July 25, 2010

The New World Order Working To Require Everyone to Have a Biometric ID Card - Arizona Enforcing Immigration Laws Is A Threat to the National Biometric ID Card

If one goes to Huffingtonpost.com hardly a day goes by without them having an article discussing how horrible is the state of Arizona for enforcing immigration laws. Adrianna Huffington is not a real American, she is an immigrant from Greece, and her making big bucks is contingent on Huffingtonpost.com touting the New World Order communi$t agenda. One of the New World Order big agenda items is a National Biometric Identification Card. The NWO National Biometric ID Card will be required for every American, not just the Adrianna Huffingtons' who have immigrated here. The bad guys are using the immigration issue to require a National Biometric ID card for immigrants and throwing in the requirement every American have a National Biometric ID card at the same time.

The bad guys are mad at Arizona because Arizona is enforcing immigration laws without the National Biometric Identification Card. If Arizona is successful keeping track of people without a National Biometric ID card, which they will be, then this could rile Americans, you, me, uses, to go to war against the communi$t$' plan to require us all to have a National Biometric ID card. The National Biometric ID card is important for the communi$t$' because they want to steal our stuff and make slaves of us to work for them. The bad guys have engineered the immigration problem for their agenda for all Americans in their NWO totalitarian worker state.

When I go to Mexico I must have a US Passport to enter Mexico and the Mexican authorities require me to prove I am an American citizen if I get a ticket driving in Mexico. When I return to the United States I must show the US Customs agents my US Passport and answer a long list of questions or I am detained. Dogs sniff my vehicle and me, my possessions and anything the US Customs agents want to search is searched. Not a pleasant experience at all. If I travel by air my country treats me as if I am some sort of fugitive about to break the law. One of the biggest absurdities of the world is for Huffingtonpost.com to depict Arizona's treatment of people traveling in their state as if it is worse than the US Border Patrol treats Americans returning to the USA or air travel.

Huffingtonpost.com proves daily that the United States is not a nation of laws anymore. The US people are herded here, there and yonder through propaganda. Huffingtonpost.com is working as hard as it can to stop Arizona from enforcing its laws by Huffingtonpost.com propaganda. Huffingtonpost.com and the NWO knows if Huffingtonpost.com tells enough lies it probably will force the state of Arizona to change its laws. Huffingtonpost.com is not using legal avenues to get Arizona laws changed. Huffingtonpost.com and the the bad guys are working to change Arizona law by propaganda.

Arizona Immigration Law Came After Years Of Mounting Anger

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/25/arizona-immigration-law-anger_n_658617.html

JACQUES BILLEAUD AND AMANDA LEE MYERS | 07/25/10
PHOENIX — As the days tick down until the Arizona immigration law takes effect, the state stands as a monument to the anger over illegal immigration that is present in so many places.

The anger has been simmering for years, and erupted into a full-blown fury with the murder of a prominent rancher on the border earlier this year. The killing became a powerful rallying cry for immigration reform and the sweeping new law set to take effect Thursday, barring any last-minute legal action.

But it does not tell the whole story about how Arizona got to this point.

Turn on the evening news in Arizona and some report reflecting the state's battle with illegal immigration will likely flash across the screen.

A drop house crammed with illegal border-crossers smack in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Traffic patrols and workplace raids that net the arrest of dozens of illegal immigrants, often in heavily Hispanic communities. Politicians speaking venomously about border violence and the leech of immigration costs on the state treasury.

Along the streets, Arizonans see day laborers near Wal-Mart and Home Depot parking lots, waiting for work. In some Phoenix-area neighborhoods, Spanish is so predominant both in spoken word and signage that residents complain they feel like they're in a foreign country.

Then rancher Robert Krentz was gunned down in March while checking water lines on his property near the border. Authorities believe – but have never produced substantive proof – that an illegal immigrant, likely a scout for drug smugglers, was to blame.

Almost immediately Krentz came to symbolize what's at stake with illegal immigration. Politicians quickly connected the dots, but everyday folks also spoke with anger and fear about the rancher's death.

