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July/August 2010

Profiling: Alive, Well and Legal?

By Kellye Whitney 04-29-2010

OK, I’m thinking the furor brewing around Arizona’s new immigration legislation may be justified. If I understand this correctly, anyone who looks like they might be an illegal alien can be stopped or even detained by authorities — reasonable suspicion notwithstanding — and if they can’t prove otherwise they can be detained.

Further, it will be a crime for immigrants to walk around without their immigration papers.

Why does it feel like we’re moving backward? Images from various pages in history books I’ve read come to mind. I don’t claim to know all the ins and outs of immigration concerns. But I do believe that one person’s reasonable suspicion based on physical appearance — because what else could such an assumption be based on — is anyone else’s superficial and potentially dangerous judgment.

The legislation would essentially force Hispanic-looking people to carry around proof that they are who they say they are. A Yahoo article published this week actually suggested the legislation gives authorities a license to profile. I agree. At the very least, it seems to throw a rather substantive spanner into the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. According to the article, “This gives the police the freedom to question people who are otherwise not breaking the law or engaging in suspicious activity.”

According to the article, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said that “she worked hard to amend the bill with language to prevent enforcement from ‘solely considering race, color, or national origin in implementing the requirements of this section.’” I maintain a wait-and-see attitude. I expect many others will be watching closely as well.