Spiff

+1

It boggles the mind what this state thinks its up to.

I'm glad to hear they are telling the feds to go pound sand on Real ID, but why did they pass such a stupid "must prove US citizenship" ID law?

ND Sol

There is also a section for probable cause:

Which is not something that AZ is proposing to do under the law.

GUWonder

The right-wing hack-job entity known as the Heritage Foundation has gotten their way in Arizona with this instrument to foster yet more racism. Make you happy?

It was a few years in the making:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Rep...on-Enforcement

GUWonder

Did you fail to note the "probable cause" reference was about "line 17"?

SpaceCoastBill

From the outside I agree, this looks way over the line.

Living in AZ, all I can say is you need to experience the number of illegals here to appreciate why they are doing this.

Especially in my line of work, dealing with the illegals is especially frustrating.

Yes, some people from South of our state come here, want to work for an honest days pay. But many more operate on another theory. Since they cannot get social security cards, the illegals pick a number and the employers use that number to report earnings. The poor person with that number really assigned to them is in for a nightmare.

I had to take my 9 year old to an emergency room one day after breaking his arm right near the elbow. The reality of it was that the ER was full at 1PM mid week. It was full of non insured persons who use the ER as primary health care. Kids with sniffles, etc. While there for 4 hours with an ER full of people who I percieved were here illegally (did not speak english, presented a foreign country voter card as ID, had no USA ID, unable to provide a SS#, etc) I finally had enough and went to a hospital 25 miles away that only dealt with kids. (this hospital wasnt one that was used other than major injuries to children)

I think we are finally making a dent in the unlicensed and uninsured drivers here as a new law passed a few years ago requires the impoundment of vehicles for 30 days.

Im not saying that just because a person should be stopped for walking down the street just because they have a certain skin color and asked about their citizenship.

All this law does is change the reason they can be asked from probable cause to reasonable suspicion.

Most of the time if you ask a person if they are here illegally, they tell you.

GUWonder

It seems to be undoubtedly the favorite entry and exit point nowadays for illegal border crossings, far surpassing what happens in the rest of the country according to DHS itself.

The nightmare including the actual SSN recipient having to deal with the IRS, which increasingly suspects identity theft in these kind of situations and goes on to work pretty well with the identity theft victim more times than not.

rcarteraz

As mentioned before unless you've lived in Arizona(Originally from there until 2 years ago, moving back next year) and have dealt with how the illegals have impacted the area you wouldn't quite understand. To have sections of your town devoted to day laborers where you can guarantee that 90% of those who are there waiting are illegal, is down right frustrating. Especially since up until now there really wasn't anything local LEO's could do anything about.

Just today at my job, this is in Maryland mind you, I had a gentleman present ID for an access badge to the construction we have going on in one of our buildings. The man spoke no english at all and had to have someone who barely spoke english attempt to translate. He presented an idea that at first glance looks like it "could" be a Virginia ID. With a second glance you see that it is not at all. It was issued by a company named "Universal Net ID". On the back there is clear markings that stated "UNI is not a Gov't Entity" and a nice paragraph about "Refusing this id for any reason other than wrong date is illegal and possibly a violation of the holders civil rights." It's a scam is what it is. Give this company money and they make an almost legit looking id to help illegals get jobs and what not. Their website even says "Resident- No Resident" about who is eligible. In this situation you have to have a GOV'T issued ID in order to gain access so I was able to legally turn him away since he didn't know whether he was a US citizen or Perm Resident and couldn't verify either way.

The Federal government hasn't acted to control illegal immigration. In Arizona the illegal crime rate is ridiculous especially sharing a border with Mexico and not far from where large drug cartels are taking over. Illegals are defrauding the government, taking your tax dollars away from you and you are okay with it? LEO's in that area are going to have a good sense of probable suscipicion when it comes to this issue. They've been dealing with it for years, and if you didn't miss it there was an executive order issued after Gov. Brewer signed this bill requiring additional training for all LEO to help prevent profiling. People need to chill, read the actual bill and then watch how it plays out because I guarantee you it will help our country not hurt it.

ND Sol

Throw out the race card again. I didn't realize that The Heritage Foundation had that much clout. And what makes you think that this law makes me happy? My point has always been that this is something the Feds have had the power to do (and more) for over 30 years. That should be the focus of change. If that power falls, the state power will automatically fall.

Perhaps you should review the bidding. I quoted the section about "reasonable suspicion" previously. I don't believe that anyone else has. I now wanted to point out that there was another section that has "probable cause" as the standard so that others would not think that "probable cause" is nowhere in the bill. I guess that providing additional relevant facts is a bad thing?

GUWonder

... as you wish.

Then you would guess incorrectly. It remains irrelevant to the point related to "line 17" dealing with "probable cause" when "line 17" doesn't.

tkey75

I've read the bill. I misspoke myself and have corrected the offending post. I realize there's a distinction between RS and PC. Again, I misspoke myself. Thank you, all who kindly and unkindly pointed this out to me.

My point and response was directed to the FTer who posted the often repeated misinformation - that neither PC or RS needs to exist for an LEO to ask for proof of legal residency or citizenship. This is not true.

Now that we're hopefully all in agreement on that, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

ND Sol

That question was resolved in Post 27, but someone didn't notice and brought it up again. The probable cause section is relevant to what standards exist within the bill for AZ LEO's since that seems to be what many have issues with.

N965VJ

From the first paragraph on Universal Net ID's home page:

Universal Net Id Card is a private company legally registered in the United States by legal contract and at the request of the people elaborates ID cards with modern state of the art technology and seals of protection to avoid forgery.

Can I get a translation for that?

EDIT: Looks like they sell all kinds of ID cards. I can impress the girls at the Holiday Inn bar by being in the Guild of American Luthiers, right up until they notice Guild is spelled wrong.

tkey75

A problem not unique to this bill.

Even more dubious when one considers reasonable suspicion, being all that's needed, can be overly subjective, as pointed out by bocastephen.

PhoenixRev

In the floor debate in the Arizona Senate, this issue was raised by one of the Democratic senators in response to the sponsors of the bill. The question was asked as to what constituted "reasonable suspicion" and one of the co-sponsors gave some vague answer.

After some debate, one example given was that if someone was speaking Spanish and near a place where day laborers congregated at some point or near a drop house, then that would constitute reasonable suspicion.

Given that measure, anyone speaking Spanish within a half mile of a Home Depot or Lowe's in Phoenix is fair game for a demand to produce citizenship papers.

Gee, no overly broad intent there.

TerminalBliss

I'm not sure why so much of the argument concerning the new law in AZ hinges on the RS versus PC issue...FED LEOs enforcing the INA don't require PC to question an individual, only reasonable suspicion of illegal alienage. It seems that the legislature in AZ has merely granted similar authorities to their peace officers within the state. Perhaps Halls120 or another lawyer could comment on this legislation.

TB