"You can't ignore the damage and the costs to the taxpayers and the disrespect that comes with it and those who think they have a right to break our laws," says Russell Pearce, the fiery state senator who wrote Arizona's new immigration law.

Pearce, in fact, is the godfather of anti-illegal immigration sentiment in Arizona and author of many of the tough laws.

He regularly depicts illegal immigration as an "invasion." He can tick off the names of police officers killed or wounded by criminals in the country illegally.

One of those names is that of his son, Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Pearce, who survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen from an illegal immigrant in 2004 while serving a search warrant in a homicide case.

That might explain Pearce's indefatigable effort against those entering the country illegally, but he says he held tough views before his son was shot. He insists that his frustration centers more broadly on the crime that immigrant smugglers bring into the country and the financial stress that illegal border-crossers put on communities.

Between 40 percent and 50 percent of all immigrant arrests each year on the U.S.-Mexico border are made in Arizona, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

And the annual costs? About $600 million for educating illegal immigrants at K-12 schools, more than $120 million for jailing illegal immigrants convicted of state crimes and as much as $50 million that hospitals have to eat for treating illegal border-crossers, according to figures provided by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Gov. Jan Brewer's office and the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

At Copper Queen Community Hospital, 4 miles north of the border in Bisbee, the emergency room sees one or two illegal immigrants every shift. Dr. Daniel Roe, the emergency-room medical director, says many come in with broken bones from jumping the 15-foot-tall border fence, others suffer from walking for days in the desert with little to no water, and others have been involved in car accidents.

"It's very much part of our normal flow," he says. "But it demands resources. So it affects the operating budget."

Immigrant medical costs led the hospital to shutter a skilled nursing facility and its maternity ward several years ago, according to the hospital's top administrator.

John Leopard, who camped out with Minuteman Project volunteers during a 2005 patrol north of the border, says he's not as irritated by seeing day laborers lining street corners as he is the federal government's inactions and the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona's new immigration law.

The law requires police who are enforcing other laws to check a person's immigration status if officers reasonably suspect the person is in the country illegally. It also requires that people carry and produce their immigration papers, while making it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit work in a public place.

"We have policies that are injurious to our well-being," says Leopard, a retired computer scientist whose housekeeper was in the country illegally before she was able to obtain U.S. citizenship.

Don Sorchych, editor and publisher of a small local newspaper called the Sonoran News, says over the past 20 years his quaint Phoenix-area town of Cave Creek has seen illegal immigrants set up "villages" made of scrap lumber and canvas.

"I think people confuse racial profiling and being a racist," Sorchych says. "I'm not saying you should, but if you could profile, you'd be right 95 percent of the time. They wear a certain uniform, certain shoes, gloves in their back pockets, clothes from Goodwill."

Sorchych got so fired up about illegal immigration that he took photos of people who picked up day laborers and published them.

"I am not so sure it's the media and politicians who are whipping this up as much as the public," said Rick Van Schoik, director of Arizona State University's North American Center for Transborder Studies. "In election years, people who tend toward either extreme want to find passions that their cause would win the election."

The immigration anger has led the state to pass at least seven laws cracking down on illegal immigration in as many years. Those laws made English the state's official language, denied bail to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes and prohibited them from being awarded punitive damages in civil cases.

Opponents of the law say illegal immigrants are being scapegoated and wrongly characterized as freeloaders, pointing out that they pay sales taxes and put money into Social Security that they will never be able to take out.

They say the state's rapid growth over the last decade couldn't have happened without immigrant labor, that housing prices have been kept reasonable by those who did work that U.S. citizens wouldn't – like roofing a new subdivision in Arizona's 110-degree summer heat.

As Joy Williams of Tucson sees it, immigrants add to the melting pot that is Arizona and are doing jobs Americans don't want.

Williams, who works as a research clerk in the Pima County Legal Defender's Office, is also angry – but about what she says is the open racism she's seen and heard in recent months.

"What is so shocking is people can be so openly verbal about it now and not even flinch," she says.

