User:Ayoalexis/sandbox

Urban Communities
Inner city residents of Latino communities are subjected to racial profiling because of theories such as the “gang suppression model”. The “gang suppression model” is often the basis for increased policing because the theory is based on the idea that Latinos are violent and out of control and therefore “in need of suppression”. Based on research, the criminalization of a people can lead to abuses of power on behalf of law enforcement. On some occasions immigration authorities are known to target the residents of barrios with the use of violent and discriminatory policing based on racial profiling practices. There has been research done through random sampling in the South Tucson, Arizona area where this is the case. Immigration raids are often carried out at places of gathering and cultural expression such as grocery stores based on the fluency of language of a person (e.g. being bilingual especially in Spanish) and skin color of a person. Often the immigration raids are done with a disregard to due-process. These raids lead people from these communities to distrust law enforcement and not see them as a source of security and justice.

Legality
It is clear that the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race, but the racial profiling of the Islamic community continues and has grown since 9/11. As Samuel Gross and Debra Livingston argue, since September 11, the meaning of racial profiling changed and “is more likely to mean security checks or federal investigations that target Muslim men from Middle Eastern countries, in order to try to catch terrorist.” They also claim that there has been an increase in support for racial profiling. Before the attacks, more than 80% of Americans were against racial profiling and now more than 60% are in favor. This means more support for the USA Patriot Act of 2001 which “has undermined many of the fundamental constitutional rights of Arab and South Asian Americans." The Patriot Act used terrorism and national security as an excuse to make it legal to target Muslim communities.

Since the attacks of 9/11, the word terrorist has been associated with Muslim, and the Patriot Act was made to stop “terrorists” from harming the US. Because of the Patriot Act, “Arabs, Arab Americans and Muslims were disproportionately subjected to a myriad of abuses including secret evidence, denial of due process, indefinite detentions, airline profiling, illegal wiretapping and surveillance." The FBI and INS have arrested more than a thousand noncitizens which mostly happened to be Arab and/or Muslim even though they had no reason to arrest them.

In Practice
The attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th has led to targeting of Muslims in the United States as potential terrorists. Muslims and other Middle Easterners are profiled as potential terrorist and are targeted by the national government through preventive measures similar to those practiced by local law enforcement. The national government has passed laws, such as the Patriot Act of 2001, to increase surveillance of potential threats to national threat as a result of the events that occurred during 9/11. It is argued that the passage of these laws and provisions by the national government leads to justification of preventative methods, such as racial profiling, that has been controversial for racial profiling and leads to further minority distrust in the national government. One of the techniques used by the FBI to target Muslims was monitoring 100 mosques and business in Washington DC and threatened to deport Muslims who did not agree to serve as informers. The FBI denied to be taking part of blanket profiling and argued that they were trying to build trust within the Muslim community.

The events of 9/11 also led to restrictions on immigration laws. The government imposed stricter immigration quotas to maintain national security at their national borders. In 2002, Males over sixteen years old who entered the country from twenty-five Middle Eastern countries and North Korea were required to be photographed, fingerprinted, interviewed and have their financial information copied, and had to register again before leaving the country.

SB 1070
In April 2010, Arizona enacted a law that would require law-enforcement officers to verify the citizenship of individuals they stop if they have reasonable suspicion. SB1070 was a way to help maintain control of immigration problems facing the United States. The law specifically states that “Any person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status determined before the person is released”. United States federal law requires that all aliens who remain in the United States for more than 30 days are to register with the U.S. government and to have all registration documents with them at all time. Arizona made it a misdemeanor crime for an alien 14 years of age and older to be found without carrying these documents at all times. Critics of this policy have questioned “what will the statute's effect on those who are legal residents of the United States?” A concern from this is that law-enforcement officials may not consider “race, color, or national origin” in the enforcement of the law, except under the circumstances allowed under the United States and Arizona constitutions. The Arizona Senate Bill 1070 has effect the Latino and Arab or Middle Eastern communities are the most affected due to certain preconceptions, beliefs and stereotypes.

History of Policies
Threatened homeland security has been a constant reason to enact policies that permit racial profiling over the years. The history of racial profiling has roots established as early as the beginning of Japanese Interment and in many Supreme Court Cases such as the Terry v. Ohio in 1968. This case gave police officers the agency to stop suspects without probable cause to conduct searches and seizures without violating the Fourth Amendment. The connection of immigrant communities becoming racially profiled as a result of such policies have more recently developed in the passage of policies like the Patriot Act in 2001 and SB1070 in 2010.

Post 9/11, the racial profiling of the Muslim community has occurred under the guise of the Patriot Act passed in order to ensure homeland security. Border security issues gave rise to the passage of propositions 187 in 1994 and proposition 227 in 1998 (Department of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside). After the passage of SB1070, Mexican immigrant communities in Arizona have been targeted through the practice of racial profiling. Thinking of the notions homeland security and what it means to be an illegal alien creates a dialogue towards understanding why policies have been enacted to target immigrant communities of color for many years in the United States.