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 Post subject: NYTimes Op-Ed by Kris Kobach: Why Arizona Drew a Line
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 10:00 pm 
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This will help clarify many outright lies you have been hearing in the media about this bill. Kris Kobach is a law professor who actually had a hand in drafting the Arizona legislation. Many people are not aware that the federal immigration law has required aliens to register with our government and to carry their registration (also known as their "papers" or green card) with them at all times. This law has been on the books for a very long time...about 40-50 years! It's just another federal immigration law that is not being enforced. Following his Op-Ed is a copy of the pertinent section of federal law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/opinion/29kobach.html

________________________________________
April 29, 2010
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why Arizona Drew a Line
By KRIS W. KOBACH
Kansas City, Kan.
ON Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law — SB 1070 — that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal alien verify the person’s immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it “misguided” and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don’t seem to have done. The arguments we’ve heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers ... you’re going to be harassed,” the president said. “That’s not the right way to go.” But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime. Moreover, as anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

“Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn’t invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the “totality of circumstances” that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making any stops or determining immigration status. In addition, all normal Fourth Amendment protections against profiling will continue to apply. In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

State governments aren’t allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn’t expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn’t conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That’s why Arizona’s 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In sum, the Arizona law hardly creates a police state. It takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.
And it’s very necessary: Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It’s no surprise that Arizona’s police associations favored the bill, along with 70 percent of Arizonans.

President Obama and the Beltway crowd feel these problems can be taken care of with “comprehensive immigration reform” — meaning amnesty and a few other new laws. But we already have plenty of federal immigration laws on the books, and the typical illegal alien is guilty of breaking many of them. What we need is for the executive branch to enforce the laws that we already have.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has scaled back work-site enforcement and otherwise shown it does not consider immigration laws to be a high priority. Is it any wonder the Arizona Legislature, at the front line of the immigration issue, sees things differently?

Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, was Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law and border security from 2001 to 2003.
*****
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... -000-.html



TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VII > § 1304

§ 1304. Forms for registration and fingerprinting


(a) Preparation; contents
The Attorney General and the Secretary of State jointly are authorized and directed to prepare forms for the registration of aliens under section 1301 of this title, and the Attorney General is authorized and directed to prepare forms for the registration and fingerprinting of aliens under section 1302 of this title. Such forms shall contain inquiries with respect to
(1) the date and place of entry of the alien into the United States;
(2) activities in which he has been and intends to be engaged;
(3) the length of time he expects to remain in the United States;
(4) the police and criminal record, if any, of such alien; and
(5) such additional matters as may be prescribed.

(b) Confidential nature
All registration and fingerprint records made under the provisions of this subchapter shall be confidential, and shall be made available only
(1) pursuant to section 1357 (f)(2) of this title, and
(2) to such persons or agencies as may be designated by the Attorney General.

(c) Information under oath
Every person required to apply for the registration of himself or another under this subchapter shall submit under oath the information required for such registration. Any person authorized under regulations issued by the Attorney General to register aliens under this subchapter shall be authorized to administer oaths for such purpose.

(d) Certificate of alien registration or alien receipt card
Every alien in the United States who has been registered and fingerprinted under the provisions of the Alien Registration Act, 1940, or under the provisions of this chapter shall be issued a certificate of alien registration or an alien registration receipt card in such form and manner and at such time as shall be prescribed under regulations issued by the Attorney General.

(e) Personal possession of registration or receipt card; penalties
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 pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.

(f) Alien’s social security account number
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Attorney General is authorized to require any alien to provide the alien’s social security account number for purposes of inclusion in any record of the alien maintained by the Attorney General or the Service.


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 Post subject: Re: NYTimes Op-Ed by Kris Kobach: Why Arizona Drew a Line
PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 10:09 am 
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:30 pm
Posts: 2037
Additional reading: See the criminal penalties that include seizure of property, fines, imprisonment and the death penalty!

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > § 1324

§ 1324. Bringing in and harboring certain aliens

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... -000-.html
********************************************
Penalties include fines and imprisonment for up to 2 years.

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > § 1325

§ 1325. Improper entry by alien

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... -000-.html


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 Post subject: Re: NYTimes Op-Ed by Kris Kobach: Why Arizona Drew a Line
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2010 10:57 pm 
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:30 pm
Posts: 2037
Read Arizona's SB 1070 here:

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf


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