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The settlement instructs police officers to ignore the provision in SB 1070 that requires them to investigate a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally.
Unfortunately, SB 1070 became a model for other states where people were worried about illegal immigration, including Alabama, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina, and Indiana. It also inspired introduction of similar bills in 18 other states.
On the other hand, it also energized immigrants’ rights groups to challenge that legislation. The activists fighting SB 1070 felt that provisions of the law, especially the part that required police to ask for immigration papers if they felt that someone was in the country illegally, would lead to racial profiling. They were afraid that routine traffic stops would turn into legal quagmires for Latinos who are in the U.S. legally or even born in the state.
While SB 1070 still exists, and police can, if they feel it relevant, still ask for papers, they are not required to do so, and are expressly instructed not to do so if it would in any way extend a traffic stop or interfere with an investigation. A police officer now can no longer pull over a Latino for speeding and make him prove that he isn’t an illegal immigrant.
“For the very first time since May 2010, there will be clarity to every law enforcement officer in the state that the only way to follow SB 1070 is to make sure no one is detained on their immigration status alone,” says Karen Tumlin, legal director of the National Immigrant Law Center, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
This was the last provision of SB 1070 that really had any “teeth,” and with its modification, it illustrates a larger movement across the country to think of immigration in a less negative light. There may be support from a vocal minority for denying immigrants entry, but the trend seems to be away from fears of illegal immigration and toward helping immigrants become citizens.
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