Monday, August 16, 2010

Mosque on Park Place

From Olberman to Hannity everyone is talking about the proposed mosque on Park Place. Big debate on free speech and freedom of religion and hurt feelings and what not. I thought it would be amusing to throw a wrench into the works.

How would the different parties react if say the NYT (they'd never have the balls, so how about the NY Post, Zuckerman might be up for it) decided to print the Danish cartoons of Mohammad as a suicide bomber on their front page? Would the group behind the mosque be supporting NYT's freedom of speech or try to emulate the depicted suicide bomber? Or would they be squealing the same garbage about hurt feelings and what not that Gingrich and Palin and now vomiting? Where would Zakaria or Bloomberg stand? Sure would have been interesting.

Hypocrisy all around.
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Sunday, August 15, 2010

AZ Senate Bill 1070

The AZ Senate Bill 1070, also known as the Arizona Immigration Law has come under much scrutiny. A more readable version of the text can be found here. The main requirement of the law seems to be the following:
  1. Violations of federal immigration laws are now state crimes in Arizona and the laws are now enforceable by state police.
  2. Foreigners are required to carry immigration documentation at all times (this is actually a federal statute).
  3. The law effectively requires citizens to carry some sort of identification, in absence of which they are presumed to be aliens and hence subject to detention.
Several professors at the University of Arizona have posted a preliminary analysis of the law at SSRN. However, the main precedence might have been set by the Supreme Court decision in Hines v. Davidowitz U.S. 52 from 1941 in which the court found that Pennsylvania could not require foreigners to carry their registration cards and could not make it a state crime. More discussion after the fold.

Several aspects of this law deserve discussion:

(a) A person is presumed to not be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States if the person provides to the law enforcement officer or agency any of the following:
  1. A valid Arizona driver license.
  2. A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.
  3. A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.
  4. If the entity requires proof of legal presence in the United States before issuance, any valid United States federal, state or local government issued identification.
This seems to put the burden of proof on the accused (citizen or foreigner) and not the accuser (the law enforcement officer), this idea of presuming guilty unless proven innocent is absurd. While it is one thing to require foreigners to carry documentation, it is quite another to require the same of citizens. There are no requirements to have driver's license, state ID or passport; a person might not be carrying his wallet at the time and many such situations can be easily foreseen. What kind of harassment if any is reasonable for citizens to bear?

(b) For foreigners however the above are not sufficient. The federal law states:
    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.
For elucidation, jaywalking is also a misdemeanor. The above law can be complied with by carrying the I-94 or the green card. While many argue that this is unreasonable, that is the current federal law, so I don't think that foreigners can reasonably complain about the Arizona law except for possible harassment and in some cases racial profiling.

(c) Irrespective of all of the above the racial profiling aspect has caught the attention of most people. Proponents argue that racial profiling is explicitly prohibited by the law. For example,

"A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution."

But the original text did not have this clause, this was added only after considerable criticism. Hence those who are usually worried about original intent issues should conclude that the original intent of this law was indifferent to concerns of racial profiling which in itself is rather remarkable and of great concern.

(d) Other aspects of the law also seem troublesome. For instance, there are no exceptions for children which is also ridiculous.

(e) The federal government is arguing that AZ SB 1070 encroaches on federal jurisdiction. In that regard of possible interest is another case Chamber of Commerce v Candelaria in which Arizona (under Janet Napolitano) enacted a law requiring state employers to use E-verify and imposing penalties for employing illegal immigrants. This however was upheld in both district and appellate courts and now working its way to the Supreme Court, putting the Obama administration in an embarrassing situation.

(f) A new an related debate is starting on modifying or reinterpreting the 14th amendment. That's a whole can of worms which I will touch upon soon.

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