Despite pleas from civil rights activists, police officers, and President Obama, Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, signed an immigration bill, SB 1070, into law this week. The law’s main purpose is to find and stop undocumented immigration into the state—and it tries to do so at a huge cost to civil liberties and racial equality.

According to an article in USA Today, “The law, which will take effect in 90 days, will make it a state crime to be in the country illegally. The measure would require migrants to produce papers verifying their status when asked to do so by a police officer.”

The New York Times further described the law’s highlights including, “Measures to outlaw the hiring of day laborers off the street; prohibit anyone from knowingly transporting an illegal immigrant, even a relative, anywhere in the state; and compel local police to check the status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally.”

While the entire law is offensive, the latter has sparked the most outrage.

People, both documented and undocumented, immigrate to the United States from all over the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century, people from European countries like Ireland and Poland formed communities and were discriminated against, especially by employers and neighboring communities. Even in the late twentieth century, a large percentage of undocumented Irish immigrants settled in cities like Boston.

Yet Arizona cops aren’t going to be looking for Irish immigrants, or any other community that doesn’t fit their stereotype of what they “suspect” an undocumented immigrant looks like. They’re going to be targeting Latinos.

How would you like it if police officers constantly approached you to ask you for identification because they didn’t think you really belonged here? This new law would create a system of profiling and would create feelings of being unwanted and not belonging among the Latino/a population. It is pure, legislated racism at a time in our nation’s history when our government should know better.

Some have tried to argue that SB 1070 is not racist. On the TV show, Hardball, supporter Brian Billbray (R-CA) tried to defend it saying, “They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there’s different type of attire, there’s different type of—right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes. But mostly by behavior.”

Everyone has the same right to be able to walk or drive down the street in peace without worrying about being harassed by a police officer, no matter their race, class, or appearance. Even if the cops ID white, middle-class individuals (which, let’s face it, is extremely unlikely), picking on people who aren’t wearing the right shoes or the right clothes is still discrimination, particularly if cops approach people wearing casual clothes like baggy jeans and t-shirts. That reflects classism.

The law also puts more pressure on the police departments in Arizona, who have more important tasks to accomplish than tracking down people they suspect might be undocumented immigrants.

“First and foremost, we are concerned with public safety, and we don’t know that this will be of benefit to public safety. This is a federal issue that obviously needs some addressing on the federal level,” Josh Copley, the deputy chief of the Flagstaff police department, said.

President Obama promised a major immigration reform bill that would prevent laws like this from passing on a state level and ease the harsh circumstances undocumented and even documented immigrants face on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, the Senate already has a full summer agenda with everything from financial reform to a new Supreme Court justice nomination hearing so people will have to wait for immigration reform on the federal level. We can, however, stop racial and class discrimination on a state level.

SB 1070 is already being challenged in the courts because it is unconstitutional under the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments, but there are plenty of actions anyone can take in order to overturn it. Send a letter to the Arizona governor or participate in the Boycott Arizona movement. For more information on how to show your support, go to www.altoarizona.com/resources.html.

Published in : Perspectives, Volume 101: Issue 31