My husband and son snuck away to Spring Training this year, shedding their work and school responsibilities along with the dreary March weather of Cleveland, Ohio. Their destination? Sunny Arizona, home of the Cactus League’s nine ballparks where fifteen Major League Baseball teams[1] scorn winter’s funk by picking up their balls and sticks again, by galvanizing their minds and their meat toward something coherent. A contradictory mix of rejuvenation and contentment, Spring Training makes for the perfect getaway, and my guys caught the Reds, Indians, Dodgers, White Sox, Mariners, and Brewers bracing their appetites for another glorious year of baseball competition.
They were not alone. Lolling in the stands, swimming in the hotel pools, feeding at the eateries, trekking north to the Grand Canyon, Cactus League fans contributed more than $350 million to Arizona’s economy in 2009.[2]
That’s a lot of money riding on the bats of Latinos.
Close to a third of Baseball’s players are from Spanish-speaking countries. Approximately 15 percent of Baseball’s managers and 21 percent of its coaches are Latino.[3] I wonder how they and their families feel about Arizona’s recent foray into immigration legislation.
“Read the law!”[4] the right keeps urging. “It does not encourage profiling. It specifically prohibits it,” Sean Hannity says. In Hannity’s world, immigrants who are here legally, including my favorite baseball player, long-time Indians short-stop and chronic Golden Glover Omar Vizquel,[5] are unaffected by SB1070.
But when a steady purveyor of racist jokes or, worse, a serial workplace discriminator says, somewhere in his history of verbal expression, “I don’t have a problem with people of color,” does that mean anything at all? He is either wholly un-self-aware or he is covering his tracks. What he is not is someone who doesn’t have a problem with people of color.
Likewise, that SB1070 specifically tells police to implement the law “IN A MANNER CONSISTENT WITH FEDERAL LAWS REGULATING IMMIGRATION, PROTECTING THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF ALL PERSONS AND RESPECTING THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF UNITED STATES CITIZENS” means nothing at all since it also says this:
FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL …WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.
and this:
A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.Notable is that the bill spells out that being an illegal immigrant IS unlawful conduct, IS a public offense.
When Sarah Palin says this to Sean Hannity:
“One of the media outlets the other day just was killing me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said this Arizona law will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant? Some bizarre type of headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it.”
.....it seems that she’s the one who doesn’t get it. You know how in some states you can’t be fined for violation of a seat belt law if you aren’t stopped for some other reason? That is, police can’t stop you if they see you without a seat belt unless they also see that you’re speeding or running a red light? That is specifically not the case here. All the “bizarre” talk about the illegality of being an illegal is simply an attempt to explicate this new fact on the ground: that police in Arizona now need no other reason to stop someone on suspicion of violating immigration law. Back to the seat belt analogy: Some might say, “Well, sure, why not? There’s no reason why a violation of that law has to be in combination with the violation of another law in order to be enforceable.”
But the difference is clear. It’s obvious where the analogy breaks down: A police officer can see, plainly, who is wearing a seat belt and who is not. An officer cannot see plainly who is in the United States illegally.
That’s where Omar Vizquel comes in. He looks like this:
And he talks like this:
Is this what an illegal alien looks like? How is someone to know? Arizona's Governor clearly doesn’t know.
(Oh, and by the way, Vizquel plays like this:)
The new Arizona law makes things especially hard for the police because, in addition to making them figure out what an alien looks like before they stop someone, they are not allowed to enforce this law in any manner “less than the full extent” and they are allowed to be sued by any citizen who thinks that they are not enforcing the law fully.
Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism Web Site mocks the notion that a famous baseball player could get stopped by police. But what of Mrs. Vizquel? What of Omar’s brother or father or friend? What of all his Latino fans? Carrying papers, being stopped to prove identity: These are humiliating practices for Americans and reminiscent of the worst political instincts in human history. Does Arizona want that reputation? Does Baseball?
* * *
Here’s something really interesting: Arizona’s association with spring training got started back in 1946 when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed the first black player for the American League, Larry Doby. You know why Veeck pushed to move his team from Florida? He believed Arizona’s racial climate to be more hospitable. That little nugget is taken directly from the Cactus League’s Web Site.
