Despite all the protestations from the xenophobic Right, it really isn't about secure borders.
Florida state Rep. William Snyder, the slow-drawling ex-Miami-Dade Police officer who has drafted Tallahassee's version of the hotly debated Arizona immigration bill, is adamant that his law would not lead to racial profiling [...]
So why does his bill explicitly offer a free pass to Canadians and Western Europeans, who need only show a passport to be "presumed to be legally in the United States"?
"That language makes it clear that police are targeting only a specific minority," says Susana Barciela, policy director at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center [...]
What few observers seem to have noticed, though, is a bizarre clause Snyder included on page 3. Even if an officer has "reasonable suspicions" over a person's immigration status, the bill says, a person will be "presumed to be legally in the United States" if he or she provides "a Canadian passport" or a passport from any "visa waiver country."
What are the visa waiver countries? Other than four Asian nations, all 32 other countries are in Western Europe, from France to Germany to Luxembourg.
In other words, Snyder's bill tells police to drop their "reasonable suspicions" of anyone hailing from dozens of countries full of white people. How is that not racial profiling?
Pushed on the bizarre language, its bigoted sponsor claimed he was being sensitive to Canadians who vacationed in Florida, calling it "comfort language". According to 2009 tourism stats (PDF), 1.2 million Canadians visited Florida -- by far the largest international contingent. But Caribbean, Central American, South American, and Mexican tourists accounted for another half a million visitors. But those are brown, hence are owed no "comfort".
Just another day in our post-racial America.