By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Arizona’s racist new immigration law. President Obama has asked the Justice Department to analyze the constitutionality of the law, and some legal challenges have already been filed and others will undoubtedly follow.
Here’s the best copy of the final bill I’ve been able to find. Broken down into very basic terms, what it says is the following:
1. For any “lawful contact” made by a police officer,
2. Where “reasonable suspicion” exists that the person is an undocumented immigrant,
3. A “determination” must be made as to that person’s immigration status,
4. Except if such determination will “hinder an investigation,”
5. And the police officer may not “solely consider race, color or national origin” in making that determination.
I set this out in this brutally formalistic and almost benign way to point out that this is one of those instances where the law has been drafted to survive a constitutional challenge, using buzzwords from case law to reassure judges that everything is safely within the four corners of the Constitution. For example, “lawful contact” is legal code for the fact that in order to stop people under this law the police will have to justify it independently, i.e. that they were investigating a crime or a complaint of some kind. This is to protect the law from a Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure challenge. The same goes for “reasonable suspicion.”
(Of course, Arizona has simultaneously made it a state crime to not carry your documents with you, so that handily takes care of the whole, “they can’t just stop you in the street on suspicion of being illegal” bullshit some proponents of this bill are parroting. In other words, you can simply be apprehended on the “reasonable suspicion” that you are not carrying your documents with you, and then that provides the predicate to “determine” your immigration status.)
It’s not that there won’t be some plausible grounds for constitutional challenges. The Constitutional Law Professors’ blog notes that there will be federalism issues with any state law that seeks to regulate the federal subject-matter of immigration.
And there are probably some pretty serious Fourteenth Amendment/Equal Protection problems too – note the use of the word “solely.” i.e., as long as you can dress up your racial profiling with some other remarks (“his t-shirt had a Mexican flag on it and he spoke Spanish”), you’ll be A-OK under this law.
But I’m a bit worried that the Constitution won’t be enough here. The Supreme Court is pretty inconsistent on the rights of non-citizens – my favourite case-to-hate-on is called U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, in which your country’s finest legal minds determined that the fact that a defendant was apprehended by international extrajudicial kidnapping (complete with helicopters IIRC) in Mexico, even in light of the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty, did not prevent the government from trying him here.
And in any event it will take months if not years for the Court to hear the challenge. In the meantime, hundreds upon thousands of lives will be destroyed when they are apprehended under this unimaginably racist law. Sometimes I think people underestimate how disruptive the immigration system already is to undocumented workers’ lives – you spend a lot of time figuring out how to escape notice – and this will only aggravate that situation. And it’s not just the people “stealing jobs” who will be targeted by this law. As ProblemChylde points out in a post you should really read in its entirety,
… think of situations where non-citizens are family members — husbands, wives, children, cousins, parents and grandparents. The law is forcing people to choose to send them away or to keep them home. The law is driving a population of people who WANT to be citizens of this country further underground and out of the public eye, increasing the strain on public service organizations who attempt to reach these populations with assistance, and creating an impetus for other southern border states to follow its lead.
See also Professor Susurro’s notes on the concrete effects of policing of this kind:
The impact of this law is thus both legally and symbolically important to all of us. So far reports of similar policing in AZ have included issues such as:
- costing tax payers in Maricopa County $42 million in settlements for police brutality, unlawful search and seizure, and racial profiling
- leaving children on the side of the road to fend for themselves when parents are arrested
- decreased school performance and sense of safety for children
- the failure to investigate rape reports in a timely manner or, in some cases, at all to police Latin@s
- the incarceration of nursing mothers with no access to their children
- the breaking of a Chican@s’ arm while in custody for refusing to sign paperwork saying she would return to Mexico
- sexual assault of undocumented women by people either associated with or claiming to be associated with Border Patrol or border policing
- forcing Latin@ truck drivers to produce birth certificates to move products across the state (think 16 wheelers bringing your produce, the new furniture or fridge your going to buy at the big box store, etc.)
