I understand why everyone with a brain is in an uproar about the new Arizona anti-immigration law. It violates one of the oldest precepts of common law, since enshrined into our Constitution, to wit: people are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but this law requires people to be able to prove their "innocence," i.e., that they are in this country legally.
I wish someone besides me would frame the argument in such basic terms. Perhaps that would force people who favor the law to rethink their priorities--do they value their bigotry more than their alleged devotion to the Constitution? I know, it will never work, because asking someone who has taken an irrational position to think rationally is like tilting at windmills. So call me Don Quixote.
In any event, I have a very modest proposal that as a practical matter will get around the most odious provision of the law, which is that the police are REQUIRED to confirm the immigration status of anyone they've stopped (for other reasons, if memory serves) when they have a "reasonable suspicion" that the person is not in this country legally. The answer? NEVER suspect anyone of being here illegally. That will restore the proper constitutional balance. People are presumed to be here legally, period. It will save the local and state police lots of time, money, and hassles; it will, as a matter of fact, preserve the federal government's power over immigration law and enforcement, and it will let the bigots think they won one.
Then again, it's probably not a good idea to encourage the bigots. Besides, preserving the federal government's proper supremacy in this area as a matter of fact though not technically as a matter of law probably isn't good enough. Other states with bigots in office will still be tempted to pass similar legislation.
Still, it's a perfectly good stopgap until the court system sorts it out once and for all. Unless the courts wind up saying the law as it stands is legal . . . in which case, America has stopped being the America I grew up knowing about, and I will have to throw my arms in the air in frustration and doom. And wish I were healthy enough to move.
3 comments:
Sounds like a good idea to me... although if this goes all the way to the Supreme Court, as conservatives are saying it will, I have every reason to think they will rule that the law as it stands is legal.
(Incidentally, I find it fascinating that so many alleged "Libertarians" are in favor of this law.)
Your point about Libertarians is well-taken . . . and is more detail corroborating my hypothesis that when it comes to a choice between "dearly held Constitutional values" and bigotry, bigotry--for way too many people in this society--wins. Frankly, I don't have much use for Libertarians, for the logical end of their position is literally anarchy--yet I'll bet they all like having good roads and schools and a strong military, and so on.
I read a comment to a Facebook post today bemoaning the fact that Jefferson didn't get his wish, as expressed by him in a letter in 1798, that the federal government NOT have the power to take on debt. I could not resist the temptation to point out that if he'd gotten that wish, he'd not have been able to make the Louisiana Purchase or fund the Lewis and Clark expedition or do many, many of the other things he did while president.
His presidency is a textbook example of another truism that too many people today have forgotten: when idealism and practical reality clash, it's usually better in the long run to bend in favor of practical reality. While the Tea Partiers deny it, the truth is our entire system is based on the notion that compromise is the engine of progress. Frankly, and despite the Tea Partiers' protestations to the contrary, America isn't America when the only real freedom is for people who think just like they do.
P.S. You are distressingly prescient, I fear, in your assessment of the likely USSCt outcome should the Arizona law get there. Chief Justice Roberts is nothing but a partisan hack. Still, if Justice Ginsberg can stay healthy enough long enough, she may be able to wrest away the writing of the majority opinion, just to minimize the damage as much as possible. She's done that before, including in the just-ended term, you know. (And for the life of me, I cannot at this moment recall which case it was--but it was one of the big ones, announced within just the last two weeks or so of the term. I'll post more ASAP, either once I remember or have a chance to refresh my recollection.)
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