‘Show me your papers’ expands
President Donald Trump is taking Arizona’s infamous “show me your papers” law nationwide.
The Trump administration is set to begin Tuesday an expanded crackdown on undocumented immigrants who cannot prove they’ve been in the country continuously for more than two years. Under this new rule that also applies to asylum seekers, immigration agents can arrest and deport immigrants without appearing before a judge.
Until now, the law applied to migrants who were within 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
So, why is this a big deal? For starters, it might be unconstitutional and that’s why the American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to challenge it in court.
Let’s hope the ACLU blocks it. Otherwise “brown” people across the nation could find themselves the targets just like Arizona Latinos did under the state’s SB 1070, the “show me your papers” law.
The new effort could have the same impact it did in Arizona. The 2010 Arizona law required local police to ask for the immigration status of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. For some officers, particularly Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies, that meant “brown” people. It’s called racial profiling.
Sure, immigration agents could judiciously target specific undocumented immigrants but we know Trump’s goal is to deport as many as quickly as possible. That gives the agents license to racial profile people regardless of the immigration status.
U.S. citizens or even legal residents don’t carry proof of it. But Trump’s new rule puts the burden on individuals and who’s likely to be targeted?
“This is a national ‘show me your papers’ law,” Royce Murray, managing director of the American Immigration Council, told the New York Times. “The burden is on the individual to prove that expedited removal does not apply to them.”
She added: “So if you don’t have the necessary paperwork on you — to show that you have a lease, or that you have status — then you could be taken into custody to try to fight this. And the problem is that this is a fast-tracked process.”
This isn’t going to end well because it only adds fuel to the fire over illegal immigration and Trump’s attacks on nonwhites in an already divided nation.
Let’s be clear. Trump doesn’t just want to stop asylum seekers at any cost and deport everyone who are in the country illegally. He wants a white America. What’s the word for that?
Don’t forget this is the president who wants immigrants from Norway. This is the president who told nonwhite Congresswomen – all U.S. citizens – “to go back to where they came from.” And this is the same president who stood silent, staring back at a crowd of his supporters chanting “send her back,” referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who was born in Somalia.
If Trump can attack influential lawmakers, what would stop his federal agents from going after ordinary “brown” people regardless of immigration status under the new rules?
U.S. citizens and those with legal status have nothing to worry about, right? Sure, but Trump’s ire is with dark-skin immigrants crossing the U.S. Mexico border – many of them asylum seekers from Central America.
By default, anyone with dark-skin could be suspected of being in the country illegally – that’s called racial profiling. Let’s hope the ACLU blocks Trump in court. Otherwise, the “show me your papers” law will further intensify racial tensions across the country.