Since Arizona passed its new immigration law, immigrant rights groups say Hispanics are seeing more open hostility.

Lydia Guzman, president of the Phoenix-based Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, says community members are reporting racial slurs like never before. She says she experienced it herself in May while waiting in line at a grocery store, when one woman looked at Guzman's cart and whispered to another, "I wonder how much this is going to cost us?'"

Another group, Puente, said its calls complaining of racial incidents have jumped from about two calls a week to five to six a week.

Lilia Ramos, a 46-year-old illegal immigrant from Acapulco, lodged a complaint with Puente against the Arizona Humane Society in a dispute involving a dog found on her daughter's property.

Ramos says that when she called the Humane Society to report that the dog didn't belong to her family, the woman on the other end of the line became angry when Ramos asked if she could speak to someone in Spanish.

"She said, 'There's no one. Are you an American citizen?'" Ramos said in Spanish. "I said no, and then she asked if I had a green card, and 'if you don't cooperate, we'll arrest you.' I was quiet and it really scared me."

Ramos wonders what her papers had to do with an animal seizure and feels the incident wouldn't have happened if not for Arizona's new law.

"I like the United States, but I don't like Arizona anymore," she says.

Seven Latin American Nations Join Mexico In Arizona Immigration Lawsuit
| 07/19/10

Seven other Latin American countries have filed motions to join Mexico in supporting a lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/seven-latin-american-nati_n_652440.html

PHOENIX — Seven other Latin American countries want to join Mexico in supporting a lawsuit challenging Arizona's immigration enforcement law.
Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru filed separate, nearly identical motions to join Mexico's legal brief supporting the lawsuit filed by U.S. civil rights and other advocacy groups.
A federal judge formally accepted Mexico's filing July 1 but did not immediately rule on the latest motions filed late last week.
Mexico says the law would lead to racial profiling and hinder trade, tourism and the fight against drug trafficking.
The law is to take effect July 29. It requires that police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they're in the country illegally.

Arizona Immigrant Deaths In Desert Soaring
AMANDA LEE MYERS | 07/16/10

PHOENIX — The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner's office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday.
The bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been brought to the office of Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks since July 1. At that rate, Parks said the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005 since his office began tracking them in 2000.
"Right now, at the halfway point of the month, to have so many is just a very bad sign," he said. "It's definitely on course to perhaps be the deadliest month of all time."
From Jan. 1 to July 15, the office has handled the bodies of 134 illegal immigrants, up from 93 at the same time last year and 102 in 2008. In 2007, when the office recorded the highest annual deaths of illegal immigrants, 140 bodies had been taken there through July 15.
Parks said his office, which handles immigrant bodies from three counties, is currently storing roughly 250 bodies and had to start using a refrigerated truck because of the increase in immigrant deaths this month.
He said many of the bodies seem to be coming from the desert southwest of Tucson, where it tends to be hotter than eastern parts of the border or the Tucson metro area.
Authorities believe the high number of deaths are likely due to above-average and unrelenting heat in southern Arizona this month and ongoing tighter border security that pushes immigrants to more remote, rugged and dangerous terrain.
Erik Pytlak, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Tucson's average nighttime lows in the first 15 days of July are the hottest for that period in recorded history.
If nighttime temperatures don't cool down enough, the human body doesn't get a break from the daytime heat, which has hit 109 degrees in recent days in southern Arizona.
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"Instead of having one day of a lot of heat, you have day after day after day, and you have a steady stream of people in the desert – people start succumbing, unfortunately," Pytlak said.
He said if possible thunderstorms materialize over the weekend, that could lower temperatures. But if rain doesn't fall and there's cloud cover, the situation could get worse because clouds hold temperatures up at night, he said.
While the bodies that go the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office don't represent all the deaths on the Arizona border, the Border Patrol also is seeing the effects of the weather.
"It does seem like the heat is really having a pretty significant impact right now," Agent Colleen Agle said.
Agle did not have statistics for July but said agents have been seeing "quite a few" deaths that appear heat-related.
On Thursday, she said the Border Patrol responded to a call from a husband and wife from Mexico who were experiencing difficulties because of the heat. When agents got there, the 25-year-old man had died; his 22-year-old wife survived and will be taken back to Mexico.
"Unfortunately, (agents) just didn't get there in time," she said, adding that finding immigrants in distress is often extremely difficult because of the vast and treacherous terrain. "It's really sad when this happens. Even one death is too many for us."
Deaths among immigrants occur despite public service advertisements warning them of the dangers of the desert, and the efforts of humanitarian groups that man aid stations for immigrants in distress and 20 Border Patrol rescue beacons in remote areas of the desert that immigrants can activate if they need help.
Border Patrol statistics for the entire U.S.-Mexico border show that deaths among illegal immigrants peaked at 492 in fiscal year 2005 and declined every year until last fiscal year, when they rose to 422.
The Border Patrol says the agency rescued nearly 1,300 people last fiscal year.

