Much of the debate currently raging over Arizona’s new law, which directs law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of people who have been legally stopped, misses the point.

Opponents fear the law will become an excuse to terrorize Hispanics, who will be constantly challenged to prove they are here legally. They believe police officers will use the law as an opportunity to make life miserable for illegal residents in hopes they will pick up and go back home.

But where is the evidence for that?

Police officers are subject to closer review and scrutiny than any other public safety professional. Integrity and professionalism are their core values. Those who say we can’t trust our police to follow the law are basically saying we can’t trust our police – and we take issue with that.

Setting aside the inevitable tiny minority of bad apples found in any line of work, police officers in the United States are honest public officials deeply dedicated to not just enforcing, but obeying the law as they do their jobs.

While we are not taking a political position on the Arizona law, the fact is that it limits officers’ immigration status queries to people who have been legally stopped for some other reason. Even then, officers must have and be able to articulate in a written report the basis for a reasonable suspicion that the person is unlawfully present in the United States. This isn’t the pretext for a police state and it isn’t setting people up to be questioned while they are at an ice cream stand with their kids. It’s simply providing local and state police officers with the same kind of investigative discretion currently available to federal law enforcement officers.

Just like in Los Angeles under Special Order 40, illegal aliens who are otherwise law abiding residents should not fear the police. And just like Los Angeles, we think that everyone agrees that removing illegal aliens, who perpetrate crimes in our country, will make us all safer.

We are supportive of an honest public debate on the Arizona law, but let’s not make police officers’ ability or trustworthiness to constitutionally enforce the law, the underlying debate.