Arizona Amends Illegal Immigration Bill to Fix Racial Profiling Concerns

Arizona lawmakers are submitting several changes to the new, controversial Illegal Alien bill, better known as the Illegal Immigration bill. Liberals are crying foul, and are certain that law enforcement in Arizona will gleefully go after anyone looking like an Hispanic, and take every opportunity to force them to prove they are in the country legally. So, some changes have been made to take those accusations off the table...but do we think there is anyway the Left will refrain from yelling "racism?"

U.S. and Arizona flags

Here are the changes the legislature made, which now needs Governor Jan Brewer's approval to become law, courtesy of ABC15.com:

The current law requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally.

One change to the bill strengthens restrictions against using race or ethnicity as the basis for questioning and inserts those same restrictions in other parts of the law.

Changes to the bill language will actually remove the word "solely" from the sentence, "The attorney general or county attorney shall not investigate complaints that are based solely on race, color or national origin."

Another change replaces the phrase "lawful contact" with "lawful stop, detention or arrest" to apparently clarify that officers don't need to question a victim or witness about their legal status.

A third change specifies that police contact over violations for local civil ordinances can trigger questioning on immigration status.

The law's sponsor, Republican Sen. Russell Pearce, characterized the race and ethnicity changes as clarifications "just to take away the silly arguments and the games, the dishonesty that's been played."

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said allowing immigration-status contacts for civil violations such as weed-infested yards or too many occupants in a residence could spur complaints of racial profiling.

Good grief. Now, and probably always, the police can't ask for verification when a neighbor files a complaint that "too many occupants" are living in a residence" - because it could "spur complaints of racial profiling." God help us.

Thank you to SayAnythingBlog