Quote:
Originally Posted by bungalow
i don't think there is actually any consensus over what power exactly this new law gives to police officers because the wording of the law is sort of ambiguous..it's something like "if while making lawful contact, a law enforcement officer has reasonable suspicion to believe a person is not a lawful citizen he may request proof of citizenship" and of course you are subject to arrest if you can't provide the documentation. what's confusing there is the term "lawful contact" because the wording seems to imply that a police officer, while stopping a person for some unrelated reason, has reasonable suspicion to believe that person is an unlawful citizen he can request proof of citizenship. that's kind of what it reads like anyway, but the term lawful contact is just confusing. and it would be easy to see how, even if that is the intended use of the law, it could be abused to racially profile latinos.
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Ah! Thanks for that. I wasn't aware of that specific wording, however ambiguous it is.
It seems to me that "lawful contact" might be a gray area in situations for pedestrians and police on foot. It's lawful to pass someone by in the street and notice the color of their skin or the language they're speaking and make assumptions about it, so I can only guess that a police officer doing it could use that contact as a means of generating suspicion of illegal status and demand proof of citizenship.
If that's allowed and unquestioned, it stands to reason that there would be a possibility of officers intentionally making false assumptions about legal status as a basis of lawful contact for other intent, such as illegal search and seizure of drugs, weapons, record-checking for warrants, tickets, etc...
I don't think the rights of citizens should even be made available for free violation, much less actually violated. The principle should be looked at from more angles than they're currently viewing.