Is a biometric, national ID card an immigration game changer?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/is_a_biometric_national_id_car.html

The Democrats' immigration-reform proposal (pdf) is 26 pages long. Pages 8 through 18 are devoted to "ending illegal employment through biometric employment verification." I don't think the Democrats are going to like me calling this a biometric national ID card, as they go to great lengths to say that it is not a national ID card, and make it "unlawful for any person, corporation; organization local, state, or federal law enforcement officer; local or state government; or any other entity to require or even ask an individual cardholder to produce their social security card for any purpose other than electronic verification of employment eligibility and verification of identity for Social Security Administration purposes."

But it's still a biometric national ID card. It's handed out by the Social Security Administration and employers are required to check it when hiring new employees. Essentially, if you want to participate in the American economy, you need this card. "Within five (5) years of the date of enactment, the fraud-proof social security card will serve as the sole acceptable document to be produced by an employee to an employer for employment verification purposes," the bill says. "This requirement will exist even if the employer does not yet possess the capability to electronically verify the employee by scanning the card through a card reader."

The theory here is simple: Illegal immigration is a problem because illegal immigrants can get jobs. As the bill says, "in order to prevent future waves of illegal immigration, this proposal recognizes that no matter what we do on the border, our ports of entry, and in the interior, we will not be completely effective unless we can prevent the hiring, recruitment, or referral of unauthorized aliens in America’s workplaces. Jobs are what draw illegal immigrants to the United States."

That's why some think the biometric ID card a game changer for immigration politics. Enforcement might be popular, but the public knows full well that it doesn't really work. As things stand, the border is pretty militarized but the flow of illegal immigrants hasn't stopped. By focusing on the employment prospects of illegal immigrants and forcing workplaces to use biometric identification, Democrats hope to convince people that they have a real strategy for ending the problem of illegal immigration. And if they can convince people of that, they think they can get a path to legalization for the existing community of illegal immigrants as a way to mop up the remainder of the problem.

The oddity of this strategy, of course, is that anti-immigration sentiments run highest among the same communities that are most opposed to national ID cards. Now, it's also the case that if you're going to support citizenship searches for people with Hispanic-looking shoes, it's a bit odd to worry about an ID card to verify employment. But even so, without Republicans on the bill to give this strategy cover, it'll be interesting to see whether the anti-immigrant right embraces the ID card as a way of staunching the flow of illegal immigrants or assails Democrats for trying to create a biometric police state.

By Ezra Klein | April 30, 2010

ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

March 18, 2010

By LAURA MECKLER

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575110124037066854.html

Customs and Border Protection agent Jesus Gomez checks a passport at the vehicle crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in California.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

News Hub: Worker ID Card Spurs Controversy

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill are proposing a new national biometric ID card that would be required of all U.S. workers. WSJ's Laura Meckler explains the proposal and the objections from privacy advocates.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.

Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.

Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.

An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.

Under the legislation envisioned by Messrs. Graham and Schumer, the estimated 10.8 million people living illegally in the U.S. would be offered a path to citizenship, though they would have to register, pay taxes, pay a fine and wait in line. A guest-worker program would let a set number of new foreigners come to the U.S. legally to work.

Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards. The U.K. had been a holdout, but in the early 2000s it considered national cards as a way to stop identify fraud, protect against terrorism and help stop illegal foreign workers. Amid worries about the cost and complaints that the cards infringe on personal privacy, the government said it would make them voluntary for British citizens. They are required for foreign workers and students, and so far about 130,000 cards have been issued.

Mr. Schumer first suggested a biometric-based employer-verification system last summer. Since then, the idea has gained currency and is now a centerpiece of the legislation being developed, aides said.

A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.

The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a position on the proposal, but it is concerned that employers would find it expensive and complicated to properly check the biometrics.

Mr. Schumer said employers would be able to buy a scanner to check the IDs for as much as $800. Small employers, he said, could take their applicants to a government office to like the Department of Motor Vehicles and have their hands scanned there.

—Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.
Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

Man With Neo-Nazi Ties Leading Patrols In Arizona
MICHELLE PRICE | 07/17/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/17/man-with-neo-nazi-ties-le_n_650123.html

PHOENIX — Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.
Jason "J.T." Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.
But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."
"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said. "This is what our founding fathers did."
An escalation of civilian border watches have taken root in Arizona in recent years, including the Minutemen movement. Various groups patrol the desert on foot, horseback and in airplanes and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally, they have not caused problems for law enforcement.
But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.
"These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."
Ready is a reflection of the anger over illegal immigration in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer signed a controversial new immigration law in April, which requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
But Brewer hasn't done enough, Ready said, and he's not satisfied with President Barack Obama's decision to beef up security at the border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said there haven't been any incidents with the group as they patrol his jurisdiction, which includes several busy immigrant smuggling corridors. But Babeu is concerned because an untrained group acting without the authority of the law could cause "extreme problems," and put themselves and others in danger.
"I'm not inviting them. And in fact, I'd rather they not come," Babeu said. "Especially those who espouse hatred or bigotry such as his."
Law enforcement officials said patrols like Ready's could undercut the work of the thousands of officers on duty every day across the border, especially if they try to enforce the law themselves in carrying out vigilante justice.
Ready said his group has been patrolling in the desert about 50 miles south of Phoenix, in an area where a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy reported he was shot by drug smugglers in April.
Bureau of Land Management rangers met Ready's group during one patrol, and they weren't violating any laws or looking for a confrontation, said spokesman Dennis Godfrey.
The patrols have been occurring on public land, and militia members have no real restrictions on their weaponry because of Arizona's loose gun laws.
The militia is an outgrowth of border watch groups that have been part of the immigration debate in Arizona. Patrols in the Arizona desert by Minutemen organizations brought national attention to illegal immigration in 2004 and 2005.
Such groups continue to operate in Arizona, and law enforcement officials generally don't take issue with them as long as they don't take matters into their own hands.
Border Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria said the agency appreciates the extra eyes and ears but they would prefer actual law enforcement be left to professionals.
Former Minutemen leader Al Garza recently created the Patriot's Coalition, which uses scouts and search-and-rescue teams to alert the Border Patrol and provide first aid to illegal immigrants.
Depending on the availability of volunteers and the scouts' evidence of border crossers, patrols can vary from several times a week to once a month, Garza said. The operation is about 500 people, and includes a neighborhood watch program, legislative advisers and a horseback patrol, he said.
Technology, rather than manpower, is the focus of Glenn Spencer's American Border Patrol. The group is based at his ranch near the border. The five-man operation flies three small airplanes to ensure that the Border Patrol is present and visible along the international line.
Spencer also uses Internet-controlled cameras and works with a group called Border Invasion Pics, which posts photos of people they suspect are crossing illegally.
"Sitting out there with a bunch of volunteers looking for people is generally a tremendous waste of people and time," Spencer said. "And it's also dangerous."
Ready said he's planning patrols throughout the summer.
"If they don't want my people out there, then there's an easy way to send us home: Secure the border," he said. "We'll put our guns back on the shelf, and that'll be the end of that."

