It’s Still The “Most Reprehensible Thing Since The Japanese Internment”
- Arizona Immigrant
Hey, I hope you had a fine Memorial Day. Myself, spent some time watching the video my daughter made for her history class, and tried to plumb the inner mysteries of Arizona SB 1070 as modified by Arizona HB 2162. That’s right, it’s time for the second installment of Arizona Mythbusters!
We last left off with the new Section 11-1051 of Title 11 of the Arizona Statutes. Today, we’ll start with the new Section 13-1509 that they added to Title 13 of the Statutes. 13-1509, subsection A:
“In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document if the person is in violation of 8 United States Code Section 1304(e) or 1306(a).”
Hmm. That sounds like “Your papers, please?“ That sounds reminiscent of second class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II when they had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being Jewish. Well, according to US federal law (Section 1304(e) referenced above), all legal aliens must have their papers with them at all times and are subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being an alien. And that’s been the law of the land since 1940, when we were asking real Nazis in the US for “your papers, please?” All the Arizona law does is also make it a state crime to be in violation of federal law. Under federal law, the penalty for having a green card and not carrying it is a $100 fine and 30 days in jail. Ouch! Don’t leave home without that green card! If prosecuted under state law, the penalty is reduced to 20 days for a first offense, 30 days for a subsequent offense. There may be a loophole, though, that I’ll describe below.
Those Arizona legislators are real softies!
Immigrants really catch a break from Arizona if they never bothered to register in the first place. Under Arizona law, it’s still a $100 fine and 20/30 days in jail. On the federal side, failure to register is a $1000 fine and six months in the pokey. So, if I was an illegal who failed to register, I’d rather be prosectuted by Arizona than by the feds. Those Arizona legislators are real softies!
Moving on, 13-1509 subsection B states:
“In the enforcement of this section, an alien’s immigration status may be determined by:
- A law enforcement officer who is authorized by the federal government to verify or ascertain an alien’s immigration status.
- The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the United States Customs and Border Protection pursuant to 8 United States Code Section 1373(c).”
And that should start to look familiar. It’s identical to the way that someone’s immigration status is supposed to be checked if they are stopped as described in Part I of this article.
13-1509, subsection C:
“A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin in the enforcement of this section except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.”
That also looks familiar, and is the same safeguard against racist enforcement that the Section 11-1051 has.
13-1509, subsection D:
“A person who is sentenced pursuant to this section is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon, commutation of sentence, or release from confinement on any basis except as authorized by Section 31-233, subsection A or B until the sentence imposed by the court has been served or the person is eligible for release pursuant to Section 41-1604.07.”
So, no probation for failure to register! Section 31-233 allows inmates to work outside the jail (trustee status) or get medical treatment outside the jail. Section 41-1604.07 allows inmates to earn “good time” at a rate of 1 day of good time for every 6 days of straight time served. Good time can be revoked for misbehavior.
13-1509, subsection E:
“In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, the court shall order the person to pay jail costs.”
So, illegals who get busted are on the “Pay to Stay” program while in jail. Jail costs are typically $80-200 for the first day, and $40-90 for each subsequent day, depending on which jail the illegal is housed in (total of $840-1910 for 20 days in jail).
And I wonder about this part. This isn’t unique to SB1070, under Arizona law most people convicted of a crime can be ordered by a judge to pay for their incarceration. It’s not unheard of for someone serving six months in the county jail to get hit with a room and board bill somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. I wondered what would happen if someone didn’t pay that bill. Apparently, under Section 13-810, subsection D of the Arizona Revised Statutes, you can be put in jail until you pay. That might be kind of rough if the Judge was convinced that you had the money to pay the costs and you really didn’t…you could end up spending years in the county jail!
I found out that as a practical matter, in Arizona and in other states that allow jail costs to be billed to the inmate, that most of these costs are never collected. And that’s not surprising, because if you have any money, you’re going to spend it all on a good lawyer, not save it to pay for going to jail. Pretty much anyone who shows up in court with a court-appointed attorney doesn’t pay a penny of these costs, the bill is just forgiven by the court. About the only people who actually pay all of these costs are wealthy individuals serving time for their second or third DUI.