- the increase in armed theft
- the increase in petty criminality in isolated communities
- lack of safety for women, children, and families who are Latin@, interracial, indigenous, or other wise brown appearing
- increased open and publicly applauded connections to supremacy
- increased public connection between policing and racial profiling that makes everyone who “looks” brown unsafe
- the militarization and granting of state policing powers to largely untrained civilians who do not have to pass similar inspection or comply with state laws governing police conduct
- the harassment of journalists and attempted policing of news readers
Horrifying, isn’t it?
Initial suggestions as to how to act in solidarity with Arizona’s undocumented workers have ranged from a boycott of Arizona-based companies to letter-writing campaigns. Kai left a comment at Feministe also listing the following:
From what I heard on a conference call yesterday about SB 1070, hosted by RI4A, with local, state, and national organizers and advocates, right now organizers in Arizona are making “3 asks” of people outside their state: (1) hold solidarity vigils and actions in your own community, and send pictures or video to rlopez@communitychange.org; (2) escalate May Day demonstrations into a vocal protest against SB 1070; and (3) put pressure on President Obama and your Congressional representatives to seek a federal injunction against the implemenation of SB 1070 because local and state police are not authorized to enforce federal law, and to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
There will surely be more targeted actions and campaigns, seeking to apply economic and political pressure on key points, as peeps get some more time for research and strategic deliberation.
May 1 marches are also being organized in several locations across the country! May 1 is tomorrow, of course, but if you can please do attend one.
If any of our commenters participate in resistance and have pictures and/or video to share I’d be happy to post it here on Harpyness! Just email them to me.
I’ll have more on immigration later next week.
I imagine the law will die a speedier death once the boycotting of Arizona reaches full swing. I heard noises on the BBC this morning that Major League Baseball is being urged to pull the All-Star Game from Arizona. They noted that the NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Arizona when it would not recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Law enforcement officials in AZ are coming out as dubious about its legality, and at least one claims he won’t enforce it. I think AZ will break long before we have to worry about the SCOTUS. At least, I hope so.
Thanks for this, PSoul. It’s the most concise breakdown of the law I’ve seen so far.
@Newt: The thing I worry about is the effect of the boycott on the very people it’s meant to help. Hotels, restaurants, light industry…all employ a huge number of foreign-born workers, both documented and undocumented. If those industries take a hit due to the boycott, foreign-born workers will be the first to lose their jobs.
There are so many ways to attack this law. All I can say is I hope it moves through the system with a relative amount of speed because, as you note, peoples lives will be horribly disrupted and their civil rights will be trampled on.
It chills me to think of the 9th Circuit hearing the case though, with Stephanie Grace as the chief judges clerk.
@BeckySharper: From what I heard yesterday and this morning on NPR, the workers are willing to live with the boycott, because the alternative is worse: Hispanic citizens being harassed by overzealous law enforcement, and having to carry your birth certificate around like it’s a police state. Not to mention, given the number of illegal immigrants in AZ, if they all decide to bug out rather than face the possibility of being detected, a large part of the AZ economy is going to take a hit anyway.
Also undocumented workers in AZ would not, by and large, work for these businesses in a direct way, I’d bet. It’s not like these people can get jobs as checkout clerks at pet smart.
I guess the alternative IS worse, Newt. And I suspect a lot of undocumented workers will decide it’s safer to go to another state or across the border, which is definitely going to be a problem.
I know less about light industry and construction, but I know hotels and restaurants, at least, employ a LOT of undocumented people as chambermaids, dishwashers, groundskeepers, etc. It’s the hospitality industry’s dirty little secret. People either use false documents to get on payroll or the employer simply pays cash under the table.
best thing that can happen is it will trigger immigration reform…this kind of thing has already been happening with the 287g program, but there is not as much outcry because of the way it has been rolled out and implemented. I published a report about it 3 years ago! It’s backdoor racial profiling and it’s unconstitutional and it’s not ok.
