By Richard A. Joyce

Redstone Review VP

PUEBLO – In a recent TV news report about the new Arizona law on immigration, the reporter interviewed a family of five that was packing up to leave that state to avoid being arrested.

The mother and father in that family admitted they were living illegally in the U.S. and had done so for the past 30 years. All of their three children were born in this country and, therefore, are American citizens. But because the parents aren’t, they decided it was time to move on – to Colorado.

In doing so they joined approximately 100,000 of the 500,000 illegal residents of the U.S. living in Arizona who had already moved to other states in advance of the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act taking effect, which is scheduled to occur 90 days after the end of the current legislative session in which S.B. 1070 was signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

In the same TV report, the interviewed family’s landlord bemoaned the loss in rent from that family and the many others who have moved out, and will move out as the weeks pass. He said it could ruin him. Many other businessmen and women are in the same boat, and since that broadcast, we’ve seen many groups outside of Arizona cancel plans for vacations, business conferences, etc.

The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, even issued a travel advisory warning to that country’s citizens, citing the hostile environment the Arizona law will create for legitimate tourists

and documented workers.

He was, of course, referring to the provision of the law that reads: “For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency or this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person. The person’s immigration status shall be verified with the Federal Government pursuant to 8 United States code section 1373(c).”

In other words, whether legitimate tourist, American citizen, Mexican citizen with a visa or work permit, or illegal resident, if a police officer stops you for any violation of any Arizona law, including traffic laws, and has or comes to have a reasonable suspicion that you are in the U.S. illegally, that officer has the right to check your immigration status.

That’s the part of the law that has raised outcries over racial profiling and the potential abuses that go along with it. Certainly, it implies that every U.S. citizen passing through Arizona or living there had better carry at all times some form of ID that proves citizenship. And now there’s word that other states may start requiring their citizens to carry such ID, even if it ends up being just a driver’s license or state-issued ID card.

I keep thinking of all those old World War II movies, in which everyone is constantly required to produce the proper papers to do just about anything. As troublesome as that might be for the people of Arizona, there is much more trouble lurking in the heart of the law.

For example, if one is determined by the police to be in Arizona illegally, one has violated federal immigration law and one has violated the Arizona law, which declares that to set foot in that state illegally is trespassing, a Class 1 misdemeanor, for which, if found guilty, one must pay all jail costs, plus at least $500 for a first conviction and double that for subsequent convictions.

It’s a little confusing at this point because further down in the law it says that one who is convicted two or more times, or one who is convicted “within 60 months of having been removed from the country” for a U.S. immigration law violation commits a Class 4 felony.

It also says if one is arrested under this law and is in possession of dangerous drugs, items for making meth, a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, or “property used for the purpose of committing terrorism” commits a Class 3 felony.

This law doesn’t specify the punishments for those felonies, but it does say anyone convicted under any part of the law must serve the full sentence and, upon completion of the sentence will be “transferred immediately to the custody of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the United States Customs and Border Protection.”

Given the number of illegal U.S. residents living in Arizona, either all of those illegal residents will beat a hasty path to Colorado and any other state without such a law, or law enforcement and the court system in Arizona will soon be operating like factories, churning out misdemeanor and felony convictions at a phenomenal rate.

That means court costs, court backlogs, perhaps many more police and judges, and certainly more jails and prisons. I wonder how the good people of Arizona plan to pay for all that justice.

Richard A. Joyce is an associate professor in the mass communications department at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He was the managing editor of the Canon City Daily Record for six years, and has won numerous journalism awards. The opinions he expresses in this column are strictly his own, and do not represent in any way the views of anyone else  at the Redstone Review or at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He can be reached at phase15@mac.com.

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