You know what I think? I think Florida’s Grapefruit League would welcome their compadres back with open arms.
Call your teams.
[1] Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers
[5] Since playing for the Indians, Vizquel went to Seattle and San Francisco and now plays for the White Sox. All of these teams practice in Arizona.
(Gratuitous photo of Vizquel. That's him in the air, of course.)
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Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings. Ratified 12/15/1791.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
And I agree with you - this is not the answer. I am hopeful, though, that that will become clear after it's challenged in the courts.
When the Nazis required Dutch Jews to wear identifying armbands, the royal family wore them as an example to their countrymen, in Arizona, every American and legal visitor should refuse to show their papers when asked
Thank you, Jeanette! I think immigration is such a tough issue. (Well, they all are, aren't they?) I'm not sure people are aware of all the consequences of just kicking out 12 M people, many of whom have been the bedrock of communities for decades. But it's true that we can't have porous borders because it's not fair to the taxpayers here.
It's hard, though, isn't is Roy, to extricate the racism embedded in the conversation? My grad econ professor told me once that there were more Irish illegals here than Latino. Isn't that astounding? Not so much for the bare fact of it but that it's unknown and that they are not the picture of the illegal that's been drummed into our heads. What's that about? The answer is all to obvious I'm afraid.
If it were honest, today's Republican Party would call itself the New American Independent Party or the Christian Right (Wrong) Party or the National Fascist Party. But then, there's nothing honest about the once Grand Old Party.
My problem with all of this is the asinine comments/arguments from the supporters of SB1070. I don't want to hear Hannity say "we all have to show IDs to fly" or Rush to say 42 states require you to carry an ID card. No one has a problem with any of that and its not germane.
The only issue is how will this poorly-written vague statute be enforced? The obvious inclination is to believe that all brown-skinned brothers are going to be stopped for some innocuous offense. If true, its an abomination.
However, if the police are instructed to and generally do not check for ID unless there is another legitimate offense should we have a problem with it? Should we be upset if an Latino is pulled over for speeding (and lets assume its not 56 in a 55) only to turn out that he's not here legally and it results in him being sent back home? My fear is that my question is academic because IMO the atmosphere in AZ is poisoned against the Latinos and the fervor will override any sense of "right." However, I think the people complaining about this (hand raised) need to be able to answer that question. I have yet to hear anyone from the opposition say that illegals should be sent packing.
they should be perfectly willing to have their social security number tattooed on their forehead. anyone old enough to walk with no number is an uninvited guest.
problem solved.
unless of course some wily terrorist writes a number with washable ink. well, police will need 'stop and smudge' powers, that's all.
So you didn't get into that "galvanize" sentence, huh? I thought it was pretty cool that I called the players' muscles "meat." These little thrills keep writers writing, you know.
Anyway, I agree that this law came out of a vacuum of leadership from the federal level. I don't know anyone, either, who argues for straight porous borders, but I am with those who want amnesty for most of the 12M who have been here for some time. The problem is that no one believes the gov't will do anything to prevent the very same thing from happening in the future.
Another issue is teasing out the racism embedded in the discussion. There are very, very many people who conflate legal and illegal immigrants. For example, many economists are lobbying the gov't to encourage skilled and educated immigrants to come here to boost our economy; apparently immigrants are self-selected for risk-taking, which is ideal for entrepreneurship. But that conversation can go absolutely nowhere when people don't even get that encouraging certain legal immigrants is not the same as encouraging illegal immigration. And this AZ law, which ultimately burdens legal immigrants and second/third generation people, is seen as completely innocuous by people ignorant of this distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. I don't mean to suggest that they are intellectually ignorant of the difference, just that they emotionally run them together, based on some kind of tribalism or racism.
I don't really know what I think about asking for ID once someone is stopped for something else. (This law doesn't require that other reason, btw). The problem remains the same, really. So Latino-Americans have to carry papers with them all the time? That's really wrong. And what if they don't have them? But I do understand that there has to be some mechanism in place to secure the borders and check against illegal immigration.