And it’s spreading: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/US/tom-ridge-criticizes-arizona-immigration-bill/story?id=10499817
My partner and I will be participating in a rally and march tomorrow; I’ll try to take pictures.
Bottom line, the law is hideous. But something you said is bugging me and I’m curious if I interpreted it in the way it was intended. You say “Sometimes I think people underestimate how disruptive the immigration system already is to undocumented workers’ lives … and this will only aggravate that situation.”
I’m not sure I agree. They’re here illegally. If someone has no legal right to be here, I’m not sure that my sympathies need to rest on how they’re inconvenienced by having to hide from the authorities. I don’t usually feel sorry for fugitives’ lives being complicated by the need to hide, and I’m not sure if I do in this instance either.
FourInchHeels:
I hope this won’t seem harsh, but we need to unpack some things here because I think your view is pretty common. I also think it’s completely wrong.
First of all, I think you need to interrogate why you’re fixated on someone’s “legal right to be here.” Do people have a right to exist? Yes. Do people have a right, predicated on that right to exist, to earn a decent living for their families? Yes. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to go beyond that place in one’s analysis of an immigration debate. Yes yes yes, there are borders and there are laws and rule of law whatever, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure why any of them actually matter more than a person’s ability to do work that someone else wants to hire them to do without fear of retribution, whether that’s being thrown in jail or being shot at or having to pay a trafficker to get across the border or having any of the things happen that happen above.
Second of all, “inconvenienced” is a pretty hilarious way to put it. These people are worked to the bone like indentured servants. If they are injured they are forced to rely on back-alley healthcare because they fear being reported. Their living quarters are often provided by their employers and are in pretty horrific conditions. Did you read Professor Susurro’s list? If not, I encourage you to.
FInally, equating the economic drive to earn and criminality is pretty… I don’t know what. Let’s go for inppropriate. These people aren’t fugitives. If anything, they are victims of an unequal global order in which Westerners (and Americans in particular) have appropriated a great deal of the world’s wealth for themselves and then get all pissy when people want to cross the border to earn enough to eat.
In short, I think with some more information on the situation you might be persuaded to sympathize with undocumented workers.
I’ll co-sign on what PSoul said above.
Jack Tomas at Guanabee’s most recent post on this whole pendejada was titled: “Illegals are leaving Arizona: Enjoy picking your own vegetables, gringo.” Damn straight. Let’s not forget that “illegals” subsidize our way of life—the low cost of the food we eat, the cheap clothes we wear, lowering construction costs, etc.
These subsidies are possible because undocumented workers are exploited in ways that are less “inconvenience” and more “human rights violation.” Under those circumstances, I think some sympathy is called for, if for no other reason than that these are our fellow human beings and they deserve to be treated with dignity instead of exploited and despised simply for being brown, poor, and born elsewhere.
It’s perfectly possible to be anti-unskilled immigration without directly hating on the immigrants themselves. The left-wing working class argument is that increasing competition in the labor supply with workers who are willing to work for dirt cheap will drive down wages. By decreasing the labor supply, the equilibrium wage will rise and jobs will attract workers at $10 that maybe they couldn’t at $7. Wage disparities decrease, and the standard of living rises.
I think this assumes a lot, mostly a lot of labor mobility and that employers will be able, let alone willing, to pay the prices for services such as fruit picking at which Americans will do it. But assuming all of this was the case, you could, in theory, accomplish this tightening of the labor market not by deporting the excess supply of labor but by cracking down on the demand by tossing the employers of undocumented workers in the clink for a while. No more under-the-table jobs, no new workers.
I don’t know how comfortable I am with the cheap food argument, since that’s basically how Wal-Mart justifies its low low prices: it pays its employees like shit so you can buy 3 packages of t-shirts, a pair of electric toenail clippers and a Walker Texas Ranger thermos for $22.
