AZ law and immigration

Below is a response I gave to a friend who sent me a link to a blog posting on the AZ immigration law. The friend is currently in Mexico on a BYU Study Abroad. The blog posting trashes the new law pretty hardcore. I think my response gives you a general idea of how I see the issue and where I stand.

Points where I agree:

1) Any law that increases the power of the police will make people fear them and immigrants will likely not report things to the police as much if they are not legal immigrants. Whether that increases or decreases crime is dependent on many other factors.

2) This law will inevitably lead to some racial profiling especially in AZ where the immigrants are overwhelming from south of the border. Every law is not perfect. But if a law overall has a positive effect even though there might be some flaws is it still a bad law? That depends on your view. Also, knowing almost all the immigrants are latino, is "profiling" a bad thing? On this one...I tend to side with civil liberties and say yes.

Point where I disagree:

1) His comparison of this law to becoming like Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany is ungrounded and immature. I think he is caught up in the emotional intensity of the moment. I bet being in Mexico exacerbates that. He tries to lessen it with the line: "People tend to reject such comparisons outright because of how extreme they are but every time a government makes any power grab it should alarm us." But that's not far enough. If he included the comparison for satirical emotional impact, all the power to him, if he actually believes that, then I think he's off his rocker. But hey, I'm a forgiving individual and I'm against government grabbing power in many cases too.

2) The police can only ask people about their immigration status AFTER they have been caught for a different crime. For example, the police cannot just see a car with a MX liscence plate and pull it over just to see if they're legal or not. In this situation, the law is just enforcing immigration status while enforcing other laws. Enforcing the law on immigration laws seems logical. Laws have no effect if they aren't enforced. I'm all for limited government but I'm not an anarchist. Laws have reasons; we are a republic after all.

3) I'm not sure the law is unconstitutional. I can definitely understand where he is coming from by saying the law violates the constituion through search and seizure measures but as I addressed before, I don't think it's as bad as he says. Immigration opens up a whole new can of worms on the constitution. I would have to look more into the constituion to determine whether this law is as he asserts, unconstitutional.

Those are my views. I tend to make hardcore conservatives upset on this issue because I'm too compassionate toward illegal immigrants, especially those already here. Liberals on the other hand think I'm compassion-less. In brief, I support legal immigration and think we should make LEGAL immigration easier and ILLEGAL immigration harder. I'm all for comprehensive immigration reform.