Masses Have Opinions on Arizona Immigration Law, But No One Has Read It

My best friends, associates at work, Eric Holder, President Obama. These are some of the people who have admitted they have not read SB 1070, now the Arizona Immigration Bill, yet each of them have opinions of whether it is legal, has civil rights issues, the right or wrong thing for the country....

I read the law, first page to last page. It took just 20 minutes. Most of the law is in plain, easily understood English, and most ordinary people can make sense of the verbage.

Not one person who has debated with me on the merits or legality of the law have read the law. I am the only person I know who has read it. And would say this is in particular more embarrassing for my friends and associates. I have politically active friends, well educated friends, including one who is a professor and helps to shape policy. Lastly I am a patrol officer in the Valley of the Sun and have many officer friends who disagree with the law. But no one has read it. Not the politically connected and powerful among them, not the police officers, not my smartest of friends. This is embarrassing because with each of them I listened as they explained why the law is too expensive to enforce, or they said it is not the responsibility of city patrol officers to enforce immigration, there are civil rights issues, it's illegal. All these opinions were argued and others. But not one of them read the law. They could not even quote me a line nor paraphrase any portion of the law. How did they think this is objective, or to quote them fair?

Eric Holder has admitted he has not read it. Article - "Has anyone read it?"

All state laws are enforced by city patrol officers. All officers make judgement calls and look for reasonable suspicion and build their case for probable cause for an arrest. Officers make decisions based on their education, experience and opinions of their squad mates in a round table and maybe with their seargent included in the decision making.

There are rogue cops. They are vetted steadily by problems with their professionalism, performance, complaints by peers, aggression, civil rights violations and sometimes even whether they called someone an asshole. The above problems are investigated by their department, another department, private attorneys, prosecutors, and by their own moral compass. A bad apple will inevitably fall from the bunch.

But all laws are handled by the same officers. Whether they make the right decision or wrong. It is in the best interest of the individual officer to make the correct decisions. They want to stay clear of internal or external investigations and lawsuits. Because they want to keep their jobs.

This immigration law will likely be enforced fairly. When there is a problem, it will be dealt with have no doubt. There are plenty of attorneys, politicians and even other officers who want to make a name for themselves. They want to be the enforcers and get a pat on the back.

In the mean time, most of us patrol officers will do our jobs in good faith and enforce the laws, voting Arizonans, expected of us.