Well, honey, the cops aren't so sure it's really a "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighboorhoods Act."
To start, before anyone blamed President Obama for not doing something immediately - because Bush messed up immigration as well - so fix it smart guy, some in Arizona were bashing their own police.
As president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, Mark Spencer has criticized the city's police leaders as being soft on illegal immigration. The city updated its immigration-enforcement policy, Operations Order 1.4, two years ago to give officers the discretion to turn over suspected undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.
It indeed appears that the racism of Arizona's SB1070 is built into the state's constitution.
Here's where the tone of 1070 seems to come from....
Article 28 Section 1 - English as the official language; applicability
Section 1. (1) The English language is the official language of the state of Arizona.
(2) As the official language of this state, the English language is the language of the ballot, the public schools and all government functions and actions.
(3) (iv) All government officials and employees during the performance of government business.
Legal residents can't be intimidated or unjustly stopped. (It's in there too!) But unless you search everyone, how can you tell who should be searched? And unless they're suggesting the stop and searches are not government business, can the police actually say 'show me your papers' in spanish - to anybody?
Article 28 Section 2 - Requiring this state to preserve, protect and enhance English
Section 2. This state and all political subdivisions of this state shall take all reasonable steps to preserve, protect and enhance the role of the English language as the official language of the state of Arizona.
Which sounds like keeping the illegals out means fewer opportunities for spanish to take hold as a language the state might be required to use.
I also find this interesting...
Article 2 Section 35. Actions by illegal aliens prohibited
Section 35. A person who is present in this state in violation of federal immigration law related to improper entry by an alien shall not be awarded punitive damages in any action in any court in this state.
Revised Statutes, Section 13-1509. Trespassing by illegal aliens; assessment; exception; classification
F. This section [of the Senate Bill 1070 Anti-Illegal Immigration Law] does not apply to a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States.
This is where Arizona seems to think no one who really should be here has anything to worry about. No illegal immigrant can sue Arizona regarding all this dustup. But can a legal resident of Arizona or the United States sue if falsely accused or imprisoned for not providing required documentation in a timely manner? And sue for money? It sounds like a risk Arizona doesn't mind taking.
US Code does indeed require
Aliens and Nationality - 8 USC Section 1304
Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him...
The AZ law purports to also make criminals of those who smuggle immigrants in, hide them, or otherwise assist them. Just not the companies who use those people as middlemen and ultimately hire - or allow the availability of - illegal immigrants. All the company gets, per Section 7, Section 23-212 lines 24-29, is a pee-pee whack. Claim the illegal has been working for you before January 1, 2008, and the company gets easier treatment - the first time. For now, the employer simply has to fire the illegals, and gets monitored for three to five years the first time they're caught. After that, well, then they could get their license to do business in Arizona yanked. But if people are boycotting anyway, what's to lose?
Day laborers in the parking lot are a true no-no. So are microchips in people. (Yup, not allowed. In the bill.)
And just in case it does get challenged...one bad sentence don't spoil the whole bunch, gurl.....
41-1724 Section 12. Severability, implementation and construction
A. If a provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of the act that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are severable.
So other states are looking to see if they can use their constitutions in the same way. But now that the county sheriffs aren't looking to enforce it, Jan Brewer will have to bring them into court.
She just can't scream at anyone in Spanish. Not in her own state anyway.