I have been watching the whole Arizona immigration thing play out and it seems really odd to me how whipped up over this some people are.
It makes no sense.
Especially if you read the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case Muehler vs. Mena.
What I'm going to cite here is settled federal law. It's the law of the land.
It's a portion of Chief Justice William Rehnquist's opinion in the case. And by the way, the vote in the case was 9-0. Everybody voted yes. There was no dissent.
Basically what happened was the cops came to search a house and Irs Mena was inside. During the search, Mena was detained in handcuffs and asked questions.
Mena sued the cops and won.
On appeal, the court determined that the officers violated Mena's Fourth Amendment rights by questioning her about her immigration status during the detention.
This most likely was because the court assumed the officers were required to have independent reasonable suspicion in order to question Mena about her immigration status. They probably assumed the questioning constituted a Fourth Amendment event.
But here's what the Supreme Court said: (I'm removing all the citations and legalese to make it read a little easier.)
"... the premise is faulty. We have 'held repeatedly that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure.' Florida v. Bostick, see also INS v. Delgado, 'E]ven when officers have no basis for suspecting a particular individual, they may generally ask questions of that individual; ask to examine the individual's identification; and request consent to search his or her luggage.' As the Court of Appeals did not hold that the detention was prolonged by the questioning, there was no additional seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Hence, the officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date and place of birth, or immigration status."
And:
"... the Court of Appeals did not find that the questioning extended the time Mena was detained. Thus no additional Fourth Amendment justification for inquiring about Mena's immigration status was required.
Now remember, this is federal law. But if cops followed this federal law in Arizona they'd be breaking the new Arizona state law.
The new Arizona law is more restrictive on the cops.
Under Arizona law cops must have the person already detained and have a reasonable suspicion - no valid driver's license, no insurance, no identification, the inability to speak English - before they ask about immigration status.
Federal law clearly states cops do not need reasonable suspicion to ask about immigration status as long as it doesn't prolong the suspect's detention.
See, here's the thing. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Arizona law is bogus.
This is settled law. You may disagree. Just like lots of people disagree with the court's ruling on abortion, for example. But that doesn't change the fact that it's settled law.
So why weren't there legions of people freaking out in 2005 when this Supreme Court ruling was handed down?
I honestly don't know.
And why is President Obama going out on a limb against this new law now?
I don't know that, either. And besides, it's a dumb move politically. Americans overwhelmingly approve of the Arizona law. Why risk political capital by criticizing it when there's already a less restrictive federal law?
And why are places like Los Angeles going crazy and boycotting Arizona and teaching kids in schools that the law is un-American?
Where were all these people in 2005 when an even less restrictive law was handed down by the highest court in the land?
Usually, I can see through this stuff and get a grip on what is motivating people.
But in this case, I have to say none of this makes any sense to me.
