Three Reasons to Oppose the Arizona Immigration Law
Posted: Thursday, April 29, 2010
by Tex Norman
It is not hard to be against something. Anyone can be against something. In America we have the right to our opinion, but we also have no obligation to explain our opinion, or to justify our position. With this Arizona Immigration Law I don't want to just be against it, I want to explain why I am against it.
FIRST, this law officially authorizes law enforcement to use racial profiling to investigate possible illegal aliens.
I have had both my knees and my left shoulder joint rebuilt. I have metal inside of me. When I tried to get on a plane in Philly earlier this month, they had their machines turned up so that my implants set off the machine. Now I understand the need for security at our airports. I support it. I want it to be there. I was frustrated and angry by the time I got through that checkpoint. People had to feel around on my shoulder and both my knees to make sure I didn't have a gun or a bomb hidden on my person. If I was upset by something I support and accept as very important imagine how I will feel if I get pulled over and required to prove that I have a right to be in the country where I was born? The cops could make me late to work, late to a wedding, late to the bedside of a dying mother. This " being detained" could happen repeatedly, just because I fit the racial profile.
Now just imagine giving this power to law enforcement. All a cop has to do is say "I thought that guy looked like an illegal" and they can stop and detain anyone. If the cop had a personal resentment towards you, if he didn't like your letter to the editor, or your sexual orientation, or your religious affiliation that cop could stop you and hassle you any time he or she wanted.
Once you get detained a few times you will have to start carrying your passport with you, or a birth certificate. When you go jogging you want to travel light, just your shorts, your keys, a bottle of water, and your documentation.
In the state of Arizona almost one third of the population is Hispanic. Many legal citizens of the United States speak Spanish exclusively. In Arizona the government prints bilingual ballots. These people are going to fit the racial profile of an illegal immigrant. Thousands of legal Arizona citizens look and speak like undocumented immigrants.
SECONDLY, the Arizona law forces law enforcement to investigate illegal aliens over all other criminal investigations.
The Arizona law says that ANY citizen can sue local law enforcement for failing to enforce this immigration law. If I'm a cop, and I have a call to go to a house where there is a domestic disturbance, but at the light, I see people in the car next to mine and these people look like they could possibly be from Mexico, I have to make a choice. Do I go and attempt to stop a husband from beating up his wife, or do I check these possible illegals? Given the language of the law, I can be sued if I let the potential illegals go, but if I check the illegals and wait to respond to the domestic violence call, I am not in danger of being sued. Is it logical to threaten law enforcement this way? Did you know that this Arizona immigration law was opposed by the state's Association of Chiefs of Police?
The cops want the flexibility to prioritize their investigations. If they are called to respond to a fender binder, or to a liquor store robbery they can pick the most important one. This Arizona "Show Me Your Papers" law takes that flexibility away from the police. Yes, they can still go to the violent crime scenes first, but they are at risk. Anyone, any zealot, any ideologue LOOKING FOR PUBLICITY, any protest group can sue the police department if they go to the liquor store robbery and let the potential illegals go. Will they? You bet your bippy they will.
Third, this law poisons relations between law enforcement and illegal immigrants.
If an illegal woman is raped, she is not going to report the crime because she will be arrested and deported. If an illegal is a witness to a crime they will not come forward and assist an investigation because if they do, they will be arrested and deported. If their child gets sick, they will not go to the ER because that could lead to them being arrested and deported.
I work in the area of child abuse, and just a few days ago I got a call from the school. The child was threatening to kill herself, and she needed to be assessed and possibly placed in a crisis stabilization unit to keep her from killing herself. The child was born in the US to parents who are here illegally. They parents were afraid to get their daughter help, because they feared being deported. Some people are not moved by this plight. Some might say, "Let the child die. It serves those parents right being here illegally." Being heartless may be fine for some, but it is not for me. I want the child helped, and her life is more important to me than the immigrant status of her parents.
