Alabama’s “show me your papers” law went into effect on Oct. 1 after being signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey.
The bill, authored by state Sen. Les Kitchens, allows state law enforcement to make a “reasonable attempt” at determining the citizenship status of people they pull over and encounter at traffic stops. If there is a “reasonable suspicion” that the person may illegally be in the country or if the officer is unable to verify the person’s legal status, the officer would then have the authority to detain that person and make a call to federal immigration authorities.
Additionally, last month, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision effectively legalized government-sanctioned racial profiling in relation to immigration stops. The majority decision was defended by Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh explained that federal immigration agents may use “apparent ethnicity” as a “relevant factor” when deciding to arrest or detain suspected noncitizens in the United States. He continued, making a point that racially motivated immigration stops are simply a minor inconvenience for those who are legally in the country.
In the same ruling, the majority argued that immigration stops “based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence” are completely acceptable and have some legal precedent in the United States’ history of immigration enforcement.
But what exactly is “reasonable suspicion of illegal presence?” For an Alabama man, it was his race and his occupation.
Last month, Leonardo Garcia Venegas was arrested by immigration officers at his construction worksite in Foley, Alabama, not only once, but twice, despite being born in the United States and having U.S. citizenship. Garcia and his lawyers filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging that the immigration officers had no “reasonable suspicion” to detain him, instead racially profiling him.
The lawsuit states, “DHS authorizes these armed raids based on the general assumption that certain groups of people in the industry, including Latinos, are likely illegal immigrants. DHS applies this presumption despite the fact that the overwhelming number of construction workers are citizens or legal residents.”
It continues, adding that “once immigration officers are on a site, they preemptively seize everybody they think looks undocumented. And they detain these workers indefinitely — even those who have a REAL ID — until the officers eventually check the legal status of the people they’ve detained. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes; sometimes it takes days.”
Garcia’s situation is not a one-off event. We’ve all seen the images of masked, jack-booted ICE agents swooping into Home Depot parking lots and poultry plants, rounding up tens to hundreds of people without seemingly any discretion. In September, USA Today reported on numerous lawsuits filed against the federal government by U.S. citizens after they were violently arrested by immigration enforcement officers leading to serious injuries and even death for one man.
Not only does racial profiling create public distrust in law enforcement and lead to inhumane consequences for individuals simply existing, but it also reinforces biased systems.
But for some folks, like Alabama gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, citizens being swept up in immigration raids are a small cost to getting rid of undocumented immigrants.
“And I’m sure with all the illegals we have in this country, you’re gonna probably have some mistakes happen. That’s gonna happen,” he said when interviewed by Pablo Manriquez, an editor at Migrant Insider.
He continued, warning U.S. citizens to not hang around undocumented immigrants as that could lead to ICE detention.
“Bottom line, because President Trump has said, we’re gonna go after you. And at the end of the day, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, something bad could happen,” he said.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens and non-citizens alike against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and unfair arrests. After all, this is a cornerstone of every high school civics class where we learn about the case of Terry v. Ohio in which the Supreme Court ruled an officer has a right to briefly stop and question someone if they reasonably suspect a crime has been or is going to be committed. But in the cases of these immigration stops and detentions, there is no “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed or potentially will be committed. Rather, they believe that the presence of a person of particular race, accent, physical appearance or occupation is predisposed to a crime. If that is not the definition of government-sanctioned racial profiling, I am not sure what is.
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