Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona made quite a show on Friday of signing what is generally regarded as the most draconian anti-immigration state law in the United States.
The law authorizes police officers to require anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant to produce documentation to prove his/her legal residency. Failure to do so could result in that person being arrested, fined, jailed, and deported (if he/she turns out to be an undocumented alien).
This, of course, is the hallmark of any police state: requiring people to carry a pass which must be produced on the spot, you know, the way Nazi officers used to demand, “Your papers, please!”
But what makes this Arizona law so anathema is that it targets Hispanics whether they are legal or not. For what, other than Hispanic features, would give police any reason to suspect that a person is an illegal immigrant? The inescapable answer is … nothing!
Put another way, this Arizona law legalizes racial profiling. This is why no less a person than President Obama condemned it as misguided effort:
… which threatens to undermine the basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between the police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. (ABC News, April 23, 2010)
Not surprisingly, its legality is already being challenged in court, and I predict that even this conservative Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional in due course.
Let me hasten to note, however, that I am entirely sympathetic with the desperate and despairing effort of Arizona lawmakers to combat this problem. After all, Arizona’s border with Mexico has become the most favored crossing point for illegal immigrants – 460,000 of whom have now settled in this state.
Even worse, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (September 2008), these immigrants are not only putting untenable (and unfair) stresses on public services, but are also responsible for increasing incidences of all manner of crime.
Nevertheless, turning Arizona into a police state (for Hispanics) is not the answer. Not to mention that this law will do no more to stop this menace than a band aid can do to stop a hemorrhaging wound. Continuing this analogy, the best way to stop the hemorrhaging is to seal the U.S.-Mexico border and have National Guards troops (perhaps redeployed from Iraq and Afghanistan) patrol it.
But the best way to cure this wound is for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. And its key provision should set out a clear path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million long-settled illegal immigrants (a.k.a. amnesty). It should also provide a transparent system for migratory labor, which severely penalizes anyone who employs illegal immigrants for cheap labor. This system is critical of course because most (Hispanic) illegal immigrants come looking not to make America their home, but to work to send money back home.
Which brings me to the silver lining in the passage of this Arizona law: It has provided the perfect pretext for the Democrats who control Congress to leap frog immigration over energy and climate change on this year’s legislative agenda….
In the meantime, even though brown and black people comprise the vast majority of illegal immigrants, it would be helpful for progressive politicians to remind folks that white people are illegal immigrants too:
[I] find unconscionable the scapegoating of Hispanics who cross the Mexican border, while Europeans who fly in or cross the even more porous Canadian border enter the country scot (and stigma) free.
(“US declares zero tolerance immigration policy … yeah right!” The iPINIONS Journal, October 20, 2005)
Related commentaries:
US declares zero tolerance
Veronica Servin says
I will tell to all the Espanics I have contact with them not to fill up the Census pappers.
I will put the information in Face Book
Robert Johnson says
You clearly had not read either the initial AZ bill or the revised bill. Nor are you familiar with the Federal law from which it is modelled.