Changes In Arizona Immigration Law Designed To Ease Concerns

A change to Arizona’s new immigration law is designed to ease civil rights concerns.

Arizona legislators now essentially say a law enforcement officer in that state can’t stop a person just because the officer thinks the person is in the United States illegally.

At first, the law stated officers could stop someone as long as “lawful contact” had taken place.

But some feared that was too ambiguous, and could potentially keep crime witnesses from coming forward, because speaking as a witness would constitute lawful contact with an officer.

Last week, legislators approved a few changes in a bill that Arizona’s governor signed, and now officers can only raise the immigration question if they stop someone for another offense.

So if someone’s driving down a roadway – following the speed limit, not breaking any law, even if an Arizona police officer thinks that person might be an undocumented immigrant, the officer can’t make a stop.

But if the officer pulls someone over for speeding, or any other violation, and the officer thinks the violator is an undocumented immigrant, the officer can ask about immigration status.

And there’s another catch.

The original law said officers, “may not solely consider race, color, or national origin” in suspecting someone’s undocumented.

Legislators changed that wording to remove the word “solely”, so the law now says officers can not consider race at all.

But as one local police instructor told us, officers just need reasonable suspicion to make a stop. “Maybe driving too slow, which is not a violation but reasonable suspicion, to find out maybe if (the driver) is ok,” said police instructor Jesus Herrera.