Ignorant and irresponsible objections to Arizona law

My friend Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, says that requiring identification of aliens recalls the dark nightmares of Nazis demanding “where are your papers?” Really? The requirement that non-citizens carry valid identification of legal presence in the U.S. is not a new one imposed by the Arizona statute; it is a long-established federal requirement. It is no more onerous than the requirement to show a driver’s license when stopped by the police while operating a motor vehicle. It is nonsensical for Gerson to suggest “the distinctly American response to such a request would be ‘Go to hell,’ and then ‘See you in court.’” Is that what he would say if stopped by the police and asked to produce a driver’s license? He would be more likely to wind up in jail than the officer would be to wind up in hell as a result of that snappy exchange. Why would the Washington Post print such hokum?

The reason that the Arizona law does not take effect for 90 days after its passage is so that legitimate tests of its constitutionality may be debated prior to the law’s effective date. The concept of concurrent liability for the same crime at both state and federal levels deserves to be examined closely, but the way that the news media have misrepresented the law in their treatment of the statute to date has been so egregious that the public debate is almost wholly irrelevant to those legal tests. This kind of shameful irresponsibility by some of the most prestigious members of the journalistic profession will only contribute to further declines in the public’s trust in the media, and contribute not at all to educating the public on a matter of grave importance.

Colin Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring.