SB1070 Update: pro SB1070 forces relish making schools immigration enforcers

by David Safier

I'm a bit late writing about this article from the Capitol Times. It's the most thorough I've seen on schools, police officers and SB1070.

The bottom line is, an officer is an officer is an officer whether at school, on the street or on the highway. If a student is stopped, detained or arrested at school and the officer has reasonable suspicion the student is undocumented, it's Show Me Your Papers time.

How rigid or flexible should school officers be in enforcement of the law? Good question. They're getting absolutely no guidance.

[T]he Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training board, which was tasked with establishing S1070 training guidelines for police agencies across the state, has no plans to clarify the roles of school resource officers.

It's up to each school district to decide how to deal with the law — except that the schools have no direct relation to the law, since it's only police officers, not school district employees, who will enforce it.

As a retired teacher, I know this law will hang like a cloud over schools with Hispanic students. The article discusses a few of the problems. For one, it means officers who do their job best by gaining the trust of the students will be viewed by students with fear and suspicion.

Sgt. Jeff Young, who oversees all of the school resource officers in Phoenix, said they are not at school to investigate students as criminals. Their role is to develop positive community relationships, so crime can be prevented instead of investigated, he said.

“The one thing we definitely do not want to have is the kids afraid of us,” Young said. “Our SROs consider the students and staff as family.”

And anyone who thinks this only affects undocumented students and their families doesn't understand the psychology of second class citizenship. When the world treats you as if you're guilty of something even when you've done nothing wrong, you internalize the guilt. You become wary of any contact with authority. That creates a negative mindset among the students, and it will mean some people who are documented will be reluctant to send their kids to school.

Don Kerwin, vice president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, said his research has found that both legal and illegal immigrant populations tend to “go underground” when they perceive law enforcement is targeting them.

“The reaction of immigrants has been to stay at home, go underground, not take their kids to school or to go to church – anything to not bring themselves to the attention of the authorities,” Kerwin said. “That’s been consistent.”

The likely results won't be as clean as the "Round 'em up and run 'em out of town" crowd wants people to believe.

[Randy Capps, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute] said the supporters of Arizona’s new law almost always cite the cost of education as a reason to tighten immigration enforcement, but that they rarely consider what would happen if thousands of students are removed from the educational system.

“It’s likely to drive an increase in juvenile crime,” he said. “You might even see an increase in gang activity. They’ll have idle time, and they’ll be resentful of school and law enforcement, and this would build further resentment against authority.”

You mean there could be unintended consequences, like increased crime, which affects all our safety, and added costs due to increased arrests and incarceration? Who could have predicted that?

But here's the thing. Russell Pearce and his anti-immigrant cronies nationwide don't think the idea of enforcing immigration laws in school is a bug; to them, it's a feature. Remember, they want school registration to involve showing proof of legal residence, then they want to charge undocumented students tuition.

How much to they love what will likely happen at school?

“To assume that schools are areas protected from enforcing the law is simply not correct,” said Pearce, a Mesa Republican who worked with FAIR to draft S1070. “If you have a legitimate suspicion that a person is breaking the law, you have to investigate it.”

[snip]

 [I]f S1070 doesn’t scare illegal immigrants out of the school system, [Pearce] said he’ll force them out next year by drafting legislation to deny free public education to students who cannot prove they are U.S. citizens.

“We’ll have less crime and spend less money on supporting law breakers,” Pearce said.

[snip]

[Garrett] Roe, the attorney with FAIR, said the Plyler case poses no problem for the application of the new law because even though district officials and school staff are barred from inquiring about the immigration although status of students, police on school grounds are under no such restrictions.

“The location of the police officer doesn’t have any bearing on the enforcement of laws,” Roe said.

The intention of these haters is to drive undocumented immigrants, and as many other Hispanics as possible, out of Arizona. They really don't care who gets hurt in the process, especially when the pain is mostly limited to people who they consider undesirables.