An interesting e-mail has surfaced.
Arizona did amend the new "harrass the brown people" law to change "lawful contact" to "lawful stop, detention or arrest." The amendment also requires officers responding to city ordinance violations to inquire about immigration status, again if they have "reasonable suspicion".
The Center for American Progress recently obtained an e-mail sent by Kris Kobach, the lawyer for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the group that claims it drafted the bill, to Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who was its sponsor (you know - the guy who's fond of hanging out with white supremacists?) The e-mail was sent as the Legislature prepared the amendment to the law that was signed by Gov. Brewer. Kobach wrote:
When we drop out "lawful contact" and replace it with "a stop, detention, or rest, in the enforcement a violation of any title or section of the Arizona code" we need to add "or any county or municipal ordinance." This will allow police to use violations of property codes (ie, cars on blocks in the yard) or rental codes (too many occupants of a rental accommodation) to initiate queries as well.
What Kobach dictated to Pearce was a recommendation to broaden the scope of police power to maximize the probability of racial profiling. The fact the law allows cops to simply find a reason to stop someone when they want to stop someone, probably held true for Arizona before the bill's new amendment. It certainly still does after. What Kobach revealed in this e-mail is that questioning people with brown skin under essentially trumped-up pretexts isn't just a bug or a loophole in the law. The legislation doesn't accidentally risk the possibility of a campaign of harassment. It builds it in. It's what it was written to do.
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