I suppose that in the end, it’s something that sounds like a good idea, making a criminal pay for their time, but when you try to actually apply it, it seems like more trouble than it’s worth. I think we would know what would happen to most illegals in this situation, who have very little property. The court would simply take everything they have, and forgive the rest. And if you think about that, that puts more pressure on the illegal to send every dime back home to the mother country, where it would be out of reach of US courts, as fast as they make it. But even if this portion were stricken from SB1070, there would still be provision under Arizona law for a judge to order an illegal to pay court costs. Since Arizona law allows unpaid costs to be forgiven, and since 13-509 subsection E isn’t needed to allow a judge to impose the penalty of paying jail costs, my conclusion is that this part of the law is effectively meaningless…Arizona judges are going to do whatever they want. It just makes them jump through the hoop of putting the jail costs on the sentence of anyone convicted of violating this law up front, and then forgiving the debt that can’t possibly be paid later.
Moving along, 13-509, subsection F:
“This section does not apply to a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States.”
And that’s a pretty big loophole! So, follow me down on this…if you’re a legal permanent resident, and you forget to bring your green card with you, then you violated 13-509, subsection A, and you’re subject to a $100 fine and 20 days in jail. But, if you have a green card, then you “maintain authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States”, and all of section 13-509 doesn’t apply to you! As a practical matter, you’d get stopped, fail to produce your green card, get hauled off to jail until your situation could be sorted out, and then released as soon as they figured out you were legal. Presumably, that would get taken care of before you’d been in jail for 20 days awaiting trial.
And effectively, subsection F means that the “your papers please” part of SB1070 only applies to illegals, who won’t have papers and who will always run afoul of this part of the law when arrested.
13-509, subsection G:
“Any record that relates to the immigration status of a person is admissible in any court…if that record is certified as authentic by the government agency that is responsible for maintaining the record.”
Effectively, that means that if ICE vouches for an immigrant’s green card, that green card now becomes a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
13-509, subsection H, the penalties:
“A violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor, except that the maximum fine is one hundred dollars and for a first violation of this section the court shall not sentence the person to more than twenty days in jail, and for a second or subsequent violation the court shall not sentence the person to more than thirty days in jail.”
So, let’s put this all together. If you recall from Section 11-1051, any illegal who gets arrested is probably going to be turned over to ICE. A judge doesn’t have to impose any fine or jail time at all for violating 13-509, he can legally place the illegal on probation. Most likely, he will sentence the immigrant to time served. But 13-509 means that he must collect jail costs (in reality, whatever can be collected), which will be much higher than that highest fine he can impose. So, what this all means is that Arizona gets to stick a vacuum cleaner hose in the pockets of any illegal picked up before the feds get a crack at him! I supposed if he’s taking up space in an Arizona jail before he can be turned over to the feds, they’re entitled to do that, but it also means that feds will be getting a steady stream of indigent illegals to deal with.
Now, the next part of SB1070 modifies Section 13-2319 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which is an anti-human trafficking law. All they added was this part, which becomes 13-2319, subsection E:
“Notwithstanding any other law, in the enforcement of this section a peace officer may lawfully stop any person who is operating a motor vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in any violation of any civil traffic law.”
Now, you need to know that it is already the law of the land in all 50 states that if an officer suspects that you have violated any law but does not have reasonable suspicion, he can still pull you over for any traffic law that you may be violating. And that means that if he thinks you’re driving through a neighborhood where crack dealers are common so you can buy dope, he can pull you over for that busted license plate light even though the real reason he wants to pull you over is to see if you left any drugs laying out where he can find them. Given that, I’m not sure why the Arizona legislature bothered to put this part in, since it doesn’t really have any effect on existing law. Maybe it’s just a matter of belt and suspenders again.
The next part of SB1070 is a new law aimed at people who pick up illegal day laborers, Section 13-2928. Let’s start with subsection A:
“It is unlawful for an occupant of a motor vehicle that is stopped on a street, roadway, or highway to attempt to hire or hire and pick up passengers for work at a different location if the motor vehicle blocks or impedes the normal movement of traffic.”
