Come Hither

Sometimes you have to find out the truth, get past the perception, the expectations.  And all this time I thought Arizona's SB 1070 was about targeting suspected immigrants so they could be locked up and deported. 

The reality is more complex than that, from what I can glean by listening to the Supreme Court's oral arguments this week.  Joint enforcement is not easy.

The way it works is - someone is arrested for some garden-variety infraction - like speeding.  An officer of the law asks that person if they can prove they are here legally.  If not, then they place a phone call to a federal support center.  The support center searches through 8 databases looking for the person.

If they had a legal visa, or green card, or State-Department issued passport, they would be found.  If they are not found, then this call is a notification to the feds.  Hey, we found an illegal, come do something!  Come hither!

If the feds don't do anything, then the state can lock up someone and take action.  The same action the feds would take.

But what if they don't find someone in a federal database, and that person isn't carrying anything to prove they are a citizen?  OK so I have a passport, I'm sure I am in a database someplace.  Also a social security number.  But what if I didn't have a passport.  Or didn't have proof that the SSN number I claim is mine is really mine.

Ah, that becomes, as the Supreme Court justices say, "the citizen problem".  There is no way to prove that the average person is a citizen.  No citizen database.  Just a way to suspect that you aren't one.

So of course the logical solution is to have a citizen database.  For every individual born in this country, and hence a citizen, to be tagged (like my cat, so in case I go off wandering one day due to Alzheimer's, that they can scan my embedded microchip and figure out who I am, and where to return me).  Then every citizen is accountable.  Non-citizens would not have this tag.  That is, until they develop fake microchips..