I've read a few mentions of the new law in Arizona that allows police officers to ask anyone for papers proving they're not illegal immigrants, whenever the police suspects you might be an illegal immigrant.

This is quite troubling. Not because of anything related to immigration itself, but just the idea that if one doesn't have papers on them they can be detained. Sounds too much like a movie about Nazi Germany, Gestapo or something like that asking for "ze papers please".

I couldn't find any discussion about this, and was wondering what others here think about it.

There was a pretty lengthy discussion about it here, but I'm not sure how to search the forums anymore.

Anyway, that's not entirely accurate. If someone is stopped for another offense, the police officer can ask them about their immigration status if there's reasonable suspicion that they're in the country illegally. It's really not a huge departure from current law, and the only reason there's a firestorm around it is because Arizona intends to actually enforce it.

Yeah, we've fought ferociously over this before. You must've missed it :P

At the end of the day it's a good idea on paper that's going to backfire horribly.

Yeah, I've been kinda wondering... If you have a driver's license (or some other form of federal ID) and spoke in (even broken) English, then wouldn't that kinda rule you out of suspicion? I'm not worrying of course, 'cuz I'm not in Arizona and I'm Caucasian, but I'm just wondering.

It may not backfire so horribly. Reports say that illegals are already leaving in droves in anticipation of the law, either to go back home or heading to places like Philadelphia, which the aptly named Mayor Nutter intends to turn into a sanctuary city. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Nutter to do a 180 or for Philadelphians to replace him.

http://www.9500liberty.com/

Its nothing more than a cause for people to scream at each other about without actually thinking about the real life consequences.

Its just like gay marriage, abortion and gun rights. Half of the shit people scream about is outdated, illogical and nothing more than rhetoric to fire up people on either side of th eline.

The documentary i listed above is very well done and shows the real life consequences for all races, the economy and our society if actual, intelligent dialogue isnt started on the issue and these stupid "dont tread on me" "god bless america" chest thumping neanderthals keep shouting people down.

Yeah, there's a rather long list of what the authorities will accept as a valid ID.

Specifies a presumption of lawful presence with these IDs: Arizona driver license or ID; tribal enrollment card or ID; valid federal, state or local government issued identification, if the issuing entity requires proof of legal presence before issuance.

I have a friend who is pretty outraged by the law because she thinks that if her brother (they're Hispanic) drove through Arizona (which he does on his way to college) he'll automatically get pulled over.  My response to her of course is she's a moron and they're not going to pull over every person for potentially being Mexican.

You're only going to get checked if you're doing something else to arouse suspicion in which case they're going to ask for some sort of identification anyways.

A way to avoid the profiling charge would be to automatically check immigration status if someone is arrested on another charge -- regardless of presumption.

If you want to do this, doing it in that way would take out the racial/ethnic profiling charges.  But it does not necessarily overcome the constitutionality argument (that the state is doing something reserved for the national government). And how something works in theory and how it works in reality are often completely different.  

Mike from Morgantown

Lol, so wait a second, so if you are an illegal immigrant and doing something already either illegal or potentially endangering (speeding/drunk driving/public intoxication), and the cops pull you over and you have no ID, then they can deport you? LOL, if I did that I'd get put in jail. Why are people flipping out about this again?