Sunburn74
Diamond Member
- Oct 5, 2009
- 5,022
- 2,590
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Break a law and can not prove who you are.
Spend the night in the pokey.
Do not break the law - no one is asking for ID
What is the issue here?
The asking for ID will not need someone to break the law. Cops can stop anyone for any reason. They can stop you for "appearing to be drunk" or "appearing to loiter" and then follow through with whatever investigation they want. You weren't breaking the law, but they cite those things as excuses to harass and search an individual to see what they can drum up based on the color of that person's skin. Currently, its common practice for cops to make up a reason to stop black males in vehicles, to search it, and see if the individual has a warrant. As a citizen, there is very little recourse to this sort of practice.
This law essentially extends that practice to illegal immigrants and individuals who resemble them. When you understand that cops are under pressure to make arrests and write tickets, even if those arrests are faulty and the tickets are without claim, certainly you see how this law gives them new powers to abuse. They essentially can stop and arrest anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant (because its very very easy to make up reasons to stop an individual even if there is absolutely no credibility behind them), until they provide proof they are not. You can argue about the semantics of the law, about how cops will be fine upstanding citizens who want to get to the truth and will try to protect american citizens from harm, but that is far from the truth. Cops obviously don't treat all citizens as equal (again look at the harrassment black males face despite being citizens). The bottom line of the law is this: look like an illegal immigrant, don't carry ID, you'll get arrested until everything is sorted out (even if you are fine upstanding citizen with the same rights as white Americans).
*http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-02-23/news/31093008_1_cop-claims-quotas-42nd-precinct
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