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Arizona Bill Forces Officers to Determine Immigration Status

HeadlineApr 14, 2010

In Arizona, state lawmakers have approved what’s being described as the harshest anti-immigrant measure in the United States. On Tuesday, the Arizona House of Representatives voted to force police officers to determine the immigration status of someone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. The state Senate passed a similar measure earlier this year, and Republican Governor Jan Brewer is expected to sign it into law. At a rally outside the state legislature, Phoenix-based employment attorney David Selden said the measure will increase racial profiling.

David Selden: “The policeman on the street is placed in an unacceptable position of, in every encounter that they have with a citizen, having to try to enforce immigration laws in that context and question persons based upon a reasonable suspicion of what that person’s immigration status might be. And what that means, really, is basically it will be the public policy and law of Arizona to encourage racial profiling.”

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