What the Tea Party says is nice, but what it does is different. How many Tea Partiers supported the NDAA? Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
...I'm headed to Arizona dressed as an illegal immigrant!
That is the key right there.. and if the police start harassing legal citizens based solely on their color or culture they will surely be hit with much more in the way of civil rights lawsuits. Those law suits will drain Arizona dry.. Originally Posted by Sexyeccentric1
I understand your argument, FF, and I don't like the idea of "showing your papers" either. However, Congress did make the law, and the federal government's refusal to enforce the law is what precipitated the Arizona law. Citizens do not have to prove their citizenship. Non-citizens have to prove they are here legally. The law is only triggered when they are lawfully stopped for another reason, and the officers have further reasonable suspicion that the suspect is here illegally. If the officer calls ICE, and ICE has no record of the suspect, the presumption has to be that the person is a citizen.I have to wonder if a state could sue the federal government for damages as a result of its refusal to enforce federal immigration law. Since the federal government sued to insist that enforcement is their exclusive right I would think that the state could then sue to force the federal government to fulfill its obligation or pay the cost for its failure.
Again, it is the government having to prove the person is illegal, not the person having to prove they are legal. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy