By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times –
PHOENIX — If I’m traveling with other Latinos in a carpool will I be stopped?
Will you accept my Mexican passport as ID?
If I’m a victim of a crime, should I call the police?
One by one, Phoenix Police Chief Daniel Garcia tried to reassure the questioners gathered at a Phoenix high school, saying repeatedly that people would not be detained without reason under Arizona’s landmark immigration law.
Across the state the law’s “show me your papers” provision upheld by the Supreme Court has created confusion, anxiety, and moved Latinos — both legal and illegal residents — to ask an overriding question: How can you promise we won’t be singled out because of how we look?
The law compels police to ask about the immigration status of people they stop for lawful reasons, if they suspect those people of being illegal immigrants. Garcia and officials say they will apply the law fairly.
But many meeting with the police chief were skeptical. Long after the meeting was over, a group gathered around a police officer and peppered him with more questions about IDs and traffic stops.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a critic of the law, said the text of SB 1070 leaves plenty of room for questions.
“The law itself lacks clarity,” Stanton said Tuesday.
Stanton said Phoenix is prepared to “err on the side of protecting civil rights.” At the same time, it will probably take litigation “to establish the parameters of what is and is not constitutional under 1070.”
Russell Pearce, the former state senator who sponsored the law, said “it’s demeaning to law enforcement to assume they’re out there looking to racially profile.”
On the other hand, he said, “Those that are here illegally should worry. If they’re here illegally, they ought to be arrested.”
At La Campesina, a Spanish-language radio station in Phoenix and other cities, DJs have fielded dozens of calls from worried immigrants since the ruling was announced Monday.
“There are a lot hypotheticals, a lot of ‘what if’ questions,” said Saul Madrid, education manager for the radio network.
Many of those questions revolved around whether driving without a license would lead to deportation. (Answer: It’s not clear.) The radio station brought in local officials and legal experts to respond to inquiries. But satisfactory answers are few and far between.
“The questions that people are asking are questions that the police cannot answer right now,” Madrid said.
SB1070 requires local and state officers to tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they believe someone is in the country illegally. An ICE official — typically over the phone — will verify the person’s immigration status, run a background check and decide whether federal authorities want to get involved.
The Department of Homeland Security only deals with “priority removals” — that is, illegal immigrants who just crossed the border, who have been deported before or who have been convicted of a crime. Department officials said most people stopped will not meet those priorities.
But if someone is a priority removal, ICE will issue a detainer and deport them once they have been released from local custody, officials said.
Lydia Hernandez, president of a local school board, said there is a shared sense among some Latinos that what police call routine traffic stops are really motivated by the type of car one drives, the number of people in the vehicle and yes, whether they have brown skin.
“My routine traffic stop differs from a person in Scottsdale who is not my color,” she said, referring to the well-to-do community northeast of Phoenix. Arizona is 29.6 percent Latino.
After SB 1070 was signed into law two years ago Hugo Sanchez, 24, and his family began advocating for immigrants rights. Sanchez, his parents and two sisters are all illegal immigrants but their anxieties have turned to a sense of empowerment with their activism, he said.
But Monday night, as Sanchez drove home with his mother from the community meeting at Carl Hayden Community High School, it was clear that his mother was fearful.
Maybe you shouldn’t drive as much anymore, she told him. Try to stay home. At least sell your old car and get a new one. A new car is less of a target, she said.
“I just stayed quiet,” Sanchez said Tuesday. “I started thinking, ‘What should I do? What’s next?’”