Ok, so if you’re going to hire a bunch of illegals to help you put in that deck in the back yard, be sure to pull completely off the road so that you do not impede traffic when you do so. Else that friendly man in blue might not be so friendly.
Better yet, just pull into the Home Depot parking lot. Trust me, if you whistle and gesture, they’ll coming running.
13-2928, subsection B:
“It is unlawful for a person to enter a motor vehicle that is stopped on a street, roadway or highway in order to be hired by an occupant of the motor vehicle and to be transported to work at a different location if the motor vehicle blocks or impedes the normal movement of traffic.”
See? You’re not just helping yourself avoid prosecution by pulling completely off the road, you’re helping those illegals as well. Of course, you can still block traffic if you’re just picking up someone who is going to lunch with you.
I expect this line to get used a lot:
“Oh, no, no Senor Officer. We weren’t getting in his pickup to go to work for him, he was just giving us a ride to the taco stand down the road.”
13-2928, subsection C:
“It is unlawful for a person who is unlawfully present in the United States and who is an unauthorized alien to knowingly apply for work, solicit work in a public place or perform work as an employee or independent contractor in this state.”
And this is where the Arizona legislature might have gone overboard. I know the intent is to discourage illegals looking for work from coming into the state and taking jobs that might displace citizens, but consider the case of an illegal who is living in the US and married to a US citizen. In most cases, ICE won’t deport those illegals, so long as they otherwise stay out of trouble. So, do we want those illegals to work and support their US citizen family, or not work so the US citizens can collect welfare and food stamps? That’s the problem with new legislation…there are always unintended consequences.
13-2928, subsection D:
“A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivison of this state may not consider race, color or national origin in the enforcement of this section except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona constitution.”
And it’s good that they put that in there, because you can spot a driver’s ethnicity from a hundred yards away when he’s blocking traffic.
13-2928, subsection E:
“In the enforcement of this section, an alien’s immigration status may be determined by:
-
A law enforcement officer who is authorized by the federal government to verify or ascertain an alien’s immigration status.
-
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the United States Customs and Border Protection pursuant to 8 United States Code 1373(c).”
We’ve seen language just like this in other parts of SB1070…nothing new to see here.
13-2928, subsection F:
“A violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
The penalty for violating a Class 1 misdemeanor in Arizona is six months in jail and a $2500 fine. Jail costs can also be imposed, so the penalty for blocking the road to pick up an illegal worker could reach $18,810, and that’s not including court costs and lawyer’s fees. You’d hope they wouldn’t hit a first offender with that steep a penalty.
I suppose this means that Arizona could start running sting operations at the local Home Depot. Just get some Hispanic cops to stand around in civilian clothes, and if someone stops to ask for help putting in a new driveway, they’re busted!
Did I say to remember to pull completely off the highway?
And 13-2928, subsection G:
“For the purposes of this section:
-
“Solicit” means verbal or nonverbal communication by a gesture or a nod that would indicate to a reasonable person that a person is willing to be employed.
-
“Unauthorized alien” means an alien who does not have the legal right or authorization under federal law to work in the United States as described in 8 United States Code Section 1324a(h)(3) (scroll all the way to the bottom of that page for the definition).
So, if I understand this, in order to be guilty of violating this law, an illegal doesn’t actually have to get in the truck. If the driver stops and asks, “Hey, you want to work?”, and the alien merely nods, he can go to jail for 6 months and end up owing the state over $15,000, and end up being turned over to ICE after all.
Maybe Arizona isn’t so soft on this part.
Now, you might think that the part where the driver is criminally liable for offering to hire the illegals is fair, but consider this: All he has to do to earn six months in jail is to not pull over far enough that traffic still slows when it goes past him, and to offer a job. He can offer a job to a US citizen that he knows is a US citizen, and still get the book thrown at him. Anyone wanna bet that somewhere down the road we hear of an “archaic anti-immigration law” being used to “harrass someone who was just trying to put US citizens to work”? It might take a few years, but I bet that eventually we’ll see it.
Well, this is getting long once again, and I still have a few section of SB1070 to go. I guess that means there’ll be a part III of Arizona Mythbusters coming your way. Look for it!