Which leads me to the bigger picture. Why do we ignore Mexico? I mean in the meta picture. The simple answer is that they don't offer us anything (oil). If we were willing to invade Iraq to effect some kind of change of leadership and bring about democracy (the reasons for that invasion are anyone's guess, but that one was offered by Wolfowitz in Vanity Fair in 2003), then why would we not consider major investment in Mexico a priority, given its apparently major impact on our economy? If we are willing to fund Israel's military might (and they receive more aid from us than everyone else put together), then why do we not fund a Mexican economy that keeps its own people? I think the answer is terribly complicated and involves contradictory interests, including those who use Mexican labor to further their/our economic interests. At the end of the day, I think it's more than a wash. I think that the biggest picture of all shows that the current situation lends itself to advancing our own economy, the populist Paliners notwithstanding. Because we'd have done something about it long ago if that weren't the case, imo.
Well done.
Greg
My understanding of the State of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 is different than yours. I would now like to explain the points of contention and sincerely ask you to revisit the new law and reference for me specifics if you still maintain your opinion.
You make reference in your piece to, "this new fact on the ground: that police in Arizona now need no other reason to stop someone on suspicion of violating immigration law." After reading several times the Support Our Law Enforcement And Safe Neighborhoods Act, which is the other name for 1070, and the discourse of two of the bill's creators, Kris Kovach and John Kavanagh, I find just the opposite.
"Lawful contact" must initially be made. After the lawful contact, a law enforcement official must then encounter "reasonable suspicion", and only after these two criteria are met does the officer check with the U.S. Government on the immigration status of the person.
I suspect that in formulating your opinion you glossed over the importance of the term "lawful contact." A typical lawful contact is the traffic stop, for, let's say speeding. So there is the first opportunity for a person to avoid exercise of this law on him or her: obey traffic laws. If during this lawful contact the officer finds that "reasonable suspicion" exists that the person is in the country illegally, the officer finally checks with the Feds. Now there was the second opportunity for the person to avoid exercise of this law: show the officer your driver's license. That way reasonable suspicion has been avoided.
"Lawful contact" and "reasonable suspicion" are not new legal recipies cooked up just for this law. They have been in precedence for five decades dovetailing with "lawful stop", "stop and frisk", and "stop and question."
Do you now see why I feel you need to be admonished for misleading your readers when you refer to "this new fact on the ground: that police in Arizona now need no other reason to stop someone on suspicion of violating immigration law." Clearly the law is written the opposite of this "fact."
A law enforcement officer is thus never charged with seeing plainly who is in the United States illegally, and never made to figure out what an alien looks like before they stop someone. The analogy you make to seat belt violations is parallel here, yet you purport that is specifically not the case. All of your readers, no doubt captivated by your impressive writing style, have been misinformed, causing in their minds the erroneous hurdles that even the most galvanized athlete would not be able to accomplish were they to have been set in front of him or her figuratively on a track and field course, like Nazi armbands for Jews (Roy Jiminez), fascism (Tom Cordle), and other probable leaps from those who read it and did not leave a comment.
Is it your contention perhaps that you don't believe the police are trustworthy applicators of the law and that they would discriminate based on race, color, or national origin? If so then that is entirely different than your argument persuading the reader that the law says things that I can't find in it.
Opponents of the law have convincingly argued that it may lead to racial profiling by rogue cops. Do you think proponents of the law were not aware of this danger? During the legislative debate Governor Brewer demanded that the bill contain the language that you referenced, ". . . protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities . . ." as well as the stipulation that law enforcers, "may not solely consider race, color, or national origin" as in accordance with prior laws. You can try to say that this is simply a racist covering her tracks if you want, but don't you think this is a deterrent to racial profiling? I believe the rogue racist cop would be concerned about being trapped off by that clause, and would be up against technology - cameras, microphones, and GPS devices now standard in patrol cars.
This response was made in the spirit of good honest debate and the writer hopes that the reader accepts it that way.