No, it isn’t possible to be “anti-unskilled immigration.” It’s possible to be against “bad labour practices” and not hate on undocumented workers. But no, I think if your problem is with immigration, you can’t get out from under the structural problem that you are locking out certain kinds of people from the workforce. There’s an important distinction there.
Also, “tightening of the labor market” is a fine abstract self-justifyingly entitled way to describe actually destroying the lives of people who simply want to eat.
It’s perfectly possible to be anti-unskilled immigration without directly hating on the immigrants themselves.
Wow, elitist much? So if they were “skilled” it would be different? I assume by “skilled” you mean “educated” because “unskilled” immigrant labor has plenty of skills we need and exploit: cleaning, fruit-picking, meat-packing, lawn-mowing, drywall-hanging, etc. Problem is, our society looks down on people who do those jobs, even when they’re white. When they’re immigrants, we just look down on them even more.
by cracking down on the demand by tossing the employers of undocumented workers in the clink for a while.
And yet this never happens, because it’s easier to crack down on the powerless undocumented workers. There’s no blowback there, unlike when you arrest and prosecute US citizens, who have the vote, class privilege and legal representation.
I don’t know how comfortable I am with the cheap food argument, since that’s basically how Wal-Mart justifies its low low prices
That’s exactly how Wal-Mart and many other companies get goods for low prices—they don’t pay a fair wage to the (mostly undocumented, easily exploited) workers who make or harvest the goods. We might be uncomfortable with it in the abstract, but there’s no political will to change it because we all like low prices, and we as a society don’t give a shit if they come at the expense of people who we see as “the other.”
Pilgrim Soul:
It wasn’t harsh at all. Blunt, certainly, but I much prefer that to dancing around a point
I wouldn’t have asked the question in this arena if I didn’t want to hear your thoughts.
As I’m mulling over what you said, it seems like you’re arguing that a person’s desire to work trumps all, and that they should be allowed to work anywhere, regardless of laws and borders. While I agree borders are arbitrary, and laws may or may not be right, they still exist. They may not matter MORE than their desire to work, but I can’t comfortably say that they don’t matter at all.
My use of ‘inconvenienced’ was regarding the need to hide from the authorities (you’d said immigration is disruptive to their lives), not to their lives and living conditions. If it came across that way, I apologize – it wasn’t intended as a generality.
I similarly don’t agree that, given the context of my original implied question, it’s inappropriate for me to refer to illegal aliens – whom you yourself said are avoiding notice (granted, I made the leap to calling that ‘hiding’) from authorities – as fugitives. How is someone who has broken a law (by being here without permission) and is avoiding notice from authorities NOT a fugitive? That’s the very definition of the word – a person fleeing custody. I didn’t say that the desire to earn is criminal, and it’s unfair of you to draw that connection and then shame me for it. Nor do I disagree that they are victims of an unequal global order, but I also don’t agree that victim and fugitive are mutually exclusive.
I do have a great deal of empathy for undocumented workers, and am horrified at the new legislation. It’s halfway down a scary and slippery slope, and I firmly believe it needs to be reversed.* I’ve seen/read a respectable amount (not an impressive number, but enough to have a fair idea of their plight and the impacts to our economy and nation) of articles, documentaries, and stories of their lives, and I live in an area where undocumented workers have a great impact on the economy. I think undocumented workers have the right to be treated respectfully, and with the dignity you would offer your own family. The way the new law allows the hunting of these immigrants is terrifying. But I’m still unconvinced that of all the things I’m upset about with this law … that one of them should be that it’s harder for them to evade the authorities.
*I had something more to this effect in my earlier comment, and I only now noticed that it was gone. Apologies for the accidental deletion; that was my bad.
Regarding this: “that employers will be able, let alone willing, to pay the prices for services such as fruit picking at which Americans will do it.”