Arizona Police Already Feeling Pressure From New Immigration Law
JONATHAN J. COOPER | 07/ 1/10

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/arizona-police-immigration-law_n_633108.html

PHOENIX — Police enforcing Arizona's toughest-in-the-nation immigration law are allowed to consider if a person speaks poor English, looks nervous or is traveling in an overcrowded vehicle.
They can even take into account whether someone is wearing several layers of clothing in a hot climate, or hanging out in an area where illegal immigrants are known to look for work.
But top police officials issued a stern warning to officers Thursday, telling them in a training video not to consider race or ethnicity and emphasizing that "the entire country is watching."
The officials cautioned that opponents of the law may secretly videotape police making traffic stops in an effort to prove that they are racially profiling Hispanics.
"Without a doubt, we're going to be accused of racial profiling no matter what we do on this," Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor tells officers on the video, which was posted online. The recording demonstrates how officers should determine when they can ask someone for proof they are in the country legally.
Arizona's law, sparked by anger over a surging population of illegal immigrants in the border state, generally requires officers enforcing another law – like speeding or jaywalking – to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
Under the law, officers are also allowed to consider if a person does not have identification or tried to run away. But the stakes for making a mistake are high: Officers can be fired if they start asking questions because of a person's race, then lie about it later, the video warns.
"It is also clear that the actions of Arizona officers will never come under this level of scrutiny again," said Lyle Mann, executive director of the state agency that trains police. "Each and every one of you will now carry the reputation for the entire Arizona law enforcement community with you every day."
The law applies only to a traffic stop, a person who is detained or an arrest – not when a person flags down an officer. Police are not required to ask crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status, and anyone who shows a valid Arizona driver's license is presumed to be in the country legally.
"The entire country is watching to see how Arizona and in particular Arizona law enforcement responds," Mann said.
The law restricts the use of race, color or national origin as the basis for triggering immigration questions. But civil rights groups and some police officials argue that officers will still assume that illegal immigrants look Hispanic.
Arizona's 460,000 illegal immigrants are almost all Hispanic. Yet Arizona also has nearly 2 million Hispanics who are U.S. citizens or legal residents, about 30 percent of the state's population.
In the training video, an expert advises officers to ask themselves whether they would reach the same conclusion about a Hispanic person's immigration status if the subject were white or black.
"If any officer goes into a situation with a previous mindset that one race or one ethnicity is not equal to another's, then they have no business being a law enforcement officer in this state," Arizona Police Association President Brian Livingston said in the video.
To determine whether the person is legally in the United States, officers dealing with a suspected illegal immigrant are told to call the Border Patrol, a police officer certified to enforce immigration laws or a federal immigration hotline.
They are supposed to ask federal immigration authorities to come pick up illegal immigrants. If the feds refuse, officers can arrest immigrants or take them to a federal detention center.
The instructional video and supporting paperwork will be sent to all 170 Arizona police agencies.
Police departments will decide the best way to teach their forces. There is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect July 29.
Law enforcement officials around the state said they were reviewing the training materials. Most hadn't decided yet how to use them.
Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, home to smuggling corridors south of Phoenix, said he's going to require all of his officers to watch the video, and he created a supplemental video with information specific to his agency.
"I have full faith and confidence in all of us as professionals to apply the law in a very professional way," he said.
Stephen Montoya, a lawyer representing police officers suing to block the law, said the video is "a good introduction" but isn't sufficient to train officers on immigration law.
"I thought it would be more detailed. I thought it would be more thorough. I thought it would be more expansive," he said.
Gov. Jan Brewer ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop the training program when she signed the law April 23.
Opponents have challenged the measure as unconstitutional and have asked that a federal court block it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton plans to hear arguments on the request later this month.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called the law an understandable byproduct of public frustration with the government's inability to tighten the immigration system. But he also said it is ill-conceived, divisive and would put undue pressure on local authorities.
The law was passed in part with the lobbying muscle of unions representing rank-and-file police officers who argued that they should be allowed to arrest illegal immigrants they come across.
It was opposed by police chiefs who worried it would be expensive to implement and would destroy the trust they have developed in Hispanic neighborhoods.