Immigration, "Reasonable Suspicion" and the Supreme Court

The African World

Immigration, "Reasonable Suspicion" and the Supreme Court

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. 
BC Editorial Board

The Black Commentator
June 28, 2012

http://www.blackcommentator.com/478/478_aw_immigration_cover_share.html

The Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v United States will
be studied for weeks to come. While the Supreme Court threw
out key elements of Arizona's anti-immigrant statute, what
they permitted was the right of the police to investigate the
immigration status of individuals who have been stopped if
they - the police - have reasonable suspicion regarding that
individual's immigration status.

What is "reasonable suspicion"? This is where race, and I mean
that in the broadest political sense of the term, always
enters the picture. Is "reasonable suspicion" something that
is based on accent? If so, does that mean that any accent can
lead to an investigation of someone's immigration status?
Let's think for a moment about this. Does the Supreme Court
mean that if an individual has a heavy Russian accent that
that justifies an investigation? Or is it only certain
accents, such as Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, French, Chinese,
or Tagalog? Or is it some combination of accent and skin
color? So, a "white" person speaking French is OK but someone
of a darker complexion speaking French is a suspect?

"Reasonable suspicion" is not a value neutral term

I hate to break it to the Supreme Court but this is a hell of
a slippery slope. "Reasonable suspicion", particularly in a
country with the racial history of the USA, will inevitably
mean that people of color will be subject to investigation,
irrespective of whether their ancestors have been here for
300+ years. White authorities, but not just white authorities,
imbued with the intense suspicion of immigrants from south of
the border will certainly find any number of reasons to be
suspicious as to the status of someone taken into custody or
stopped for some other matter. Will it also be a question of
how one dresses? So, someone of African descent wearing a kufi
(a hat often worn by Muslims), is possibly an undocumented
immigrant? Maybe a terrorist to boot?

"Reasonable suspicion" is not a value neutral term. It never
has been. I once overheard some law enforcement officers
discussing so-called "illegal aliens." One of them complained
about the "illegal aliens" he saw on a regular basis when they
were on their way to work. This officer never stopped to
explain how he knew that these individuals were so- called
"illegals." Instead, he made the statement and the other
officers acted as if it was obvious that he knew what he was
talking about. Yet I kept wondering how this officer would
handle walking through any number of restaurants on the East
Coast of the USA where they would encounter staff from Eastern
Europe. Could this officer detect whether these individuals
were so-called "illegals" or did his "smell" test only work
with Latino immigrants?

Is "reasonable suspicion" some combination of accent and skin
color?

While the Court struck down important provisions of the
Arizona law, they simply did not go far enough. It is up to
the rest of us to make sure that the Arizona law is never
repeated and that anything even approximating a "reasonable
suspicion" standard is cast off into history rather than
remaining a racial shackle around our collective, colored
necks.

[BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist,
Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for
Policy Studies, the immediate past president of
TransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The
Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice
(University of California Press), which examines the crisis of
organized labor in the USA.]

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