I would like to point out that the economies involved in agriculture in the U.S. are highly distorted from a “free market” model due to government subsidies of some crops over others. It ends up being cost-effective for farmers to, for example, grow corn at such high quantities that we needed to develop new technologies (HFCS, corn ethanol) partially just to deal with it all whereas it’s also cost-effective, sometimes, for farmers to grow fruit and then let it rot in the fields rather than pay to have it harvested and sold. If the farm subsidies were adjusted to reflect what Americans need more of (fresh, healthy, cheap produce) and less of (HFCS) then it might be economically favorable for fruit farmers to employ legal workers and pay them a living wage. I don’t know how this would operate in the cases of cleaners, landscapers, and so on, but just in the case of agricultural workers, the government already has a heavy hand in what happens financially in that industry.
@Becky: If you’re going to get hung up on finding a pejorative intent in my use of the term “unskilled workers,” which is a common term referring to workers without specialized education or training, I don’t know what to tell you. There is nothing but on-the-job training that you need to do the jobs you listed (trust me, I’ve done a couple of those). I mentioned unskilled workers because generally they’re the ones at issue. Obviously there’s a racial aspect of the immigration debate, but I’m not talking about that, and either you’ll have to believe me in that respect or not.
As for your next two points, I don’t really know how to respond, or if I’m supposed to respond, because I can’t tell if you’re mad at me for something else. If you are, I can’t tell, because your statements are corollary to my points, not contrary. If you’re not pissed about something, then yes, I agree with the things you say. Hell, if you’re not pissed about something I agree with the things you say.
@PS: Well, if you don’t want to restrict the number of laborers in the country and open the borders, you would essentially widen the pool of applicants to anybody who can get here without creating more jobs. Wages for menial labor would sink and approach whatever the minimum wage would be because more people would be in competition for jobs. The lower the minimum wage, the better the shot for non-English speakers, because employers would be willing to put up with more inconvenience for their dollar, and some English-speakers would seek other substitute jobs that required English if they thought those were a better deal. If you hiked up the wage either by significantly raising the minimum wage or by increasing the power of unions to set wages higher, demand for English speakers with spiffier resumes would rise. The second option would basically have the same effect as a restricted immigrant labor market (with a guest worker program to fill the gaps), so I don’t see how that’s so much more humane.
Also, you make it sound like I want to deport people. I don’t want to deport anybody. A blanket “amnesty” plus a path to citizenship, a crackdown on employers hiring undocumented workers, and a generous guest worker program would be fine with me.
FourInchHeels – you drew the analogy between “fugitives” and undocumented workers, I didn’t. If it makes you feel bad that I called you out on it, that’s not “unfair.” It maybe means you realize your point didn’t come across as intended, but it’s not unfair. I mean you’re still trying to make it in this comment! Please don’t pursue that analogy any further in this forum. It’s incorrect and inappropriate.
Second, you’re still nattering on about borders and rules and at the end of the day I don’t understand why these matter to you. You haven’t offered a justification beyond “they exist.” They exist as a means of defense for people like you and I, to “protect our jobs.” But I don’t understand them to have a value independent of that, and to the extent you’re predicating your valuation of “borders” on that “protect my job” principle, I think you’re being selfish. Do you seriously think that being born on the right side of a geographical divide entitles you to a better life than the person crossing the border?
BearDownCBears: Again, I don’t understand why you are calling your position one on immigration. I support better labour standards, but I don’t think they are encouraged by locking up borders and “cracking down” on immigration enforcement. Why not throw employers in the clink for not paying proper wages instead of for “hiring undocumented workers. That’s my point.
If you don’t want to deport people, then state so explicitly in your comment, lest it be misread as I apparently did.
@BearDownCBears: I mentioned unskilled workers because generally they’re the ones at issue. Obviously there’s a racial aspect of the immigration debate, but I’m not talking about that, and either you’ll have to believe me in that respect or not.
Well, the racial aspect’s kind of hard to ignore, when racial profiling’s being used to determine who’s an immigrant and who isn’t. No one’s going to stop white, English-speaking PSoul on the street and ask to see her paperwork.
