The racial frisk: profiling a concern in Utah

Posted on April 24, 2012 by comm5775

By KATIE HARRINGTON

Asher Koles has a thin black mustache, a dark-olive complexion, and a slim build. He often drives his old Subaru Outback across long, open roads to go fishing and camping. His adventures take him to quiet and beautiful lands.

But sometimes, Koles’ adventures on the road are interrupted by the flashing lights and sirens of police cars.

Koles, a 24-year-old Salt Lake City native, said he is one of many people who are profiled by law enforcement for no reason other than the way they look. His most recent experience occurred last summer when he was driving back to Salt Lake City from a two-month trip in the Pacific Northwest.

“Cars were speeding all around me. But I was the one who got pulled over,” Koles said. “The cop walked up, stuck his head in, and started sniffing around. I said, ‘Do you smell something?’ And he wouldn’t leave me alone until I let him search my car,” Koles said.

But the officer found nothing.

“That experience pretty much sealed the deal for my eternal distrust of police officers,” Koles said. “He pulled me over for a bogus reason because my car looked dirty, I looked dirty, and I was an easy target.”

Magaly McMannis, a legal immigrant from Mexico, said she has been profiled countless times as well. A police officer once issued her a traffic ticket that indicated she was of Indian descent, McMannis said.

“I am not Indian,” Mcmannis said. “And even if I was, I don’t know why that is relevant.”

Amid immigration debates and post-9/11 distrust, racial and ethnic profiling of motorists has become a growing concern in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, has dedicated an entire sector of programming to combat issues associated with racial and ethnic profiling, a practice that disproportionally targets people for investigation and enforcement based solely on skin color or ethnic background.

“[There are] clear and significant racial disparities in the way in which motorists are treated once they have been stopped by law enforcement”, said a national report released by the ACLU in 2007.

The report found that blacks and Latinos are three times more likely to be searched by a police officer once they are pulled over. Blacks are twice as likely to be arrested and four times as likely to be threatened by, or to be victims of the use of force by a police officer.

“While the Department of Justice says that the higher rate of searches of blacks and Hispanics is not necessarily the result of racial bias, it begs a critical question: why are blacks and Hispanics subject to searches disproportionately?” said Dennis Parker, the director for ACLU’s national Racial Justice Project. “It’s a question that needs to be answered.”

In the last seven years, the federal government has transferred substantial responsibility for the enforcement of civil immigration laws to the state and local level, according to a national ACLU report in 2009.

Perhaps the most infamous among recent state laws to address immigration is the 287 (g) program, which allows designated officers in various state and local agencies to perform immigration law enforcement functions that would have otherwise been performed by federal government officials.

The 2009 ACLU report said that the program has been criticized for allowing and encouraging the illegal racial and ethnic profiling and harassment of both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

But Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said he will not tolerate racial and ethnic profiling in his police department.

In the 2010 U.S. Census, 22.5 percent of the population in Salt Lake City was documented as Latino and that number was nearly 31 percent in the school system, Burbank said.

“To alienate one-third of the population in Salt Lake City is ridiculous,” Burbank said. “We need the interaction and involvement of everybody.”

Burbank said he is setting the tone for his team of officers so that this problem does not take hold in his department.

“I am a very effective arm of oppression,” Burbank said. “Profiling is wrong. It is my responsibility to not allow this to happen.”

But McMannis said she has simply learned to accept the way she is perceived by certain people in the community.

“People do look at me and it does feel weird,” McMannis said. “But I have learned to not care because it is what it is, I am who I am. My dream as a girl was to live the United States, and my dream came true. That’s what is important.”

Filed under: Hispanics & Latinos(as), Immigrants & Refugees, Law and Justice, Politics | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

HB 497: The long arm of the law overstretched

Posted on March 29, 2012 by comm5775

by BILLY YANG

The Salt Lake City Police Chief spoke to a group of students at the University of Utah about topics ranging from gangs to his stance on HB 497, a harsh anti-immigration bill he views as ripe for encouraging the practice of racial profiling.

Chris Burbank, 46, has been a vocal opponent of Utah’s house bill since the Legislature passed it in 2011. On the same day that he spoke at the U, The Salt Lake Tribune published an op-ed piece written by Burbank titled, “‘Papers-please’ law would harm all Utahns.”

“I don’t believe officers should be cross-deputized [as immigration agents],” Burbank said. “It’s not our role.”

HB497 hasn’t yet gone into effect because its constitutionality has been challenged by the United States. The measure essentially allows local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of any individual they deem to be “reasonably suspicious.”

The broad language in the bill has been the source of concerns from Burbank and the Utah Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

A pamphlet distributed by the ACLU of Utah called FAQ 497 reads:

How does HB 497 cause racial profiling?

The “reasonable suspicion” language of the law will allow and invite law officers to second-guess a person’s immigration status based on stereotypes, i.e., race, ethnicity, or accent. Demanding “papers” based on a person’s appearance is not “reasonable” and is not constitutional.

The law forces officers to push bias into their work, Burbank said.

During his presentation at the U, Burbank used students from the audience to illustrate how laws like HB 497 could impact minorities.

Burbank’s lined up two Caucasians, an African-American, an Asian-American and a Mexican-American. He then asked the rest of the students who among the lineup were the most likely to be questioned about their nationality.

Before the audience could speak up, Burbank grabbed the Mexican-American and Asian-American students and asked them to prove they are citizens of the United States.

“I won’t allow my officers to be engaged in those kinds of behaviors. I don’t care what the laws are that they’re trying to put into place,” Burbank said.

His stance on immigration enforcement has ruffled more than a few feathers among lawmakers. Some have even gone so far as nicknaming Salt Lake City, “Sanctuary Burbank.”

“They’re wrong and inject bias into what we do. And so that’s why I stood up and said, ‘hey, not going to do it,’” Burbank said. “And I will continue to fight that fight.”

Peter Vu, a second generation Vietnamese-American born and raised in Orem, said that if such stringent immigration laws were to take effect in his home state, he worries his parents would be targeted by police officers.

“I mean, they’re naturalized citizens and everything. I don’t think they should have to go around carrying papers to prove that,” Vu said.

Vu, who worked at a grocery store in Salt Lake City that catered to the Asian community, said he thinks there are better ways to curb illegal immigration than what’s been proposed in HB 497.

At a bakery in Draper, Vu discussed the Utah Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act with his co-worker, Joe Fleming. Fleming is a transplant from Arizona, a state that passed the equally controversial SB 1070 in 2010. Utah, in fact, modeled its legislation after the Arizona statute.

Fleming’s father is Caucasian and his mother is of Mexican descent. While he worries about his mother being racially profiled by police in Arizona, Fleming also sees the need to bolster immigration enforcement.

“I understand where they’re coming from but what’s out there now probably isn’t the right way,” Fleming said.

In southern Arizona, where Fleming grew up on a large plot of land, he and his family had to deal with migrants using their property as a pit stop.

“We would always find trash and stuff at the spots where they camped,” Fleming said. “My sister was afraid to go out to the barn by herself at night.”

At the end of their conversation, both Fleming and Vu agreed that something has to be done to shore up the borders, but allowing police officers to ask people for proof of citizenship when there’s a “reasonable suspicion” is not the answer.

They both echoed Burbank’s sentiment.

“These are ridiculous laws and this is exactly what it is,” Burbank said.

Filed under: Law and Justice | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

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