Law Advices and Legal Tips

The world has turned its attention to the State of Arizona (USA), where a new immigration law will promote a general classification of Latino law enforcement purposes according to their racial characteristics. While the Spanish media have condemned this policy, the tone of surprise and indignation in general ignores the fact that what is to happen in Arizona is already the most common and widespread in Spain.
The law provides that Arizona officials have to verify the legal status of an immigrant in the event that there is “reasonable suspicion” that is in the country illegally. It also allows the detention of persons without a warrant provided there is a “probable cause” that are undocumented immigrants.

The most serious is that the law leaves open the possibility that the police is based on external appearance to establish “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause” that will result in that Latinos have to undergo frequent checks of their identity, even if they are U.S. citizens with all their rights.
18 years ago, in Valladolid, Rosalind Williams asked to be identified solely and exclusively because of the color of their skin. When Williams, an African-American, Spanish citizen for over 25 years, asked why it was the only person who had given the high, the agent explained that it was merely following orders: it was assumed that I had to stop people had a look like hers.
Following Williams to take his case to court, the Committee of the UN Human Rights ruled last year that while identity checks can be made in defense of public safety, crime prevention and control of immigration illegal, racial and physical characteristics can not serve as justification for police checks. And the Committee demanded the Spanish Government to take measures to prevent the repetition of discriminatory practices of this nature, something that has not been done to date.
Rosalind Williams’s case is but one example of how racial classification used for law enforcement purposes as an instrument of law enforcement in Spain. In fact, since 2001 the Spanish police had the power to be guided by physical or racial characteristics to determine more or less likely that someone is of Spanish origin and is in the country illegally. A decision of the Constitutional Court gave its assent to this discriminatory practice, arguing that a person “black” was “therefore more likely to be foreign.”
Last year, National Police brigades from various locations in Spain were instructed to in the immigration raids, aimed at focusing on certain nationalities. In response to a January 2010 circular released by the General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders police unions registered their concern at the fact that agents are expected to reach certain quotas for the expulsion of immigrants and to undertake massive controls identification in public places where they thought immigrants were met.
The Government is ready to tackle racial identification for law enforcement purposes only officially giving instructions to all police forces that they can not take into account the race or any other physical characteristics to decide who to stop or who recorded, except that have specific and reliable information on a particular suspect.
In addition, the Ministry of Interior should take in general as pilot initiatives launched in 2008 in Fuenlabrada and Girona. Over a period of six months, police in Fuenlabrada were stopped in the middle of people before, including many minority-less, but increased from 6 to 28% the number of checks that uncovered a crime or other violations .
Finally, the new Equality Act should require security forces to identify and rectify discriminatory patterns regularly, especially in identification checks. It is time for Spain to pay more attention to what is happening within their borders and change its immigration policy towards human rights and constitutional commitments.