Show Me Your Papers

Runninghead: “SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS”

“Show Me Your Papers”

Tawana Johnson

LEG 100- Week 4 Assignment

Professor Demetrius T Abraham

21 November 2011

“Show Me Your Papers”

“Governor Nathan Deal signed a Georgia bill HB 87 that authorizes police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops and criminalizes Georgians who interact daily with undocumented individuals (American Civil Liberties Union, 2011). Some individuals felt that this was very unconstitutional and violated people’s rights. The National Immigration Law Center (NILC), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a coalition of other civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit challenging the HB 87 in June 2011.

“The lawsuit charges that Georgia’s law HB 87 is unconstitutional because it unlawfully interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution; authorizes and requires unreasonable seizures and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment; restrict the constitutional right to travel freely throughout the United States; and violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution by unlawfully discriminating against people who hold certain kinds of identity documents” (ACLU, 2011).

Some individuals felt that it was wrong for police officers to pull you over without probable cause and search them. They had the right to just stop a vehicle that had immigrants in it and ask them to prove that they were here legally. Georgia may have some that is not here legally, but how the ones that are here legally supposed to feel about this new law. Regardless if they are here in Georgia legal or not, they are human beings and they have rights just like everyone else.

“Even though the Bill of Rights does not grant foreigners a right of entry into the United States, it does prohibit discrimination based on race and national origin against...