Profiling isn’t the solution
Published 4:24 pm Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Arizona certainly knows how to get the nation’s attention.
By passing its new canary-in-a-coal-mine immigration law, Arizona is again at the focal point of a national debate. Like its years-long Martin Luther King Jr. Day debacle, the state’s action has drawn applause and condemnation.
Arizona’s law requires all immigrants and visitors from other countries to carry U.S.-issued documents or risk arrest. Police can question anyone about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect they are in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime if they are.
Few people will argue that illegal immigration is not a problem, particularly in border states such as Arizona.
But even conservatives are divided on Arizona’s law. For example, Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political strategist, said he sees constitutional problems with the law … but says it wouldn’t lead to “racial profiling,” which critics say is exactly what it calls for.
“These are modern police forces that respect the rights of people in their communities,” Rove told the Orlando Sentinel. “They’re going to do it on the basis of reasonable suspicion that these people are here illegally, like they’re driving a car with a Mexican license plate or they can’t speak English or they don’t have a driver’s license.”
Yikes. If someone does not speak English, it may be reasonable to deduce they are, in fact, an immigrant to the United States. (Or a visitor.) It’s not reasonable to deduce they are an illegal immigrant. It’s not constitutional to assume that they are illegal aliens until proven otherwise.
Although many wish it were, it is not illegal to not speak English. And how does an officer know someone doesn’t speak English until they pull them over? Other than Mexican license plates, then, what might cause an officer to pull someone over?
Well, in East Haven, Conn., it appears that driving while Hispanic was reason enough. Yale Law School students released an analysis showing that more than half of the tickets police issued along two main roads went to Hispanic drivers, even though Hispanics make up less than 6 percent of the population. The report said police officers substantially under-reported the number of tickets issued to Hispanic drivers by reporting most of them as white.
That’s one way around those pesky racial profiling laws. Everybody’s white on paper!
There’s a real debate to be had, and solutions to be found.
But when those who want to deport illegal immigrants insist on strictly calling them “invaders” or “illegals” or worse, they succeed only in supporting the other side’s charges of racism.
