{"id":9973,"date":"2010-05-13T10:13:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T15:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=9973"},"modified":"2010-05-13T10:13:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-13T15:13:38","slug":"when-do-police-have-reasonable-suspicion-that-you-are-a-non-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/05\/when-do-police-have-reasonable-suspicion-that-you-are-a-non-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"When Do Police Have Reasonable Suspicion That You Are a Non-Citizen?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For the past couple of weeks I have been stewing about how to respond to Rick’s post<\/a> in which he tried to analogize the outcry against Arizona’s new immigration law to the Tea Party’s blowout bash against the new federal health care legislation. \u00a0He called the left out for hypocrisy in its condemnation of the accusations of “socialized medicine” and “death panels,” asserting that the left is “is just as over the top as the most silly Tea Party [when it terms the Arizona law] ‘racist,’ ‘hysterical nativism,’ and evocative of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. It is cause, we hear, to read Arizona out of the civilized community.”<\/p>\n

His rhetorical approach was really effective, I think, so I am going to copy it: starting with a concession to gain your trust, before pointing out the flaw I see in Rick’s argument.<\/p>\n

First concession: \u00a0I agree in principle that “[m]ass opposition to disfavored legislation and politicians is fine as long as it is accurate and temperate.” \u00a0I also agree wholeheartedly that political arguments these days are just about as likely to devolve into irrational hysteria, closed-mindedness, and outright bias on the left as on the right.<\/p>\n

One example that comes to mind is the debate about the merits of nuclear power. \u00a0Though I tend to agree that maybe nuclear power isn’t so bad after all<\/a> (or that at least, scientists should figure that out rather than unthinkingly conflating nuclear energy with nuclear weapons), the anti-nuclear power arguments are so fervent that I was hesitant to even admit to that opinion in this public forum.<\/p>\n

And I agree with Rick’s argument about the protests about the Arizona law to the extent that anyone has said that they make Arizona “evocative of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.”<\/p>\n

But calling the Arizona law “racist” or “hysterical nativism”? \u00a0I don’t think analogizing these labels to “socialized medicine” or “death panels” is accurate. \u00a0As the foreign-born Governor of California recently (jokingly) pointed out, the Arizona law does put\u00a0anyone with a foreign accent at risk of being detained and deported<\/a> on suspicion of being a non-citizen. So, while Rick is right that it’s true that non-resident aliens are required to “carry documentation at all times,” that’s beside the point. \u00a0The trouble is that in practice, on what basis will the Arizona law enforcement officials form the reasonable suspicion that someone is an alien, instead of a citizen? \u00a0 What else will they have to rely upon, besides skin color, other physical characteristics, and accented speech? \u00a0Those\u00a0oval white country code bumper stickers<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Thus, the situation in Arizona, for those citizens who bear the characteristics that might lead Arizona law enforcement officers to suspect they are not citizens, does seem undeniably “nativistic.” \u00a0Indeed, while I wouldn’t make a broad analogy to the atrocities of Communist Russia, the travel situation for those folks in Arizona does seem, to this former Russian and Soviet Studies student, quite similar to the travel situation in the former Soviet Union; you’d better have your papers with you. \u00a0If the Arizona law were to be enforced as its plain language permits, some United States citizens, those who match whatever criteria the Arizona officers think creates a reasonable suspicion of “being an alien,” will need, basically, internal passports.<\/p>\n

Indeed, even without the sort of stamp of approval that Arizona’s legislature has passed, those folks would probably already be wise to carry around their proof of citizenship. \u00a0Many citizens of the United States are already being wrongfully arrested, detained, and even deported<\/a>, based upon immigration officials’ erroneous conclusion that they are non-citizens<\/a>. \u00a0In fact, right here in Wisconsin, a McHenry county man has recently filed suit against law enforcement officers there, claiming that they falsely imprisoned him on suspicion that he was an illegal immigrant, refusing to release him even when his brother came to the jail with his naturalization certificate<\/a>. \u00a0It cannot be a surprise to anybody that the citizens suffering these harms are, disproportionately, non-white.<\/p>\n

In summary, I welcome conversation about the tone of political conversations these days. \u00a0I am a fan of really listening to the other side. \u00a0But once in a while, a law actually is racist and nativist, and I think the Arizona law is undeniably one of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past couple of weeks I have been stewing about how to respond to Rick’s post in which he tried to analogize the outcry against Arizona’s new immigration law to the Tea Party’s blowout bash against the new federal health care legislation. \u00a0He called the left out for hypocrisy in its condemnation of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,56,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","category-immigration-law","category-political-processes-rhetoric","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}