Racial Profiling Still Supported in New Arizona Law

Tweet

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold an Arizona immigration enforcement law provision basically gave police officers to racially profiling. Driving while Hispanic might easily become a problem for people in the state, as the provision allows police officers to detain anyone who causes “reasonable suspicion” about whether or not the person is american or not.

The state is really cracking down on immigration these days, granting its police officers the right to arrest people who could end up being deported without a warrant. The law should protect police officers who’s job in this regard is to pull people over, regardless of their skin color if they believe them to be illegal. This has led to many lawsuits and harassment cases. Some of these cases are warranted, others not. The statistics showing that 3 to 9 times more latinos are pulled over than non-latinos makes it clear that the police suspicions are playing into their racial biases.

Technically the law tries to protect the state itself by working towards clearing out the illegal immigrants in the state. The issue is that “reasonable suspicion” lends itself more to appearance than fact, and granting police officers the right to make arrests without warrants in the matter will lead to additional racial profiling problems.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio rejects the idea that Arizona police are racist and is hoping that this new law will show that they are only trying to do their jobs. Arpaio said, “everyone who lives in or visits our city should be assured that officers of the Phoenix Police Department will enforce all laws … in a manner to ensure equal justice under the law is provided to every person irrespective of race, color or national origin.” Both the law and the police are well intentioned, but given the fact that Latinos are feeling profiled, they are both beginning to seem impractical.