Open Season

Today in bad ideas: Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed into law a bill that will require local law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if they suspect that the person is in the country illegally. According to MSNBC, the law also “allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws and make(s) it illegal to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.”

Now, I agree with Brewer that Arizona, the primary gateway of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America, got impatient waiting for Washington to do something abut illegal immigration. But enforcing immigration law is federal jurisdiction, not local. And there are reasons for that, which will become painfully clear as this law takes effect.

For instance… I believe that this will have a chilling effect on reporting of crimes. If you are an undocumented immigrant, or someone who knows through past experience that you are likely to be suspected of being an undocumented immigrant (and let’s be honest – someone who looks like me could be undocumented as hell and never have to worry about being caught in Arizona), how likely are you to call the local police if someone robs you, or sexually assaults you? At times in this country, it was open season on African Americans and LGBT people, because everyone knew that crimes against them weren’t taken seriously (and still aren’t all of the time). This isn’t going to be any different. How is the cause of justice served when an entire class of people knows from experience to view the police as their enemy?

The “lawsuits against government agencies” piece is also disturbing. Is this intended to apply to any public social agency? For starters, from what I understand, a person who is in this country without documentation is the LAST person to, say, go apply for food stamps. One of the biggest problems social agencies have in serving immigrant populations is the perception among those immigrants that they’ll be harassed about their legal status. This law is only going to make their job harder. And what about schools? I don’t know about Arizona, but here in North Carolina the attorney general assured public, private and community colleges that it’s not their purview to determine the immigration status of their students. Is Arizona going to fine a school that admits an undocumented immigrant, or arrest the admission director? Talk about squeezing blood from a rock.

Schools do not have the responsibility for determining the status of their students because, a) it’s not our mission, and b) we don’t have the staff to do so. The same reasons apply to local law enforcement.

Let’s talk about Show Low, Ariz., a town I picked randomly off the map because its name jumped out at me. It’s a town in the White Mountains a little bigger than where I grew up, with about 4,300 households, according to the town Web site, and a small airport. The population swells to about 30,000 each summer because of the town’s tourism industry. Just to be clear with what I’m about to say, I in no way want to criticize the professionalism of the police department there, because I’m sure they do the best job they can. (And also, the man who answered the phone when I called a minute ago pretending that I was thinking about moving there was super-nice, and I feel a little guilty about fibbing to him.)

The police department has 35 officers, most of whom are on patrol. According to CityData.com, Show Low’s crime index (as of 2006, the most recent year stats are available) is higher than the U.S. average (470.9 per 100,000 people vs. 320.9). Most of those appear to be theft and property crime – it’s not like this is Gangland, USA – but I’m sure the police there have plenty on their plate without having to enforce federal immigration law.

And I have no doubt that law enforcement in Show Low and in the rest of Arizona will do more with less in order to meet the new law’s requirements. But should they have to? For every extra tool this law gives police, I believe it will bring a dozen more headaches.

President Obama was right in saying that Congress needs to get off its ass and fix immigration policy one and for all so that local jurisdictions won’t have to spend resources doing so. When President Bush tried it, immigration reform was the only thing in eight years that Congressional Republicans didn’t rubber-stamp.

So, I have practical concerns about how this law will negatively impact law enforcement’s ability to do its job in protecting citizens – all of them. But there are larger concerns, too. As much as the Tea Partiers complain about health care reform being fascist, America has never been the country where you had to have your papers in order to simply exist. Want to drive, pay a fee to get a driver’s license. Want to collect Social Security, get a Social Security Number. But just to be? Not in Arizona anymore, apparently.