Arizona's Punishing Law Doesn't Fit the Crime

Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time
April 28, 2010

Washington, D.C. - Supporters of Arizona's harsh new immigration law claim that it is, in part, a crime-fighting measure. However, people like Republican State Senator Russell Pearce of Mesa, the bill's author, overlook two salient points: crime rates have already been falling in Arizona for years despite the presence of unauthorized immigrants, and a century's worth of research has demonstrated that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born. Furthermore, while much has been made about kidnappings in Arizona, law-enforcement officials indicate that most of these involve drug and human smugglers, as well as smuggled immigrants themselves - not the general population of the state.

The Immigration Policy Center releases a fact sheet which shows the decrease in Arizona crime rates over time. The fact sheet also indicates that states with high immigration have the lowest crime rates and that unauthorized immigration is not associated with higher crime rates.

Highlights include:

• According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, violent crimes in Arizona fell from 512 per 100,000 people in 2005 to 447 per 100,000 people in 2008, the last year for which data is available.
• According to a 2008 report from the conservative Americas Majority Foundation, crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates, such as Arizona. From 1999 to 2006, the total crime rate declined 13.6 percent in the 19 highest-immigration states (including Arizona), compared to a 7.1 percent decline in the other 32 states.
• Although the unauthorized immigrant population doubled to about 12 million from 1994 to 2004, data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that the violent crime rate in the United States declined by 35.1 percent during this time and the property crime rate fell by 25.0 percent.

Combating crime related to human smuggling requires more trust between immigrants and the police, not less. Yet the undermining of trust between police and the community is precisely what Arizona's new law accomplishes. In the final analysis, immigration policy is not an effective means of addressing crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. To read the fact check in its entirety, see:

Arizona's Punishment Doesn't Fit the Crime: Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time (IPC Fact Check, April 28, 2010)

Breathing While Undocumented

April 26, 2010
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
NY Times

I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon.

Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state, which is what the appalling anti-immigrant bill that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law last week has turned it into.

What would Arizona’s revered libertarian icon, Barry Goldwater, say about a law that requires the police to demand proof of legal residency from any person with whom they have made “any lawful contact” and about whom they have “reasonable suspicion” that “the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States?” Wasn’t the system of internal passports one of the most distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union and apartheid-era South Africa?

The intent of the new Arizona law, according to the State Legislature, is “attrition through enforcement.” Breathing while undocumented, without a civil liberties lawyer at hand, is now a perilous activity anywhere in Arizona.

Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat from Tucson, has already called on the nation’s business community to protest the law by withholding its convention business. Such boycotts can be effective, as demonstrated in the late-1980s when the loss not only of convention business but of — horrors! — the Super Bowl prompted Arizona voters to reinstate a Martin Luther King holiday in the state.

But a boycott is a blunt instrument that can hurt innocent business owners and their employees. So I will stick to my own personal protest without presuming to urge anyone else to follow my example.

Rather, I’ll offer a reflection on how, a generation ago, another of the country’s periodic anti-immigrant spasms was handled by the Supreme Court. In 1975, Texas passed a law to deprive undocumented immigrant children of a free public education. Many thousands of children — a good number of whom were on the road to eventual citizenship under immigration laws that were notably less harsh back then — faced being thrown out of school and deprived of a future.

The law was challenged in federal court, with the Carter administration supporting the plaintiffs. By the time the case, Plyler v. Doe, reached the Supreme Court, Ronald Reagan was president, and there was a major debate within his administration over whether to change sides. Rex E. Lee, the admirable solicitor general, refused to do so.

In June 1982, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for the majority that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection prohibited the state from imposing “a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Nixon appointee and the swing justice of his day, provided the fifth vote. The law “threatens the creation of an underclass of future citizens and residents,” he wrote.

I have no doubt that but for that ruling, public school systems all over the country would be checking papers and tossing away their undocumented students like so much playground litter. Blocked from that approach, local governments now try others. The city of Hazleton, Pa., passed a law that made it a crime for a landlord to rent an apartment to an undocumented immigrant. A federal district judge struck down the law on the ground that immigration is the business of the federal government, not of Hazleton, Pa.

Indeed, federal pre-emption would appear to be the most promising route for attacking the Arizona law. Supreme Court precedents make clear that immigration is a federal matter and that the Constitution does not authorize the states to conduct their own foreign policies.

My confidence about the law’s fate in the court’s hands is not boundless, however. In 1982, hours after the court decided the Texas case, a young assistant to Attorney General William French Smith analyzed the decision and complained in a memo: “This is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have.” That memo’s author was John G. Roberts Jr.

So what to do in the meantime? Here’s a modest proposal. Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: I Could Be Illegal.

Correction: An earlier version of this Op-Ed essay referred incorrectly to the provisions of the new Arizona immigration statute. The version of the bill signed by the governor no longer includes a section under which undocumented immigrants would be guilty of trespassing for being on Arizona soil.

Arizona passes strict illegal immigration act

The bill mandates that police determine people's immigration status if there is a 'reasonable suspicion' they are undocumented. Immigrant rights groups say it amounts to a police state.

By Nicholas Riccardi
4:47 PM PDT, April 13, 2010
Reporting from Denver

Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday approved what foes and supporters agree is the toughest measure in the country against undocumented immigrants, making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona and allowing local police to determine whether people are in the country legally.

The measure, long sought by opponents of illegal immigration, passed 35 to 21 in the state House of Representatives.

The state Senate passed a similar measure earlier this year, and Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign the bill.

The bill's author, State Sen. Russell Pearce, said the law simply "takes the handcuffs off of law enforcement and lets them do their job."

But police were deeply divided on the matter, with police unions backing it but the state police chief's association opposed the bill, contending it could erode trust with immigrants who could be potential witnesses.

