Arizona law claims and facts

For the North County Times

Before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued her executive order requiring law enforcement officers to be trained to avoid racial profiling, Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, explained in a nationally televised interview how police could enforce Arizona's new immigration law without such training.

"They will look at the kind of dress you wear," he told Chris Mathews, "There's different type of attire, right down to the shoes."

North County Times political cartoon freelancer John Webster depicted our 50th District representative in oversized clown shoes, asking a cop writing him a ticket how he could tell he was a congressman.

Bilbray has yet to disavow shoe-style profiling, but in an apparent attempt to gain gravitas after his interview went viral on YouTube, Bilbray wrote an opinion piece for this newspaper ("Arizona law result of federal failures," May 9).

Here's a fact check:

Claim: Growing threats to its economic security and public safety forced Arizona to take action.

Fact: The year before the law was enacted Homeland Security and the FBI reported an 18 percent decline in the state's illegal immigrants, a 9 percent drop in violent crime and 6 percent fewer burglaries. That suggests the new law is more about politics than public well-being.

Claim: Arizona is simply enforcing federal law.

Fact: A half-truth. Section 287g of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes Homeland Security to sign agreements with state law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws only if designated officers are trained and supervised by federal immigration and customs officers.

Placing training and supervision in the hands of local law enforcement agencies gives the green light to rogue sheriffs such as Maricopa County's Joe Arpaio, who has come under federal investigation for alleged civil rights violations.

Claim: Requiring employers to use E-verify will stop the hiring of illegal workers.

Fact: A recent study by a research company hired by Homeland Security to evaluate the program showed E-verify failed to catch more than half of the unauthorized workers it checks.

Claim: Immigration reform has been hindered by "radical, pro-amnesty partisan lawmakers."

Fact: Requiring illegal immigrants to pay a fine, undergo criminal background checks, learn English and go to the back of the line to apply for permanent residency is not amnesty. The only president favoring amnesty in the last 25 years was Ronald Reagan, signing the 1986 law that allowed border crashers who had lived in the U.S. continuously up until 1982 to be legal residents with no financial penalty and few questions asked.

Our previous 50th District representative is in prison. The incumbent's bizarre national interview, attracting more than 44,000 YouTube views and counting, may have his constituents wondering if, as Webster's cartoon suggests, they've exchanged a crook for a clown.