HILLARY CLINTON RAISES OBJECTIONS TO ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW.

by Frank Marafiote
5/2/2010

On Meet the Press, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Arizona's new immigration law. Hillary raised several potential problems with the law and said that as currently written it promotes racial profiling.

Here is the transcript of her exchange with host David Gregory:

QUESTION: Another area that has become a domestic political debate over immigration has also taken on some international ramifications. Mexico, because of the law – the stringent law against – the anti-immigration law passed in Arizona, has issued a pretty unusual alert to its own citizens traveling to Arizona. I’ll put it up on the screen. This is the alert – a travel alert over Arizona immigration law. This is how the USA Today reported it on Wednesday: “The country warned that the state’s adoption of a strict immigration enforcement law has created ‘a negative political environment from migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors.’ ‘It must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time,’ according to the foreign ministry.”

The president, President Calderon, with whom you will meet soon, has talked about criminalizing – this law criminalizes a largely social and economic phenomenon of migration. This is a pretty big shot across the bow to America here.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it is. And I think if you look at it, again, you have a lot of unanswered questions. This law, which is clearly a result of the frustration that people in Arizona and their elected officials feel about the difficulty of enforcing the law along our border and preventing the continued immigration of people who are not documented, but on the other hand, it is written so broadly that if you were visiting in Arizona and you had an accent and you were a citizen from my state of New York, you could be subjected to the kind of inquiry this law permits.

QUESTION: Do you think it invites profiling, racial profiling?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, because clearly, as I understand the way the law is being explained, if you’re a legal resident, you still have to carry papers. Well, how is a law enforcement official supposed to know? So, again, we have to try to balance the very legitimate concerns that Americans – not just people in Arizona but across the country have about safe and secure borders, about trying to have comprehensive immigration reform, with a law that I think does what a state doesn't have the authority to do, try to impose their own immigration law that is really the province of the federal government.

QUESTION: That is important. Do you think this law will not stand up legally?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t want to offer a legal opinion. I think I’ll leave that to the Justice Department. But I know the Attorney General of Arizona has raised questions about the legality. And you’re right; we have a visit from President Calderon coming up, a state visit. He’s a very important partner to us on trying to stop illegal activity along our border – the importation of drugs, of arms, of human beings – all of the crime that that’s associated with. And we believe that he has really done the best he can under very difficult circumstances to get this under control. We don’t want to make his life any harder either. We want to try to support him in what has been a courageous campaign against the drug traffickers.