This law is racially motivated. The people behind the bill have made statements that show they want a white only nation. Some law makers in Arizona, people who are not racists, went along with the bill because they wanted to do something about the immigration problem. You don't toss the baby out with the bathwater. You don't hassle every Hispanic in the state, to catch a few illegals. The issue must be address at a Federal Level, because this boarder security issue involves many states. It would do no good to have a secure boarder in one state, if the state next door had poor security . The Federal Government needs to secure our boarders, but not at the expense of creating a Police State where everyone is subject to being stopped, and where you are required to carry documentation AT ALL TIMES to prove you belong here.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)I have known some southern cops. Too many were unbalanced, to say the least. Napoleonic complex syndrome, short man syndrome, etc. Good luck.
First line in the last paragraph states "The law is racially motivated". Would it still be about race if they were white. The race is being played........again. It is not about civil rights, human rights, race or any other stupid reason. It is about people coming in the country ILLEGAL (breaking the law). Getting jobs under the table, not paying taxes. Sending the money back over the border. So ,let's see if I get this right. They broke the law to get here, they do not pay any taxes into the system. Use the welfare system, use up the ER rooms, take jobs from other Americans (the job and the pay in this debate does not mater), send the money back to Mexico. So in the end all the money went to another country along with the "tax" money and my taxes paid for his food. And you are OK with this. I'm sorry his country is in the state that it is. I understand he wants a better life. But he should not be able to do it by breaking the law here. Again , why is it always race? Why can it not be that he is just breaking the law. Red, white, black, green, yellow in the end it does not matter.Well, Mr. Honeycutt, you seem a little steamed. I don’t want to upset you more, but I would like to respond to your comments.
First, yes, if there is a law that singles out white people, if a freedom is available to everyone except white people then yes I would consider that a racially motivated law. It has happened to white people before. The most well known example is what Germany did to the Jews under Hitler. To my eyes, Jerry Signified and John Stewart look white. Jews look white to me. And Jews were singled out and rights that some white people had (like breathing) were denied them. We called Nazi Germany a police state because the laws that restricted the rights of Jews also diminished the rights of everyone else. Everyone had to carry documentation around with them. Anyone could be stopped and their documentation had to be available and this applied to every white person, even German white people.
Second, just because I think the Arizona law is a bad law does not mean I don’t think the issue of immigration needs to be addressed. In your comment it seems like all or nothing thinking. It is like you feel we accept the Arizona law as the FIX, or we just throw open the borders and have zero restrictions on illegal immigrants. There are other alternatives. There are other ways to address the issue without requiring every citizen to carry their passport around with them all the time. Borders can be made secure, but our borders can’t be made secure for free. It is actually going to be expensive to make our borders secure. Being a liberal I support PUBLIC ACTION for the PUBLIC GOOD. I have no problem with taxes that solve the problems of our people.
Third, you seem to be incensed that we are not arresting people when the carry the label illegal. There are degrees of illegal. I may not always agree with the positions taken by our government, but I know that all things illegal are not equal.I work in the area of child abuse. Most of the illegal activities I deal with are not criminal. It is illegal to neglect your children, but it is rarely criminal. Most child abuse falls under civil law not criminal law. If you beat your child and leave bruises, you may have your children removed from your custody for a time. To get your kids back you may be required to take parenting classes, or anger management classes. If you refused to cooperate with your case plan you could potentially lose your parental rights forever, but you are not going to jail.Of course, sometimes there is overlap. If the abuse causes a child to die, or to have permanent brain damage, or to lose a body part, then that parent may find they're facing civil law and criminal law.Matthew, you and I may disagree with the position our government has taken on illegal immigrants, but the position of our government, is, and has been for years, to treat illegal immigration as a civil infraction not a criminal one. The Federal Government has treated illegal immigrants as people who violated a civil law, and that was true under even the most conservative Presidents of our recent past.
