Immigration case: Winners and losers

An intense national debate has heated up around the U.S. Supreme Court hearings on Arizona Senate Bill 1070, and Minnesotans would be wise to pay close attention. Our state has experienced a marked increase in immigration in the last two decades.

As a result, our demographics look much more diverse -- and "look" is the operative word, since the Supreme Court will be deciding whether local law enforcement has the independent authority to act on the appearance of illegal immigration to make arrests of individuals, with potentially dire consequences for our community.

Of particular concern: Under the Arizona bill, once a person comes into contact with law enforcement (for any reason, including placing a domestic violence call or a routine traffic stop), their immigration status can be checked if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are undocumented.

Further, the law permits an arrest -- without a warrant -- if there is "probable cause" they have committed an immigration offense. Hearings on Arizona's bill took place this month, and it appears the high court may uphold this part of the law.

The Associated Press has reported that Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski would consider introducing an immigration bill modeled on Arizona's. With the potential expanded legalization of racial profiling, it is time to ask: Just what does an immigrant in Minnesota look like?

Like the issue of immigration itself, the migration of foreign-born nationals into our state is complex. According the state demographer's office, immigration cannot be significantly linked to a single region or nationality.

The majority of immigrants come from Africa, Canada, China, Mexico, Russia and Vietnam. Further, according to the Minnesota Department of Administration, our state ranks second in the nation for the number of refugee arrivals, with an additional population of asylum-seekers.

Instead, Minnesotans may want to direct their gaze toward who stands to benefit from an increased numbers of detained individuals. This is an easy profile to establish.

The private prison industry has made billions of dollars by detaining people suspected of illegal immigration under the authority of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The majority of these people have no criminal record.

Nearly 2.5 million individuals have passed through private detention facilities nationally since 2003 while awaiting immigration hearings. The Detention Watch Network has reported that in the last five years the annual number of people detained, and the costs to detain them, have doubled, costing taxpayers $1.7 billion annually.

Ironically, one of the plaintiffs in the Arizona case is ICE. Because the agency has its own complicated history of racial profiling, its primary concerns with Arizona's bill rest over the authority to decide how and when people are arrested for immigration violations.

ICE is plagued by an excessive number of documented human-rights violations, from the point of arrest to within private detention facilities.

Reports of illegal arrests and detention of citizens or immigrants living within our borders legally also are on the rise.

People living within Minnesota are not immune.

Take the case of Anthony Clarke, a Minnesota resident and U.S. citizen who is seeking $1 million in damages after ICE forced its way into his family's home and arrested him in 2008. Although documents in Clarke's file show that immigration agents were aware of his U.S. citizenship the day they arrested him, he was still illegally detained for 43 days.

As Arizona and ICE bicker in our high courts over who is in charge of arresting people who have not committed crimes, it remains up to the citizenry to question the real issue at hand. Do we really want an immigration system that racially profiles individuals, violates their human rights, and costs upwards of $2.75 billion each year, most of which is turned into profits for the private prison industry?

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