In 1975, the US Supreme Court approved racial profiling in pullovers (think Arizona SB1070)

[alp227]

I'm reading Michelle Alexander's new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It's an excellent book about the racial biases of the American criminal justice system especially when it comes to the War on Drugs. I found out about the book through Alexander's guest editorial on The Nation (which I posted on DU last month) and her appearance on the recently canceled Bill Moyers Journal. On page 128 of the book I came upon this fascinating Supreme Court case that should be pretty relevant now that the US Justice Department is now reviewing Arizona's recently passed illegal immigration law that lets police arrest anyone who fails to present proof of citizenship when asked.

In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the Court concluded it was permissible under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for the police to use race as a factor in making decisions about which motorists to stop and search. In that case, the Court concluded that the police could take a person's Mexican appearance into account when developing reasonable suspicion that a vehicle may contain undocumented immigrants. The Court said that "the likelihood that any person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor."

Further details of the US v. Brignoni case (1975) at Findlaw.

Notice a similarity to Arizona's SB 1070/Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act? Except this time the bill is written in racially neutral and implicit terms.

For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.

Given that right now there are many constitutional questions floating around about SB1070 I think that the Supreme Court might need to overturn precedent if it wants to knock out 1070. The racial component aside, there are also issues of conflict with the US Constitution's Supremacy Clause as the American Civil Liberties Union contends. I already know that a federal court gagged California's Proposition 187 just 3 days after voters approved it in 1994. Prop 187 would've denied all taxpayer-funded social services to illegal immigrants. In 1997, Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer (a Carter appointee) ruled that Prop 187 was unconstitutional because immigration was "an exclusively federal domain."

SB1070 sponsor Russell Pearce also pointed out that "a state law establishing penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal workers...has been upheld in U.S. District Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals."

Overall a paradox here with SB1070: The Supreme Court has no problem with racial profiling, which critics intend will be a consequence of SB1070, while a state immigration law was overturned as over-reaching the boundaries between state/fed governments.

[sandnsea]

1. This is about the federal border patrol

within 100 miles of the border. It is also specifically about vehicle stops which it does conclude is legal, but not on the basis of race alone.

"The likelihood that any given <422 U.S. 873, 887> person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but standing alone it does not justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens."

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=422&invol=873