Romney and the “Model” of Arizona

If Mitt Romney becomes the next president of the United States and keeps his promise to make immigration law in Arizona a “model” for the rest of the country, life in this country will become difficult for those of us who have the aspects of immigrants or speak English with a foreign accent.

In the Feb. 22 Republican debate in Arizona, in which Romney and his rival Rick Santorum were competing for the votes of the most xenophobic sector of their party, Romney praised E-Verify, the verification system for workers in Arizona, saying, “We see a model here in Arizona,” and adding that, if elected, he will stop, “from day one” of his presidency, the claims of the federal government against laws like those in Arizona.

“My God!” I said to myself when I heard this. To judge by what we’ve seen in the states, where anti-immigration laws like that in Arizona have been approved, this will cause the arbitrary arrests and interrogations not only of undocumented immigrants, but also of legal residents and U.S. citizens born in other countries.

Apart from the identification of workers via the E-Verify system, Arizona’s law, sanctioned in 2010 and suspended temporarily after President Obama’s government questioned its constitutionality, also says that state police have the authority to ask for immigration papers when they have reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally.

Supporters of the law deny that it will produce a virtual prosecution of anyone with the aspect of an immigrant. According to them, the law does not permit police officers to detain people arbitrarily, since it specifically says that they can only ask for the documents only when they “stop, detain or make a legal arrest.”

But these lazy terms can be interpreted in many ways.

A police officer can legally stop a person to ask them if they saw something suspicious around the corner and then arrest them for not having their documents on their person.

In addition, Arizona law requires that local police act as immigration inspectors not only when they legally detain someone for a crime, but also when interrogating someone for violating city ordinances.

If someone calls the police to complain about a neighbor who is having a party at their house and has the music on too loud, the police can show up at the party and detain anyone who cannot prove their legal status, according to those who oppose the law.

“The central problem is that it opens the door to widespread racial profiling based on what individuals look like or sound like,” said Karen Tumlin, an attorney with the Immigration Law Center of Los Angeles. “The ‘reasonable suspicion’ wording would force cops to make judgments based on what people look like.”

This has already happened, and not just to Latin Americans or Asians. In Alabama, one of several states that has passed laws like the one in Arizona, a German executive of Mercedes Benz was recently arrested under the state immigration law because he was not carrying documents proving his legal status, the Associated Press reported on Nov. 19.

The German visitor was arrested by the police in his rental car, Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told the news agency. The tourist was later released when a colleague looked for his passport, which the man had left in his hotel room.

Two weeks later, a Japanese employee of Honda Motor Company was detained for three days under Alabama’s immigration law after being arrested by the police at a checkpoint to detect unlicensed drivers, even after the man showed his International Driver’s license, a valid passport and a U.S. work permit.

A recent study by the economist Sam Addy, from the Center for Business and Economic Research of Alabama, finds that the Alabama law could cost the state a whopping $11 billion in investments, jobs and lost taxes. Another study says that the Arizona law has caused losses of up to $490 million because of tourism lost to the state.

Can you imagine what would happen in states like Florida, which depend heavily on foreign tourism and foreign trade? Or what would happen to the real estate industry in cities like Miami and New York, which live largely on foreign investment? My opinion: From any perspective, laws like the one in Arizona are morally questionable, economically disastrous and increasingly unnecessary at a time when illegal immigration has been drastically reduced after the 2008 recession.

If Romney and, to be fair, Santorum fail to continue the trials against these xenophobic laws and they become a “model” for the nation, the United States will no longer be the country that it has always been.