The art of Kevin Blythe Sampson

THE ART OF
KEVIN BLYTHE SAMPSON

4/23/10

New immigration law legalizes racial profiling

New immigration law legalizes racial profiling

New immigration law legalizes racial profiling

Hundreds of protesters rally at the Arizona Capitol to protest the possible signing of an immigration bill SB1070 by Gov. Jan Brewer Friday, April 23, 2010, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Today, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the state's toughest and most biased legislation addressing undocumented immigration. Currently, law enforcement officials can only inquire about a person's legal status if he or she is suspected in a crime, but under the new law, which passed the state legislature Monday, police discretion would be elevated to allow for an inquiry regarding a person's status if an officer has a "reasonable suspicion" that someone may not be in this country legally--whether or not that person has actually committed a crime.

In a public statement, state Senator Russell Pearce said, "illegal is not a race, it's a crime." But in this new law, is there really a distinction?

Racial profiling is the practice of using race as a proxy for an assumption of culpability. Though some in law enforcement have argued that the practice has merit, the truth is that when we focus on what people have done, rather than what they look like, we are far more likely to catch wrongdoing. For example, a study by the ACLU on racial profiling in Arizona found that while African-Americans, Latinos, Native-Americans

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