And I do think the term “unskilled workers” is questionable—and I’m not picking on you specifically, sorry if it came out that way—because it’s so indicative of what we think constitutes “skills” in our society and how we value different types of labor, even though all forms are necessary, and should be treated with the same dignity.
As to the second points, yeah, I think we agree, but I was just pointing out why those situations never change, even though, morally-speaking, they should.
Well, I’m not really for cracking down on borders either, because that would be redundant. If you dry up the jobs, immigration will slow like it did during the recession. Also, it punishes poor people who just want to work when the source is our own demand for cheap labor. It’s very analogous to the drug wars, in my opinion.
As to your point, like I said, enforcing a high wage only would probably reduce a lot of immigration because the whole point is to hire somebody for a job at a wage an American wouldn’t do it for. At a guaranteed “proper” minimum wage (assuming it was impossible to hire somebody under the table at $6/hr.), the immigrants’ advantage would disappear. Enforcing based on paperwork, though, would incentivize employers to hire locally first and then employ immigrants through a guest worker program for job requisitions they can’t fill with people here. This would help prevent job shortages in America by (1) perhaps incentivizing employers to bump up wages a little higher to attract American workers rather than going through he hassle of paper work, or (2) preventing immigrants from heading here under the sunny impression that they can get a job easily and then being sorely disappointed.
@PS – Once again, you’re screwing with what I’ve said. Correct, I drew the fugitive connection. The sentence I referred to as being unfair is your comment accusing me of claiming the desire to earn is a criminal act. That, and only that, was what I said is unfair. I didn’t say it was a criminal act (and don’t think it is), and while it doesn’t make me feel bad, it’s just unnecessary and unhelpful.
I’m really unclear on your position with borders. If they matter to you as a means of defense and to protect our jobs, what more are you looking for from me? Are you hoping I say I think they’re golden arches of privilege and purity, or that they don’t matter at all and we should all roam free and breezy? What value are you thinking I’ve ascribed to the border, beyond their place as piece of this equation? I think their main function is to denote the area of care and maintenance for a given group. I haven’t once commented on borders are a function of protecting my job, period. More things you’re making up for me to have said. What DO you think the function of a border is? You’ve attacked what I’ve said, some things I haven’t said, and I still don’t know what you think about the purpose of a border or my original question.
I agreed with 98% of what you’ve said, and I meant to start a “hey, I’m not sure about this one small part, would you clarify/explain so I can learn more of what you think” (because you know far more than I do about this issue) discussion, not a fight where I don’t agree with the role you’ve assigned me. I’m not going to continue engaging in this fight; I respect your opinions, so commented because I wanted to hear more of what you think. If you are willing to have a conversation then I’d like to keep talking. If you’re going to keep attacking without helping me understand, there isn’t much point.
there’s a couple of points made in the conversation that I find a little troubling to me:
* opening borders means more people will come in and compete for jobs
* enforcing a higher wage will decrease immigration
There is no absolute evidence that opening borders means more people will come in and compete for jobs – the European Union is an example of this. Despite having a freedom for all citizens of EU countries to cross borders and be treated similar to citizens in EU nations the evidence in this context isn’t there. This isn’t to say that the movement of people to find work isn’t there, but the wholesale entering of one/two countryies in the EU because of better employment prospects isn’t eviencenced.
There’s also the logistical issues, in particular of travel and accomodation.
I’m not sure that enforcing a higher wage will decrease immigration. For example in Australia in some agricultural sectors no matter what the wage was (and it was higher than the minimum wage of AUD$14.31 per hour) no local wanted to pick the fruit/veges. Instead immigrant workers came to undertake the work. It worked well for the the agriculturalists, the workers, and the local community.
Thanks Mackey, I lacked the spoons to reply further today. I appreciate your pointing those things out.
@Mackey: I don’t see how your analysis of the EU matches this:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-08-098/EN/KS-SF-08-098-EN.PDF
The immigration rates of Poles and Romanians are massive. The biggest destinations are the more prosperous Western European countries. And the intra-union immigration rate outstrips the regular rate, which includes North Africans and citizens of former Soviet states.
