOUGH new anti-illegal immigration law has not gone into effect yet, but it has spawned a wave of similar bills in other states and moved legislators across the country toward a more conservative position on the issue. Even many opponents are waking up to the possibility that sending 12 million illegal immigrants home is possible and that if the federal government won’t do it, the states will.
The economic cost of illegal immigration is taking its toll, especially in Arizona. According to a recent study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Arizonans paid $2.7 billion in 2009 to support illegal immigrants. This figure does not include costs associated with an increase in violent crime and a flood of drugs in the state.
Critics argue that the new law is unconstitutional and immoral because it requires racial profiling for its implementation. Despite the fact that racial profiling is explicitly prohibited by the law, the argument goes that police, already engaged with criminal suspects, can have no “reasonable suspicion’’ that a person is an illegal immigrant without relying on racial cues.
But reasonable suspicion is well-established in the law and there are certainly examples where reasonable suspicion can occur without origin in racial characteristics. These include: not having a driver’s license or having a forged one, being unable to understand English, or to take an extreme case, riding in the cargo bay of a truck with a dozen men. Therefore, even though challenges to the law might well reveal that racial profiling was employed in specific cases, the law will not necessitate racial profiling. |
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