Local democracy on ICE: The Arizona laboratory

Abstract

In Phoenix, Arizona, efforts to combine civil immigration and criminal law enforcement have wreaked havoc in the courts and overburdened the local criminal justice system. The grey area between civil and criminal law creates a situation ripe for abuse. The Constitution's protections against arrest without probable cause, indefinite detention, trial without counsel, double jeopardy, and self-incrimination, as well as the statute of limitations, do not apply equally (or in some cases at all) in the civil immigration context. Before the notorious show me your papers law, SB1070, Arizona state law had already denied bail to immigrants for most crimes. Judicial officers who were neutral arbiters in the court's criminal process have become investigators of possible immigration violations. The first state-level trafficking law in US history has been used to target the victims of trafficking, as prosecutors charged them with conspiring to smuggle themselves across the border from Mexico. The overburdened courts and jails have swelled with immigrants who are in no sense a danger to public safety.