Immigrant rights groups were horrified, and contended that Arizona had transformed into a police state."

It's beyond the pale," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It appears to mandate racial profiling."

The bill, known as SB 1070, makes it a misdemeanor to lack proper immigration paperwork in Arizona. It also requires police officers, if they form a "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal immigrant, to determine the person's immigration status.

Currently, officers are not required to investigate immigration status and can inquire about it only if the person is a suspect in other crimes. The bill allows officers to avoid the immigration issue if it would be impractical or hinder another investigation.

Citizens can sue to compel police agencies to comply with the law, and no city or agency can formulate a policy directing its workers to ignore the law -- a provision that advocates say prevents so-called "sanctuary" orders that police not inquire about people's immigration status.

The bill cements the position of Arizona, whose border with Mexico is the most popular point of entry for illegal immigrants into this country, as the state most aggressively using its own laws to fight illegal immigration. In 2006 the state passed a law that would dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants. Last year it made it a crime for a government worker to give improper benefits to an illegal immigrant.

Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that advocates tougher immigration enforcement, said the new law is a logical extension of the state's previous enforcement efforts."

It makes sense that they would be the first to do it since they're ground zero for illegal immigration," he said.

Krikorian added that he doubted the law would be used much. "Obviously, their prosecutors aren't going to go out and prosecute every illegal alien," he said. "It gives police and prosecutors another tool should they need it."

Opponents, however, raised the specter of officers untrained in immigration law now being required to determine who is in the country legally. They noted that though the bill says race cannot solely be used to form a suspicion about a person's legality, it implicitly allows it to be a factor."

A lot of U.S. citizens are going to be swept up in the application of this law for something as simple as having an accent and leaving their wallet at home," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

The ACLU and other groups have vowed to sue to block the bill from taking effect should Brewer sign it. They note that a federal court struck down a New Hampshire law in 2005 that said illegal immigrants were trespassing, declaring that only the federal government has the authority to enforce immigration. Another provision of the Arizona law, which makes day laborers illegal, violates the 1st Amendment, critics contend.

The issue of local enforcement of immigration laws has been especially heated in Arizona, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has taken an aggressive stance, conducting sweeps in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods to round up illegal immigrants.

His actions have drawn a civil rights investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice but strong praise from Arizonans. Other agencies have argued against Arpaio's stance, saying that they illegal immigrants to trust them enough to report crimes.

Brewer, a Republican, has not taken a public stance on the bill. She replaced Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who became President Obama's Homeland Security chief last year. Napolitano had vetoed similar bills in the past. Brewer faces a primary challenge next month; most observers expect her to sign the measure.

Some Republicans have privately complained about the bill, which Pearce has been pushing for several years, but were loath to vote against in an election year. The House was scheduled to approve it last week but the vote was delayed until Tuesday to give sponsors a chance to round up enough votes. It picked up steam after the killing late last month of a rancher on the Arizona side of the Mexican border. Footprints from the crime scene led back to Mexico.

In an impassioned debate Tuesday afternoon, both sides relied on legal and moral arguments."

Illegal immigration brings crime, kidnapping, drugs -- drains our government services," said Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican. "Nobody can stand on the sidelines and not take part in this battle."

Democrats were just as passionate. "This bill, whether we intend it or not, terrorizes the people we profit from," said Rep. Tom Chabin.

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Enforcement Gone Wild

OIG Report Highlights Continued Failures of ICE Enforcement Program
April 2, 2010

Washington, D.C. -Today, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a long-awaited report that offers a damning critique of the 287(g) program, confirming many of the criticisms levied against the program by community leaders, law enforcement officials, and immigration groups, including the Immigration Policy Center. Despite problems with the 287(g) program, it has recently been expanded to additional jurisdictions.

The report, The Performance of 287(g) Agreements, identifies numerous shortcomings that lead to abuse and mismanagement and raises serious questions about the wisdom of state and local immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE.

According to the report, the 287(g) program:

• Is poorly managed and supervised, and ICE has not instituted controls to promote effective program operations;
• Lacks strict guidelines for implementation, which results in different implementation methods in different jurisdictions;
• Lacks an adequate and consistent vetting process for jurisdictions that apply for the program, as well as for officers applying to be deputized under the program;
• Does not gather data necessary to track how the program is being used;
• Lacks a process for reviewing Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) on a regular basis, and for modifying or terminating an MOA as necessary.
• Has not taken action against law enforcement agencies that are clearly violating the terms of the MOA, nor adequately trained deputized officers about immigration law or their authority under the MOA;
• Lacks public outreach efforts, and often provides the public with misleading or inaccurate information about the 287(g) program.

This report follows on the heels of recent revelations and reports that ICE is failing to prioritize genuine threats to the community. The Washington Post recently reported that a senior ICE official sent a memo to field offices outlining an enforcement strategy which emphasized large enforcement quotas rather than focusing on serious criminals. Similarly, the OIG found that 287(g) programs have not prioritized serious criminal immigrants, and performance standards by which local officers are evaluated focus on the number of immigrants encountered, not the seriousness of their crimes.

"The OIG report is further evidence that the Administration has yet to distinguish between deporting large numbers of immigrants and making us safe," said Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center. "In the rush to engage state and local law enforcement on federal immigration matters, ICE has created a program that lacks oversight, undermines community relations, and breeds mistrust. As proven time and time again, a deportation-driven strategy exacts a high toll on individuals and communities with little real impact in stopping illegal immigration."

For more information on the 287(g) program, read:

Local Enforcement of Immigration Laws Through the 287(g) Program: Time, Money, and Resources Don't Add Up to Community Safety (IPC Fact Check, April 1, 2010)

DHS Progress Report: The Challenge of Reform (IPC Special Report, March 2, 2010)