Right on, St Paul, is right!!! Good for Mayor Coleman. I hope other government leaders and public figures everywhere join him.

Inform me what it is people don't like about this law. And I am being honest and not snotty  I understand that people think that this is going to lead to racial profiling and that is a drawback of this law.

I am I reading it wrong?  Is it basically giving police the ability to follow through with a law that is already in place, which is, you have to be a citizen to live in America or be an "on the books traveler" with visa?  I guess I don't understand the outrage on this.  Please inform me.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Edgeways is right -- plus it is racial profiling at its worst. Who's going to get pulled over and questioned? Not blue-eyed blondes, but dark-skinned people. I have relatives and friends who are pretty dark-skinned. I'd really rather they not be pulled over for going about their business while dark-skinned. I too would like to hear from the Tea Partiers on this -- if this law isn't a blatant violation of Arizonans's individual rights and liberties, I don't know what is.

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. As anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion

When you say "Reasonable Suspicion" please know what it means. They can't pull you over for being dark skinned. They can pull you over for having expired plates or something of the sort. Is that justified? 

How about we try this:

1) You immigrate to our country you have to speak the native language;

(2) You must be a professional or an investor...no unskilled workers allowed;

(3) No special bilingual programs in the schools;

(4) No special ballots for elections;

(5) No government business will be conducted in your language;

(6) Foreigners cannot vote or hold political office;

(7) You cannot be a burden on society....no welfare, no food stamps or other government handouts;

(8) You can come if you invest here...an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage;

(9) If you want to buy land, it will be restricted....no waterfront properties and you have to relinquish individual rights to the property;

(10)  You're not allowed to protest, no demonstrations, no waving of foreign flags, no political organizing, and no badmouthing of our President or his policies; and

(11) If you come here illegally, you're going to jail.


Oh wait, those are some of Mexico's immigration policies. And yet we televise Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticizing the US and Arizona.

Just my thoughts.

Scenario 1

Officer: Excuse me do you know why I pulled you over?

Driver: um, no

O: You have expired plates, you were speeding, tail light is out, ran the stop sign, failed to yield, whatever.

(this is the tricky part)

Can I see your license and registration.

D: I don't have one.

Are you saying that is not where he belongs if he is illegal? If so, our dialog is mute.

Are you saying that is not where he belongs if he is illegal?

Do you belong there, Jeff? Because this law pretty much ensures that many, many people who are just like you, with the sole exception of race,  will end up there. That is the main argument.

Would you support this law if it meant that you might be violated in this way? Or is it only okay because certain groups of Americans, to which you don't belong, are affected?

It's one thing to create a law that allows law enforcement to do their jobs better. It's another thing to create laws that take the rights away from innocent people.

Oh, and the word is "moot," not "mute."

What law do they have to break for you to be ok with them checking their immigration status?

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.

Wait a second, edgeways.  So here's what I don't get then.  Now I'm really confused.  So does it say anywhere in the law that the AZ police (not referencing the Feds here) do NOT look at the drivers license of who is being detained?

Again, I tend to side with the immigrants on this stuff but I think there is a helluva lot of confusion on what this law really does.

Regardless of anyone's feelings on the law itself (I think it's pretty bad), I find it spectacularly bad policy for a municipality to attempt to enforce a travel boycott on a state. Strikes me as politically irresponsible, not really the venue to enter when there are many avenues of constitutional challenge open, not to mention the problem of striking out against a state as a whole because of the actions of some of its legislators.

Boycotts and divestitures helped bring apartheid to an end in South Africa. If you think a political entity (in this case, a state) is wrong, one way to demonstrate your point is with your wallet. We do it all the time through the choices we make. If you think fast food or WalMart are bad, don't patronize them. If you think a state has passed a punitive law, don't give them any of your business.

To alleviate confusion: I am aware that this travel boycott is a matter of municipal employee policy and not an attempt to keep all San Franciscans from heading to AZ. I also recognize the important role that boycotts and divestitures have played in past campaigns of social action-indeed the role that they play in one ongoing campaign that I support strongly http://mn.breakthebonds.org/ an attempt to get the state to divest from Israeli government bonds as a way of pressuring the government there to stop various abuses of international law and human rights. 

However, all of these other cases have taken place after various legal means had failed. My impression (and I am not an expert on this) is that there are at least two viable constitutional challenges to the Arizona law that are starting to work their way up the courts.  Hopefully before these are decided at the federal level some court will be able to issue an injunction halting enforcement of the law pending further review. To my tactical sense, to go ahead and encourage direct action when the constitutionality of the law is very much in doubt is to do things out of order, to open civic breaches unnecessarily, and to some extent undermine whatever moral authority American jurisprudence still has. 

Of course, when and if these means fail or are stalled beyond reasonable patience, direct action on the part of citizens and governmental bodies is to be encouraged.

What TimK said. If the state of Arizona is going to pass such an obviously discriminatory law, don't visit there, don't buy anything mail order from an Arizona company, perhaps even tell such companies why. Money talks, and if the state suffers financial consequences, maybe they'll reconsider their stance.

I too love Big E's point about his neighbor looking a little too Canadian. Funny.

I agree with Resolutionary. The law has already failed Latin@ Arizonans. There is absolutely no reason to wait on the government before launching boycotts and civil disobedience; in fact that is a recipe for spectacular failure of a civil rights movement. What if the Supreme Court sides with Arizona? It's not exactly the objective institution of late that you learned about in school. We need to apply as much public pressure as possible to make sure that they don't. I applaud any municipality that stands in solidarity with the oppressed.

I second Bret. Perhaps we should be deporting all of the white English-speakers in Arizona back to the Midwest so Mexico can have its rightful territory back. (Or, how about let's just let people live where they want and stop scapegoating them)