There are many who are criticizing Arizona’s new immigration law, but I am certainly not among them. As the New York Times describes it, it seems entirely reasonable to me:
It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.
It also makes it a state crime — a misdemeanor — to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.
Some detractors have whined that the term “reasonable suspicion” in this context is impossible to define and is an open invitation to “racial profiling” but I positively reject that charge.
It seems to me that there is an easy way to determine whether someone can be reasonably suspected of being illegal: skin color, which in this case has absolutely nothing to do with race, seeing as how these folks are technically members of the same race as the people who passed the law-you know-us (except blacks, of course).
I propose that the police simply carry paint swatches with them. Hear me out.
We all agree that blacks cannot reasonably be suspected of being illegal immigrants, seeing as how we dragged them over here legally in the first place, although they can (on account of their being black) be reasonably suspected of being guilty of all kinds of other crimes, and of course we all agree that people of a whiter shade of pale are pretty much above suspicion. It stands to reason therefore that it’s the folks in the middle, I suggest those between Carribean Coral and Sturdy Brown, that we can reasonably suspect of being illegal. All a cop has to do therefore, is compare and detain. I think this is eminently more reasonable than relying on shoe style, which in my opinion would yield a lot more false positives.
Now I admit it is inconvenient that lots of our citizens are unlucky enough to have skin color that comes within the suspect continuum. Inconvenient to them, of course, but not at all inconvenient to me or to eight of the Supreme Court justices (sorry Sonya, can we see your papers?) and it only takes five to give the okay to this reasonable piece of legislation.
So, rather than condemn this law, I suggest we adapt it for use elsewhere. I suggest that New York State pass a law requiring police to detain anyone they reasonably suspect of committing corporate fraud. Now here, shoe style might actually be of some assistance. But I would suggest an easier criteria would be income size. We should detain anyone with an income of more than-let’s say, to be generous, ten million a year or more, excluding athletes and movie stars. I’m willing to bet we’d get fewer false positives than the police in Arizona, and we’d do the country a whole lot more good.
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