New Executive Order by Susana Martinez on Law Enforcement Invites Racial Profiling

By now you've probably heard about Republican Gov. Susana Martinez's latest executive order giving state police the green light to stop and arrest anyone who looks "suspicious" so they can check their immigration status and report it to the feds. Any arrest for any crime, no matter how petty or manufactured, will do. Martinez claims this will protect us from an imagined multitude of criminals who cross the border to ... work and feed their families. I wonder if Susana could provide any statistics on the percentage of people without papers who actually engage in any crime to speak of. I doubt it. Facts just seem to get in the way of most right-wing propaganda. 

Let's face it, there's really no need to issue such an order, other than to foist more fear-based propaganda onto the people -- to scare Americans into thinking we need a creeping, right-wing police state to keep us "safe" and to scare undocumented folks and minorities in general into staying in the shadows like hunted animals. Win-win for a governor who's seeking to make a national name for herself like her patron Sarah Palin has done, and to hell with what happens to New Mexicans in the process. 

The fact of the matter is that -- in the real world -- police can and do ascertain the legal status of those who populate our jails. They have for many years now. Real criminals get checked and reported. But what this order does is offer shelter to the kind of state cops who revel in acting out their bigotry or bullying nature by targeting "suspicious" individuals in order to hound and intimidate them, sometimes just for fun.

This order helps whip up an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. And it gives the bad eggs in state law enforcement more free rein than they already have to single out, follow, stop, scare and arrest people whose looks they don't like -- based on even the most petty or imagined "crimes" -- and demand their papers. And bad eggs certainly DO exist within law enforcement, despite what Susana, Darren White or others may prefer to believe. Even if these bad eggs don't actually end up arresting and checking the papers of folks they target, they can still keep them in a state of fear by looking like they might.

A Damper on Reporting Crime
As a side "benefit," Susana's order will no doubt result in a growing reticence on the part of undocumented people to risk detection and deportation by reporting domestic violence or other crimes they experience or witness -- because they might get arrested by mistake or by design by a law enforcement officer who responds to the call. This includes young folks who would benefit from the Dream Act because -- even though for all intents and purposes they have been raised as loyal Americans and identify as such -- they were brought into the country at a young age by parents without papers. Why put yourself in jeopardy? Better to remain silent and let the real criminals get away with their crimes. This helps nobody except the criminals, no matter what Gov. Martinez claims.

Martinez's order includes language that states, "it is essential that victims of, and witnesses to, crime are able to report those crimes and that they be assured access to our criminal justice system without fear of deportation or other immigration consequences." However, once unleashed, does anyone really believe that some state law enforcement agents won't abuse their increased powers to do just what Martinez's language says will not be done?  The governor's spokesman has also said state police will not ask about the immigration status of motorists stopped for traffic violations such as speeding. Uh huh. Well, it is quite easy to come up with some other minor infraction that will do the trick in making a simple traffic stop into something that justifies an arrest -- and a demand for documents.

Others Weigh In
Yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) strongly condemned Governor Martinez’s order, which also rescinds Governor Richardson’s 2005 order instructing law enforcement to refrain from inquiring into a suspect’s immigration status. 

According to Peter Simonson, ACLU Executive Director, “This executive order invites racial profiling by giving an incentive to police to arrest people who look and sound 'foreign'. New Mexicans should not have to fear that a broken taillight or other pretextual stop will lead to their arrest because of the color of their skin. Gov. Martinez has created an SB 1070-like policy, contradicting her own commitment to keep our state from following in Arizona’s footsteps.”

Today, Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman Javier Gonzales weighed in on the matter by saying, "Arizona here we come. This executive order opens the door to racial profiling in New Mexico and that is never acceptable. Obviously anyone convicted of a crime deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but this executive order does nothing to help police and prosecutors accomplish that goal."

What it does do is give Martinez another splash in the national media and stoke the image she's carefully crafting as a "tough" right-wing operator. Politics before people.

Photo credit: Cropped version of photo by Steve Terrell used under the terms of the Creative Commons.