I will ask you, though, how it really matters once that particular point is disposed of. So let's say the cops stop 50 people for speeding. Of those 50, presumably some of them are supposed to set off triggers of "reasonable suspicion" of being here illegally. What is the basis for this reasonable suspicion if it's not racial profiling? Do you see how their speeding or running a red light is kind of irrelevant when it comes to the civil liberties at hand? Someone must still face that hurdle of deciding what represents reasonable suspicion that someone is an illegal alien. Someone must still know what an illegal alien looks like. (Unless of course the speeder offers an unprompted, "Oh, please, Officer, don't send us back to Mexico!" I think we can all agree that that's reasonable suspicion.)
Simply declaring in a bill that civil liberties may not be violated even as the bill elsewhere requires the de facto violation of them does not, in my opinion, bulwark it from complaints of unconstitutionality. It sort of reminds me of the notion of legal toothlessness in a sign saying "No lifeguard on duty; swim at your own risk" put up at an unfenced public pool.
I'd like to remind you that the Jim Crow laws of the American South and the early Nazi laws were never spelled out as obviously depriving people of their civil liberties. It seems that some people expect that unless a law states explicitly that it must be enforced in such a way as to violate those liberties, then it doesn't. Legislation should be made with an understanding of how it will be enforced. Given the dramatically urgent call in SB1070 for law enforcement to enforce the bill not less than 100% under threat of civilian prosecution, it's a little silly to presume that only in situations similar to the parenthetical above will "illegal-looking" people be required to show their papers.
I'm afraid your continuing insistence that someone must still know what an illegal alien looks like is a swing and a miss!
supported warrantless wiretapping, it may be that some citizens now prefer dubious promises of security to those if freedom. This bill takes the us just one small step closer to a police state. If you happened to be out about town and your wallet was stolen, would you be willing to spend time in jail while the misunderstanding was sorted out in a court if law? I can say that I would be furious that my constitutional rights were trampled. Freedom in america matters to many of us as much or more than dubious promises of police state security.
First, I share your concern about some innocent citzens being stopped more often than others simply because of the way they look. The U.S. doesn't exactly have a great record in this area. For example, we might think of driving while black in the Northeast. One of the things that makes it possible to address this issue is accountability: the police should keep records of whom they stop, what they do, and the reasons for what they do. Will this be the case in Arizona? I hope so. But one of the problems is that what we hear in the news from local police chiefs all the way up to the governor is that they don't have clear procedures for identifying illegal immigrants. That someone might simply show a driver's license and go on their way is a nice idea--but it doesn't happen to be codified explicitly in the law. And we know from experience that this isn't enough.
My second thought isn't related to the law, but to basic justice. It turns out that two terrorists, one named Robert Johnson and another named T. Kennedy, are on the U.S. No Fly List. Dozens if not hundreds of air passengers with those names (even Ted Kennedy) have been repeatedly delayed at airports because of this similarity. My natural response isn't "Gee, that sucks for you," but rather "We should do a better job of identifying bad guys than going by a name and nothing else." I think that the new Arizona law opens itself up to just such injustices. I'm afraid that any problems will be swept under the rug, though. It will probably take someone being sent to jail for a few days simply for not having his papers in order, then suing the local police, before it becomes clear what a dog's breakfast the new law is.
In an ideal world, sure, this sort of law might work. In a state where Joe Arpaio has run a county for almost 20 years, I don't think so.
Yeah, right.
Shall I tell you about the friend of mine from graduate school who almost got shot in L.A. because he had his grad school satchel on the front seat of his car and the cop assumed that because my friend was black, it must be a gun?
What about the friend who had the cops called by a neighbor because there was a suspicious black man smoking on the building stoop? Poor friend had lived there for years and had to prove to the police he lived in his own goddamned building.
The friend of my brother, run over by a white woman driver, who was initially arrested, while he was lying in agony in the street, because he was black and it was assumed he had tried to jack her?
I am not making any of this stuff up. Cops are not perfect; they're human beings asked to make decisions in split seconds. I respect the work they do.
But I've also met my share of cops who make assumptions based on their own prejudices.
How many people are going to get pulled over because they're brown and doing 56 mph? How many white people get pulled over for the same offense? Now that police have been charged with enforcing a "papers please" law, why don't we make it easy for everybody.
