By Jasmine Elliott, Washington Legislative Office & Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:22pm
The Arizona immigration law is poised to inflame the already widespread problem of racial profiling in the United States. This law, S.B. 1070, would require law enforcement officers to investigate a person's citizenship status if they think that the person could be in the country unlawfully. This is a clear invitation to racial profiling, and because of this new law, more people will be put into jails and the criminal justice system merely because of their race or ethnicity. When law enforcement is invited to question people based on appearance and without evidence of criminal activity, dire consequences occur.
Racial profiling is "a sloppy, lazy substitute" for actual policing, said Professor Deborah Ramirez from Northeastern University School of Law, at a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties hearing called "Racial Profiling and the Use of Suspect Classifications in Law Enforcement." The witnesses at the hearing represented many different organizations and fields, like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Sikh Coalition, Muslim Advocates, police officers, and professors. This diverse group of experts agreed on the following key points:
The representatives and senators of Congress are returning from a week-long recess. Their break probably entailed a little rest and relaxation and a lot of campaign strategizing. With the November mid-term elections in sight, they are coming into these last few months ready to fight for your votes. Get ready for an onslaught of yard signs and politically charged TV commercials (and some mudslinging).
If you want something more substantive than flashy campaign ads and gimmicks, look to the ACLU to tell you what your congressmen and women have been up to. We recently updated the ACLU Congressional Scorecard to inform our members, activists and the public at large about how their representatives and senators have been voting on the critical civil rights and civil liberties issues of the day. Votes range from federally-funded private and religious school vouchers to the use of full body scanners in airports. The scorecard covers all of the votes for this Congress on civil rights and civil liberties issues and gives a summary of the ACLU’s stance on each issue. It is also broken down by representative or senator and has an easy-to-use search engine to show votes cast by your specific members of Congress.
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