U.S. Supreme Court did not strike one part of the controversial AZ immigration law that has not yet been implemented by the state of Arizona. The Court allowed authorities (i.e. police) to make enquiries into a person’s immigration status in this country by requesting proof of legal documents. Since this controversial section of the law has not been implemented by the state, and the state has not advised as to how exactly their officers were going to perform such enquiries, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that it was premature to make a further determination as to whether the law is valid under our Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court did hold that the authorities must have “probably cause” and cannot use “racial profiling” in an attempt to enforce such a law. However, it is impossible to implement this provision without racial profiling. Would a police officer ask a white male named Smith for his papers? Unlikely. Is the police officer more likely to ask someone who looks hispanic or whose name is Gonzalez? For sure. There might be a small leeway based on language, if someone speaks with an accent or does not have great command of American-English language. However, the lawyer in the embedded video argued that even speaking language abilities could fall under racial profiling.
More litigation to come on the issue.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
May 10, 2013 at 3:15 PM 
May 9, 2013 at 9:51 AM 
May 8, 2013 at 4:06 PM 
July 4, 2012
Immigration