Sometimes I feel like I’ve stepped through a worm hole. I find myself disagreeing with those I normally agree with, and agreeing with those I almost always oppose. I felt this sensation especially much today during two events that I generally do on a daily basis – listening to the previous day’s Rush program and reading the various op-ed pages. Rush was defending the Arizona immigration law, while I found myself nodding when reading the latest piece by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.
The recently passed law has caused quite a stir, to put it mildly. Conservatives have largely defended the law, saying it takes necessary and logical steps to stem the illegal immigration problem. Liberals have mostly opposed it on civil rights grounds. But in both camps, sizable portions of usual allies have dissented from the majority ranks. On the right, this is often an area I find myself as a libertarian. On many issues, largely social ones, libertarians tend to disagree with conservatives. And immigration is another subject where usual allies can find ourselves on wildly different sides.
To put my own feelings simply, I strongly opposed this law and still have many problems with it. I think it is a terrible approach to the illegal immigrant problem that gives great new power to police, encourages racial profiling, alienates Hispanics of both illegal and legal statuses, and is open to abuses most likely against otherwise harmless people. I thought I would outline a few of these ideas.
Right from the start, anyone who tells you this the new law will not be employed primarily against Hispanics is, I feel, being dishonest or naive. The fact is, when most people use the term “illegal alien,” they mean those of Mexican origin. The vast majority of the illegal immigrant problem comes from aliens of this descent. No one is talking about closing the Canadian border, after all. So to suggest that the law is not targeted against this population is silly. Of course it will be, and that’s how it is intended. The question is, do we really want to label an entire group as potential illegal aliens, when the majority are not?
In a similar way, do we really want to place the duty of enforcing immigration law in the hands of police? I am for the most part a big supporter of cops, but I don’t want to give them power they are not trained to use. How exactly do we expect your average officers to tell when someone is an illegal alien? The only possible way is to go by things like race and accent, which brings up the problem described above. Please forgive me if I find it hard to believe police will be asking for “papers” from your average white, black, or Asian person. And when the police do suspect a person of being illegal for whatever reason, how can we really expect everyone to have sufficient paperwork on hand at all times to prove legitimacy? Do we want to haul in thousands of innocent people for “looking illegal” just because they don’t have these papers?
The whole think stinks to high heaven in my view. It reeks of potential for abuse and is, to boot, a bad way to deal with the problem at hand. The likely results of this law are the apprehension and prosecution of the most harmless illegals. The big drug dealers don’t deal with police anyway, and there are already laws designed to punish and deport them. Ordinary residents who might not have the necessary documentation will be reluctant to cooperate with police, and many people will be wrongly arrested. I simply don’t buy the idea that most illegal aliens are a terrible threat. The ones who are are already covered under existing laws – if they were just enforced, this Arizona law would not be needed.
I realize this will go against many of my conservative friends. They will say that it is good that something was done to address the illegal problem. But I would remind them of Arlen Specter’s rationalization for supporting the wasteful “stimulus” package back when he was a Republican. His reason? The government had to “do something.” Just “doing something” isn’t a reason to do anything at all. You have to do the RIGHT thing, not just SOMETHING. And this law is NOT the right thing. It is a dangerous move that goes after many innocent people. When a law passes, you must ask yourself a simple question: “Does this law increase freedom and protect rights, or does it decrease freedom and limit rights?” And the answer is this case is the latter. I’d encourage all my freedom-loving friends to carefully look at this law.