I hope Rob Miller and I can at least agree that immigration is a big problem in Arizona. The federal government estimates that Arizona has one of the fastest growing illegal immigrant populations in the country, increasing from 330,000 in 2000 to 560,000 by 2008. Twenty-two percent of felonies in Maricopa County are committed by illegal immigrants, who comprise only 10 percent of the county’s adult population. Illegal immigrants also represented a higher rate in the state’s prison population. Seventeen percent of those arrested at the border in Tucson already have criminal records.

In addition, illegal immigrants occupy 12 percent of the available jobs in Arizona during this recession. While the state’s budget is more than crunched, illegal immigrants and their children comprise 20 percent of the population living in poverty, 33 percent of those without health insurance, and 17 percent of the state’s school population. One-third of households headed by illegal immigrants in Arizona use welfare such as food-assistance programs or Medicaid.

The controversial new law (SB 1070) is extremely popular among Arizona voters, with 70 percent approving of the bill while only 23 percent oppose it. SB 1070 mirrors federal law, which already requires noncitizens to register and carry documentation with them. The new law simply states that violating an already existing federal law is now a state crime as well. Since illegal immigrants are by definition in violation of federal law, they can be arrested by police in Arizona.

Many liberals have characterized Arizona’s law as “unconstitutional.” SB 1070, however, is designed to avoid the legal pitfall of “pre-emption,” which means a state cannot adopt laws that conflict with federal laws. By making what is a federal violation also a state violation, Arizona appears to have side-stepped that problem. The new law only allows police to ask about immigration status in the normal course of “lawful contact” with a person, such as a traffic stop or if they have committed a crime. Since more than 80 percent of illegal immigrants come from Latin America, there is obviously a concern that the police may target only Hispanics for enforcement. The law specifically states that police, “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” when implementing SB 1070. The state is already providing local police with additional training on what does and what does not constitute “reasonable suspicion.”

But before asking a person about immigration status, police are legally required to have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an illegal immigrant. The concept of “reasonable suspicion” has already been well established by the courts. For example, having a valid license creates a presumption of legal status since Arizona does not issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Other examples of reasonable suspicion include observing someone buying fraudulent identity documents or crossing the border illegally, or recognizing a known gang member who has been previously deported.