By RUBEN NAVARETTE
By RUBEN NAVARETTE
New York Times News Service
The Supreme Court’s decision on Arizona’s immigration law allows both sides of the debate to declare a measure of victory.
But in upholding the most repugnant part of the law — requiring local and state police officers to enforce federal immigration law, which critics insist leads to racial and ethnic profiling — the court dealt a defeat for fairness and common sense.
It’s also a blow to the right of all Americans to simply be left alone. The Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is all about preventing government intrusion and protecting one’s privacy.
And yes, I said, “Americans.” In Arizona, and the handful of states that have passed similar laws, the aggrieved party is not the illegal immigrants who shouldn’t be there in the first place — and wouldn’t be if Americans weren’t hiring.
They’re U.S.-born Hispanics. These are people whose families can trace their Arizona heritage back as many as seven generations. Imagine what an insult it is for someone like that — because they have dark skin and look Hispanic — to be asked for proof of U.S. citizenship by a police officer whose family roots aren’t as deep.
Badges are not interchangeable. The enforcement of federal immigration law should not be farmed out to local and state police. It drains resources, divides communities and destroys trust between police and immigrants.
While defenders of the law insist that it’s perfectly fine for Arizona to do the job that the federal government isn’t doing, such an argument is ridiculous on its face. The Framers entrusted the federal government with the responsibility of regulating the nation’s immigration policy — along with printing money and making treaties with foreign countries. If the people of Vermont don’t like the look of the $20 bill, they don’t get to fire up the presses and make their own version.
Besides, the Obama administration has rounded up and deported more than 1.2 million illegal immigrants. It can’t very well be accused of not enforcing the law or securing the border.
And so for those of us who believe that this law is one of the most harmful and sinister things concocted by a state legislature since Jim Crow, there is much to celebrate in the fact that the court struck down three out of four of the law’s provisions, each time on a 5-3 vote. Even more significant is the fact that the majority included two conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, both of whom have ruled in other cases to expand the power of police.
The parts struck down authorized police to arrest immigrants without a warrant if there is “probable cause” that they committed any public offense that would remove them from the country; made it a state crime in Arizona for those suspected of being in the country illegally to fail to carry with them registration papers and other forms of government identification; and barred undocumented immigrants from working or soliciting work.
By the way, you’ll notice that the Republican lawmakers in Arizona who drafted the law didn’t include a line or two making it a state crime to hire illegal immigrants. This would have run afoul of the business owners who usually contribute to GOP campaign coffers.
I saw these mixed messages up close. I lived in Phoenix in the late 1990s while writing for the state’s largest newspaper — The Arizona Republic. Arizonans couldn’t get enough of illegal immigrants and the chores they did. Only when they noticed the state’s demographics were changing did lawmakers devise a cure — one that was worse than the affliction.
Now the Supreme Court has delivered a mixed message of its own, clearing the way for a lot of turmoil and ensuring that the last word on this subject has not yet been heard.