Controversy has been surrounding the bill that the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, just signed regarding illegal aliens coming across their border. The bill has ignited a firestorm of name-calling and accusations are flying all the way from Washington. Arizona, tell ‘em all to go piss up a rope! They haven’t read the bill or if they have, they are refusing to admit it so that they will be able to criticize it without being accused of ignoring the content.
I have looked at the bill and I don’t see anything in it that would or should cause all the fuss. SCOTUS has already ruled on the constitutionality of requiring people to present their papers when asked, in a much broader sense than what is in the Arizona Bill. In Meuhler vs Mena, SCOTUS in a 9-0 decision rules that it is not unconstitutional to ask someone to show their ID.
The Court of Appeals also determined that the officers violated Mena’s Fourth Amendment rights by questioning her about her immigration status during the detention. 332 F.3d, at 1264—1266. This holding, it appears, was premised on the assumption that the officers were required to have independent reasonable suspicion in order to question Mena concerning her immigration status because the questioning constituted a discrete Fourth Amendment event. But the premise is faulty. We have “held repeatedly that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure.” Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434 (1991); see also INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 212 (1984). “[E]ven when officers have no basis for suspecting a particular individual, they may generally ask questions of that individual; ask to examine the individual’s identification; and request consent to search his or her luggage.” Bostick, supra, at 434—435 (citations omitted). As the Court of Appeals did not hold that the detention was prolonged by the questioning, there was no additional seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Hence, the officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date and place of birth, or immigration status.
Note the bolded areas in the text above which comes from the unanimous opinion. The Arizona law prohibits such questioning, a police officer has to have reasonable cause to stop someone and only then can the suspect be asked for his/her ID.
President Obama, you might want to clue ol’ Eric Holder in on this bit of information, and by the way the SCOTUS Decision is relatively short, only about a page long, when you guys get through reading it why not send it out to California so the Mayor of LA can read it.
But that is just
My Arrogant Opinion
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