RECLAIMing North Carolina's Sanity

And you though Arizona's "Papers, please" law was bad?  It's got nothing on NC House Bill 786, a bill so blatantly racist it's actually called the Reasonable Enactment of Comprehensive Legislation Addressing Immigration Matters in North Carolina Act...or RECLAIM NC for short. Reclaim from whom?  Why, the Unwashed Brown Horde, of course.  Here's what the bill would do:

Undocumented immigrants who drive would be required to obtain a vertical, status-identifying driver’s licenses, which requires them to admit their unlawful status. Immigrant applicants would also be required to submit fingerprints and to pass a criminal background check. As a result of a requirement in which immigrants must prove that they have lived in North Carolina for a year, seasonal workers would likely not qualify. 

Don't believe me?



How about now?   It's pink with NO LAWFUL STATUS printed on the damn thing.  So any cop that pulls you over for any reason and asks for your license doesn't have to "inquire about your status".  It's printed on the goddamn license in pink letters. 

And after that happens, guess what the cops can do?

The measure also allows for law enforcement officials to have the ability to “securely transport an alien… to a federal facility” potentially without ever having seen a lawyer. It specifies, “a law enforcement agency shall obtain judicial or executive authorization from the Governor before securely transporting an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States to a point of transfer that is outside this State.” 

Straight to ICE you go, because with this license that's a tacit admission of your guilt, you get deported pretty much automatically.  Now who in their right mind is going to get one of these licenses which guarantees deportation?  Nobody.  So under the law, not having a pink license (or any license) gives the cops all the "reasonable suspicion" they need to immediately check your immigration status basically every single time.

Any way you slice it, it turns every traffic stop, license checkpoint, every roadblock into a deportation arrest, and every mile driven into a mile of fear.  That's the point:  to scare undocumented immigrants out of the state with a law that turns every cop in North Carolina into an ICE officer, and it goes much further than Arizona's law, turning it into a lose-lose situation every time you step into a car.

Keep in mind what Arizona immediately did with their law:

The RECLAIM NC Act comes in the wake of a lawsuit against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in which his office has been accused of aggressively targeting and detaining Hispanic drivers. In numerous cases, Arpaio’s office was found to have stopped or harassed Hispanic drivers over minor speeding infractions when other drivers of a different national origin were let go. Along with Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska, North Carolina legislators had initially prohibited the issuance of driver’s licenses to immigrants who qualified under the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted a two-year work authorization for individuals who had graduated from high school. 

It's nothing less than turning cops into actual fascist thugs.  Funny how Republicans are always screaming about Obama's abuses of power, when given a chance to make legislation, Republicans immediately legalize rounding up tens of thousands of people to be dragged away.

Hey NC, ready to vote for Democrats yet?