I'm thinking yellow stars, sewed on your clothes. I hear that worked really well at one point.
(And if you like, we can go back to the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, which demanded that Jews wear "distinguishing marks" to delineate them from Christians.) Apparently, this whole being afraid of strangers shit, no matter how we couch it, continues.
I'll be writing to the team I support, which does play Cactus League ball, and ask them to consider playing elsewhere.
If you look at the video here, toward the bottom of this article on Huffington Post it's clear that, although this crime/immigration sweep is the first since SB1070 has been passed, it's not operating under the auspices of the new bill, which doesn't take effect until the summer. And Arpaio makes it clear that this has been in the works for a while and is similar to past ones. So here they are aggressively searching for illegal immigrants under the guise of enforcing traffic laws--such as cracked windshields and speeds of 45 in a 40 mph zone--and my question is this: If they are already doing this, then what is new about SB1070 if it is not that they would no longer need the cover of the other violation?
I'd like to point out that this dragnet of 89 resulted in 61 immigration arrests, which means that 1/3 of the people asked to provide documentation were in fact not in the country illegally. When the new law is in effect, these 1/3 could (and in fact should, according to the law) be arrested for not having their papers on them.
I would also like to remind, yet again, that Jim Crow laws never stated that they were in violation of the newly minted 14th Amendment. They were tricky like that, and had a de facto effect of hammering nonwhites. Racing around looking for cracked windshields as a means of enforcing federal (and now state) immigration law is, in my view, similarly circuitous of the spirit of the (constitutional) law.
As for the police: I have thought from the beginning that they were between a rock and a hard place. My reading of the bill suggests that they are told: 1. Find illegals and arrest them. 2. Do this without violating constitutional civil liberties. 3. You must operate at full throttle, getting every illegal you encounter. 4. If you don't do number 3, you/your agency can be prosecuted by citizens. 5. But don't forget about No. 2, because if you violate No. 2, you can also be prosecuted by citizens. The simplest thought in the world occurred to me: Check what the Arizona police think about this law! As I suspected, other than rogues like Joe Arpaio, most police departments and chiefs, including the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police are in opposition to the bill because it makes their job harder and, importantly, won't actually reduce crime.
I'm in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. We need to look at the meta picture. I've always wondered: If we were willing to spend in the neighborhood of $700B on bringing democracy to Iraq, and if we continue to give more $ to Israel than all other recipients of foreign aid combined, then why are we so loathe to invest in Mexico's infrastructure and corrupt (because they can't not be, given that the druglords kill them if they don't take sides) government, given that that country's disenfranchised citizenry supposedly wreak such havoc on our economic system? I think the answers are not pretty ones. Either their leaking citizenry doesn't negatively impact our economy but in fact boosts it (and Big Agriculture doesn't want the little people to realize that), or we don't care about Mexico because it has nothing (like oil) to offer us.
Hi Rob (St. Amant): thanks for your comments. There's something you say in there that makes me think of Atul Gawande's new book about Checklists. It's got to be codified, all those specific measures of "reasonable suspicion," or it will go awry, as it did in the video you linked to. Just like the checklists that save lives in Gawande's book, having specific, universally applied procedures will strengthen the bill and reduce the civil rights violations.
FLW: Hi :) Your stories are amazing and always hard to imagine if we are in the privileged class. I know someone (He is here) who works in downtown Cleveland. His car wouldn't start, and it was the middle of the night--he is in TV broadcasting and worked all hours. A coworker agreed to drive him home to his wealthy, predominantly white suburb. As they drove through the neighborhood, a flashing light behind them forced them to stop. The cop wandered over, looked into the car, asked my friend if he was all right. D.R. said yes, everything was fine. The officer hesitated, asked again, "Are you sure?" DR said again, yes, and eventually they drove off. Needless to say, the driver was a black man. There was an assumption that DR was there against his will or whatever. The driver told DR it humiliates him every time. It was awkward and awful for both of these colleagues. This isn't to hate on the police, who admittedly have a horrific job. This is to suggest that it helps everybody if the laws they have to enforce are specific and constitutional.