The hand may be quicker than the eye, but the mind is quicker still. Watch closely:
- An Arizona police officer notices a car taking an illegal right hand turn on red.
- He pulls over the car and it appears to be full of undocumented Mexicans.
- He asks for proof of immigration status from everyone in the car. The driver has a license but nobody else does.
- The driver sues the police department for not implementing the anti-immigration law, even though the passengers of the are are in fact undocumented.
What? Didn't see it? OK, watch again closely again, and prepare to be astonished.
- Somebody notices there are a lot of Mexicans working at a fast food joint in the mall food court.
- They report this to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
- Arizona DPS investigates, discovering that the workers are indeed undocumented.
- The Arizona DPS is sued by liberal advocacy groups in the state for not implementing the anti-immigration law.
Amazing, isn't it? But like all good stage tricks, you don't miss how it's done because you aren't looking closely enough. You miss how it's done because you are looking too close. It's misdirection. The real action is where you're not looking.
I'm about to demonstrate exactly how this trick is done. Readers who prefer to preserve the sense of wonder and amazement by not having a trick explained should stop reading right here. The rest of you hang on for just a moment.
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OK, are they gone?
Good.
I have no respect for people who prefer ignorant amazement to knowing how things work.
To do this trick we need a bit of stage machinery, which the AZ immigration law thoughtfully provides. Now I'll bet you thought I was going to use this bit:
"A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution"
[11-051 Section B]
Nope. That's just in there to fool the suckers. It's totally useless, because it's about "grounds for suspicion", not "grounds for conviction". The whole point of suspicion is to start the cops on the road from weak grounds for belief to strong grounds. Cops suspect people all the time based on questionable evidence. Suppose you've got a pickup truck with a bunch of men in back dressed in work clothes. Right there you've got your initial grounds for suspicion, so color and nationality are fair game as far as AZ lawmakers are concerned.
Here's the bit that really has Arizona officials by the short and curlies:
"A person who is a legal resident of this state may bring an action in superior court to challenge any official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state that adopts or implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law."
[11-051 Section G]
"Full extent" can mean only one thing: you don't turn a blind eye to any class of illegal immigrants because it's politically unpopular or administratively inconvenient. We don't ignore farm workers because the state's agricultural sector needs them. We don't ignore domestic help because well connected people find having undocumented workers useful. I'm not saying anything controversial when I claim that "full extent" means not giving any illegals a free pass. That's what the rage is supposed to be about, isn't it?
Suppose you're a law enforcement official. The "full extent" standard holds you responsible for any groups of illegals you systematically ignore. So if I name a class of undocumented worker, you've got to show me where they are on your flowchart. If they aren't on the decision tree, only excuse you can make is that there is no legal way to put them there.
Good. I name the following class of illegal aliens: those who do not look or sound in any way foreign. Let's talk about an illegal immigrant from Canada. Is he on your flowchart? No? Is it impossible to put him on the flowchart?
What about a light skinned, blond, blue eyed illegal who arrived here from Norway young enough that she doesn't have an accent. Is she on the flowchart? Is it impossible to put her on a flow chart legally?
Oh, lordy, those Arizona bigots are so screwed.
The way the Mexican Passenger Trick works is that I look for some situation where I can identify a class of illegals that could legally be put on the investigation flowchart, but aren't. That, boys and girls, is a violation of the "full permissible extent" standard.
Here's the procedure in a nutshell:
- Name a class of illegal immigrants. (usually the class of "illegals" who can pass for Americans)
- Show that immigration laws can be enforced for that class, but aren't.
- Sue.
In the Mexican Passenger Trick, the driver isn't suing because the the cop asked for his passengers' papers. He's suing for all those traffic stops where the cop didn't check passenger's papers. Could the cop do that? Well, if it's not legal under AZ or US law to ask the passengers for ID, the cop has broken the law by asking the Mexican looking passenger for ID. If it is legal he breaks the law every time he doesn't ask for passenger ID in a traffic stop. There are only two policies that might logically comply with all the laws: checking everyone, or checking nobody. Anything in between cannot be justified because it's impractical or unpopular, because there are no exceptions in the law for avoiding the outrage of wealthy anglos, any more than there are exceptions for the outrage of hispanic laborers.
The Fast Food Surprise is a variant on the Mexican Passenger Trick. We'll use the "American looking illegals" again, but this one's trickier because it's not a routine stop. It takes preparation.
First we'll need a list of businesses -- say a list of Republican political consultants and fundraisers. We call the DPS and complain that illegal immigrants may be working there. That's true after all. If the DPS asks us why we think that, we just say "the people who work there don't sound like Americans." That's also true. Any time we accuse a business a business, DPS has to collect all the IDS for all the people who work there, or justify not doing it. And they can't say, "but they're not Mexicans" or "they talk like Americans" or "they're middle class". All of those excuses are violations of the "full extent" mandate.
11-051 Section B's weak prohibition on the use of "race color or nationality" is irrelevant, because any use of race color or nationality as a criterion for suspicion automatically precludes some identifiable class of "illegals". In any situation where a "Mexican looking" person is asked for identification, everyone must be asked for identification. It's the only way to comply with the law.
I'm not saying that Arizona's legislature and government didn't pass an ugly, bigoted law aimed at harassing people they hate. But they may have overreached themselves and unintentionally passed a law that licenses any Arizona resident to deputize himself as an anti-racial profiling legal vigilante.