Fourth, you have painted the immigration problem with a wide brush. I am not sure all of your statements are true, but it seems pointless to argue about them when I agree that the immigration issue needs to be fixed. Maybe all the money the illegals earn is sent back to Mexico. Maybe the money sent is far less than you imagine. I actually don’t care if it is a lot, or a little, because the problem of unsecured borders needs to be fixed, regardless of that particular money issue.I firmly believe that since the borders of the United States are national borders the problem of insecure borders needs to be addressed by the National Government. We need security at every point along our border. It won’t help if Arizona has an impermeable border but New Mexico’s border is a wall of tissue paper.
I call the Arizona law racist because it doesn’t just effect illegal immigrants it also restricts the liberties of citizens with a Latino heritage too. If you are white, it is unlikely you will ever be stopped and made to prove you were born in the US.Let's get real. If there is a junk car parked in a driveway, (and about one in twenty houses fit this profile), the white neighbor will not be complained about but the Latino will. Then the cops can say that they simply answered a complaint, and while they were at the house of the Latinos, they had reason to believe they were illegals? What reason, other than the brown skin and Spanish accent? How come the white or African American neighbors with junk cars in their driveways are not treated the same? Because they are white, or black! It's not rocket science. The cops will end up being hated. Not good.Mr. Norman, I'm not steamed I'm just irrtated. It seems to me that everything these days is turned into some kind of race issue. The very bottom line and the easiest way to put this is, the people coming across the border are from Mexico, peolpe with Latino heritage, as you put it. That is not racism or profiling, that is the fact. Period. Has far as I'm concerned we need them to come to this country. We need them to work, to collect their taxes , to pay for all the new lawes and regulations that you know who keeps coming up with.In the end Arizona in acted a law to do what Mr. Obama and his staff will not do. An oath he took when he took office. Protect and up hold the Constitution. Which would include protecting the poeple.The border between Arizona and Mexico has been deadly for far too long. Wait ......I have an idea. Let's have all WHITE and BLACKS move and just give Arizona to Mexico. Let all the illegals just live there. That would fix the immigration reform problem. Just give them all a state. It would just be easier that way. Because we would not what to offened anyones right to break the law, civil or criminal.
Hi Tex.If you think this law is hotly debated nationally, you should hear all the outcry here in Arizona.I think it's a botched job myself, but I understand the motivation ... sort of. Our news is filled daily with tales of crimes committed on legal residents of the US in Arizona by illegal immigrants. Not that that will fix the crime issue. There are plenty of legal residents committing crimes as well. There is also the strain on the economy to be considered. I could go on and a lot of people could knock down my arguments and they'd be right.I have a suspicion that the real reason this law is being promoted is that Arizona government is trying to force the national government to take a stronger stand on this issue and lend a little help to beleaguered Arizona.With the nationally funded strengthening of the border in California, Arizona has become the entry point of choice for most illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico.Make no mistake, I am relieved that I am white skinned and feel a great deal of sympathy for the fears and concerns of those who are brown skinned. I don't blame them at all for being very upset right now. Regular law enforcement officers aren't too happy about this either.I'm not sure the law is based in race as much as it is based in nationality, but for sure the end result is a racial bias. Many Native Americans appear Hispanic. I can't imagine how they are dealing with this new law. It's just a complete mess and I am not at all proud of my state government right now.DianneDianne Thanks for the comment. I think, and I HOPE that at least some supporters of the law did so to force the Federal Government to address the issue of Immegartion. You will notice that Obama said earlier that immigration was OFF the table. Then the Arizona law was passed and several dozen power house conservatives said it was unconstitutional and suddenly now the White House is saying the issue must be addressed.I think we need a Federal Fix. My fear is that many of the same people who want immigration reform are also tea bag zero tax people. We can't have secure boarders for nothing. It will be expensive.Thanks for reading and good luck to everyone in Arizona seeking to fix the problem without violating the constitution.Peace: tex
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