I live in Arizona and what gets me with all of this is the term illegal. When I watch the news, I don’t hear about an illegal murder or an illegal robbery. It’s common sense that it’s illegal so the term doesn’t need to be used. Yet here we’re talking about illegals. Illegal means breaking the law or is that not what it means any longer. Do you have any idea what its like to lose your job so an illegal can be hired? Do you have family, kids, loved ones? Does it hurt you to see them sick or suffering from cancer? Then to make matters worse, you can’t afford health insurance, but you can however foot the bill so an illegal can receive it for free.
Do you know what it’s like to be told you have to learn to speak Spanish to accomodate others who don’t feel like learning English? Do you know what it’s like to receive a phone call from the principal of your childs school to be told she’s being sent home for wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt on Cinco De Mayo. Yet they can wave their Mexican flags with pride, and protest, and wear anti-America shirts and spit in our faces.. but that’s considered freedom of speech.
Do you know what it’s like to have your brother shot and killed by 3 illegals for no other reason than because “he was there”? They’re called illegals for a reason and for the life of me, I will never understand why ppl who don’t live here to know what it’s like are so determined to call us racists over an issue that’s not about racism. It’s about breaking the law. And racial profiling? Hispanics are the race that crosses the Mexican border to come here illegally. That’s not racial profiling, it’s just a fact.
All this mess about how wrong it is to have to carry information with you. In Mexico it’s required by law to always have forms of identification on you, but it shouldn’t be allowed in the US to see who may be breaking the law? I have yet to talk to one hispanic person who lives here legally to have a problem with having proof on them of who they are. Most have said they carry their ID with them everywhere anyway so what’s the big deal. Others who became legal also haven’t had a problem with it. They said they’ve had and carried their information with them at all times long before this so it doesn’t bother them a bit. So if you think you’re somehow standing up for them, you’re actually just cutting them down. The majority of our police department is hispanic as well, so while you may be envisioning a bunch of white cops with cowboy boots running down some poor hispanic kid.. wrong again.
The majority of the people who live here have no problem with this law. It’s not because we’re all a bunch of racists either. It’s because we’re the ones who see the bigger picture of what all of this is about, and we’re the ones who live here to have to deal with issues others don’t to even understand. So everyone can carry on with the name calling, boycotting, and whatever else is next. You’re only hurting the same race you might think you’re trying to defend.
Thanks for sharing, Stephanie. Sorry you’re such a mean-spirited racist.
Hey, Stephanie? A few pointers for your future trolling:
1. “Hispanic” is not a race. It’s not even an ethnicity. It’s a language-group descriptor. My friend’s Madrileno husband: hispanic, and white. European, even!
2. “Mexican” isn’t a race either, but a nationality.
3. And lastly, “illegal” is an adjective, not a noun. These are people you’re talking about.
Gracias.
I have heard far more individuals discussing that the law is Unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause. The Supremacy Clause forbids state and local laws that contradict federal laws in matters where the federal government has authority to act.
Once again it only applies in situations exactly where the law contradicts the current law. Arizona’s law requires that State/Local authorities hand over suspect illegals to the proper federal authorities. Maybe you’ve forgetten (since we haven’t enforced these laws) but it is still a crime to enter our country illegally.
But as long as we are talking about Constitutionality let’s talk about the Commerce Clause with the Constitution (Article I, Section 8). This clause prohibits states and localities from passing laws that burden interstate or foreign commerce by, among other things, creating “discriminations favorable or adverse to commerce with particular foreign nations.”
Boycotting Arizona is UNCONSTITUTIONAL so knock it off already. Also to the Arizona government, how about we step up and actually file suit against these cities?
Did we get linked on some kind of Disgruntled White People site or something.
(Which is to say, Common Sense, bye-bye now.)
@Common Sense: Thomas Paine called. He says you should get a new commenter name. Also, as an immigrant, he really wants to you STFU.