Fighting Terrorism: More Important Than Harassing Undocumented Immigrants

Last week, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against four sections of Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070. This decision has been widely reported, but less widely understood.

So here's two things you might not have heard about the challenge Arizona's law is facing.

The first thing you need to understand is that the judge didn't invalidate the law in its entirety, she just ruled that four out of six provisions in the law were unlikely to succeed in the long run, so they shouldn't take effect. The four provisions she issued the injunction against are the controversial aspects of the law — the provisions that require police officers to check immigration status of everyone they arrest, make it a crime to lack immigration papers, make it illegal for an undocumented immigrant to solicit work, and allow police to arrest anyone they have probable cause to believe can be deported.

The sections that she upheld are pretty uncontroversial and deal with Arizona's efforts to stop human trafficking and the process of illegal, U.S.-bound immigration in the first place.

The second thing that's important to know — something that's been grossly under-reported — is why the judge came to the conclusions she did. They boil down to the fact that to the judge, it's more important to effectively fight terrorism than harass undocumented immigrants.

According to Judge Bolton, if the four contested sections of AZ's law went into effect, it would pose a massive burden to the federal government — and interfere with efforts to thwart international terrorism.

How, you ask? Currently, it's the FBI, the United States Secret Service and employment agencies that are responsible for making routine immigration-related checks. If police were to perform such checks hundreds of more times a day, it would take incredible amounts of money and manpower — both of which would be better used to identify actual criminals.

But Ryan, you say, undocumented immigrants are terrible criminals linked with drug cartels, prostitution and terrorism. Well, no, actually. Undocumented immigrants have the same rates of violent criminality as any other group here in the U.S. The Arizona law is flawed because . instead of focusing its resources on the attempt to catch truly dangerous people, it casts an inefficient, overly wide net.

Which leads to the other issue with Arizona's law that troubles Judge Bolton. If we cast such a wide net, legal immigrants will be unduly harassed, too. By requiring that everyone be able to present immigration documents at a moment's notice — something that perfectly reasonable people would often unable to do — legal immigrants left, right and center could find themselves stuck in prolonged detention, something that the United States can't abide. (If you disagree, you should take it up with the Supreme Court and have them overturn a 69-year-old legal precedent.)

If this law had gone into effect, money would have been wasted and it would have hampered efforts to fight violent crime, while law-abiding citizens would have been harassed. Case closed.

Photo Credit: Fibonacci Blue