Cancel your trip to the Grand Canyon. In fact, if you’re in Arizona right now, get the hell out as quickly as you can. The state of Arizona has passed a measure, signed into law by its governor, Jan Brewer, that requires police to determine the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally. All immigrants will be required to carry their proof of legal immigration on their person at all times. This means that a police officer standing on a street corner drinking a cup of coffee can spot a person across the street and decide, based on anything the officer chooses (skin tone, for example) that the person might be an illegal immigrant. The officer can then walk across the street, say he suspects the person of ‘loitering,’ and demand proof of their legal status in the United States. If that person cannot produce the paperwork, the officer can arrest them. The loitering thing is key because the Arizona law supposedly requires that the police be investigating some possible infraction before they can ask for proof of legal immigration. But a cop can find almost any reason to suspect almost anyone of some minor infraction like ‘loitering.’ I loiter all the time.
Arizona, by enacting such a law, has aligned itself with similar laws in Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, apartheid South Africa, and the post-slavery American South which used ‘vagrancy’ laws to arrest black people who could not prove that they were employed. Apparently, the majority of residents in Arizona approve of the new law. By definition, Arizona becomes Bigot Land. One of the most important protections offered by a free democracy is the protection against unreasonable search and seizure. No police officer anywhere in the United States can simply demand that a person produce papers proving their legal status. But they can in Arizona as soon as this law goes into effect sometime in the next few months.
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu says:
I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in. Or that, should a policeman hear her accent and form a “reasonable suspicion” that she is an illegal immigrant, she can — and will — be taken into custody until someone sorts it out, while her children are at home waiting for their dinner.
When Desmond Tutu says something like this about the United States, you know there’s a big problem. The Obama administration is looking at ways to challenge this law in court. The President is very diplomatic and reserved in his reactions. I’d prefer to see him take a hard line with Arizona. This is government bigotry posing as immigration law. The people of Arizona are fed up with illegal crossing of the border with Mexico. They are fed up with rising violence and people looking for work. They simply don’t want illegal immigrants running around getting into car accidents, taking jobs and standing on street corners looking for work. Certainly, states have the right to expect the federal government to manage immigration properly and to protect the border. And no rational person wants people crossing in from Mexico to commit crimes. But no state can threaten people with unconstitutional actions in order to frighten them into leaving. That’s state terrorism and it will not be tolerated in the United States. People, both legal and illegal, have the absolute right to resist such actions – to defend themselves from those actions by any means at their disposal.
For now, I would avoid all travel to the state of Arizona. One could be stopped while driving through simply because one has tan skin and is going 1 mile per hour above the speed limit. If you can’t produce proof of citizenship on the spot, you can be arrested and held. I would not engage in any sort of tourism or business activity with Arizona. A total boycott of the state is perfectly in order and is just what the bigoted white voters of the state deserve. I would suggest running away if you see a police officer. It is perfectly legal to run from police and cannot be interpreted to indicate that one has committed any crime. Lawsuits should be filed against police departments for unconstitutionally demanding immigration papers. Lawsuits should also be filed against the cops as individuals. The police, even if following state law, may in fact be committing federal crimes. I think protesters should paint their faces white and march on the state capital. After all, Arizona seems to want only white faces. The cops will be out looking for anyone that doesn’t have a white face. If officer friendly thinks you look a little tan he might stroll on over and say, ‘You just jaywalked and I’d like to see some paperwork that’ll verify your status as a U.S. citizen.’ If you can’t show those papers, he may just haul you off into a world of trouble.
The bigot state has gone even further. It has passed a law that bans people with heavy accents from teaching English and forbids ethnic studies classes. These people are so terrifyingly bigoted that I would not feel safe without a gun in Arizona. Seriously. I would be prepared to shoot someone to defend myself in that state. This kind of hatred and state terrorism is going to lead to a flash-point and to violence. The virus is spreading. Something got under the old scab of racism in this country on the day the Barack Obama was elected and now the wound is opening up and all the nasty bigot bugs are crawling out.
When I see a person from Mexico, I don’t see a drug cartel killer who’s invading my country hell-bent on slaughtering my children. I see a person who likes what he or she has heard about my country and wants to come live here and work here and love here. I see someone who is going to help build my country and make it better. Our entire nation was built by people coming here legally and illegally. We are the richest nation on earth and look at how we are behaving. It’s incredible. We have the worst financial recession in modern memory, yet we are still watching our televisions and eating pretty damned well. People still want to come live here even during the hard times! But we’ve got people out there like Mr. and Mrs. Whitebitch in Arizona who think they should strip freedom away from people because they are scared of all those ‘dark people.’ Arizona is a state full of vicious bigots and now they are showing their true color: washed out, washed up, wretched white.
Boycott Arizona and call a bigot a bigot.
This is such a sad and dysfunctional world. I fear we will never see the bib picture. We are all the same,this is our home and the only home we have. When we realize this as a whole only then can we realize how ignorant we truly are.
Every country in the world requires that proof of residence be carried on your person. Police can stop anyone in almost any country and demand to see proof of ID and residence. You can’t even get a library card without showing proof of residence.
I for one, think it is time for the American government to take stronger measures to get rid of illegal immigrants. I hope every state in the US follows Arizona’s lead and passes similar laws.
Hooray Arizona!!
Police in Arizona cannot just stop anyone on the street. If someone is not obeying a law and the police stop them, they can ask for proof of residency. As another person stated, every country and state has laws. We need permission–passports and visas to enter other countries. People from other countries entering the U.S. should be expected to comply with the law of this land.
I feel I should respond to this rather common argument about how we all are expected to carry passports to enter other countries. Yes, sure we are. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that all people standing on U.S. territory are fully protected by the United States Constitution, whether they are here legally or not. That means that illegal immigrants are protected from unreasonable search and seizure. They are also protected against discrimination that is based on their ethnicity or appearance.
The fact that some other countries can legally demand proof of legal residency and insist that you carry papers to prove it is a ridiculous and irresponsible argument because those countries are not the United States. We live in a free democracy where people cannot be asked to show papers.
Arizona is now beginning to feel the economic hurt that we are putting on the state by canceling large corporate events and conventions in the state. The impact is being felt.
My bottom line on Arizona is: if you see the police and you are on foot… run. Don’t talk to police about anything whatsoever without a lawyer representing you. Do not give witness information to them. Do not even tell them your name. Just get away from them whether you are legal or not, and do this for as long as it takes to get Arizona’s racist law repealed and get its racist legislators and governor out of office.
How are you certain that racial profiling is going on in Arizona? Arizona passed a law that is already a federal law. So with that said is border patrol or other organazations like it racist because they are guarding or borders? Everyone states that Arizona is going to start profiling and discriminating people based on ethnicity and skin color but where is the proof of this. Arizona law enforcement has been catching illegals long before this law was even thought of or passed in the state legislature. They simply catch them because they are breaking the law and they get caught but before law enforcement could not do anything to that person they would have to call border patrol and if they couldn’t get them down there to pick up the illegal then they would be givin a paper ticket and told to appear in court. This law now allows the state to arrest these individuals and force the federal officials to do there job and deport them back to where they come from. If anything the article you wrote shows a lot more racisim than the state of Arizona. I have seen many legal imigrants who live here in Arizona that are for the imigration law and they are hispanic. Also hispanic government officials who are also for the imigration law. So I fail to see how “white people” are the root of all evil here.
Reply from Editor to Lee:
Your argument that there are many Hispanics who support the Arizona immigration law is a standard ‘goto’ argument for racism. During the civil rights movement of 1960s there were also many black people who were found and quoted as supporting various racist segregation laws. You can always find some frightened or uninformed people to quote as supporting something that is in actuality very bad for them.
And yes, you are right, I am blaming white bigots in Arizona for their racism and unconstitutional attempts to profile non-whites. How many white people do you think are going to be pulled over for a minor traffic violation and asked about their immigration status? How many? Zero is the answer. And yet they could be illegal immigrants from the United Kingdom. Or Canada. Or anywhere else. Only people who appear to be Hispanic will be asked about immigration status. That’s absolute and undeniable racism.
Racists always have the same basic argument: It’s always about keeping something under control and keeping things the way they used to be. Racists hate change. They hate it when the population starts to change its color. They get scared and they stop thinking. They feel threatened. They feel like everything is going to crap. They feel invaded. They feel swarmed. They see dirty criminals crossing the border to the exclusion of simply desperate people who want to work somewhere. They feel like their jobs are being taken even though they don’t really even want those jobs. It’s the same story throughout the racist history of this nation.
And it’s not always just white people who are racist. I’ve seen rabidly racist black people. I’ve seen bigots who are Hispanic. But Arizona is a very simple story: White racism. That’s Arizona’s current problem and that’s what I’m writing about.
Arizona has begun a race war. It’s only going to get worse.
And by they way, the federal government does not have to do anything about an illegal immigrant turned over to it by Arizona police. Nothing at all. In fact, the federal government just announced last week that it is not obligated to process any illegals turned over by Arizona. So the feds are giving Arizona the finger.
I fail to see where blacks and the hispanics are even remotly on the same page. Black men and women were taken from Africa long ago against there will and forced into servitude for white americans and had zero rights. They had to fight tooth and nail to get equal civil rights and what happened to them was completly racist. The other side of the coin is that hispanics here in this country already have equal civil rights, they are in no way shape or form slaves and i seriously doubt that Arizona is starting a race war.
Here are some things that are facts:
Illegal imigrants who come over here do not have to pay taxes.
They can be on welfare and be taken care of free at hospitals.
They are sending money out of our economy and over to there home country.
They get free paid education which they do not have to pay for.
There are roughly 23 million illegals right now in the U.S. Approximatly 22 million illegals are Hispanic (cuba, mexico, south america ect.) and 1 million are other illegals ( UK, sweden, africa ect.) So how is it racial profiling when a vast majority of the illegals are hispanic.
Illegals leave miles and miles of trash when they cross the border and are basicly ruining the desert landscape.
Here are some more facts just from the state of Arizona:
The border patrol here captured roughly 400,000 illegals last year alone.
Last year they were able to stop about 2 million dollars worth of drugs that came across the border.
Phoenix is number one in the country for kidnappings and most of the kidnappings are done by illegal imigrants.
The prison system here in Arizona has about a 20 percent population of illegals.
This is just one state, so do you not see the problem that is going on here? All of the illegals are more than welcome to come over here legally and do things the right way but they do not want to. They are getting this awesome free ride from our government and they do not have to pay any money into the system that is supporting them. That is why i am for this law, i am done paying someone elses free ride.
But I do see things from the other side of this, I made sure to read up on this before I took the side that I took. When you have men and women who are givin the power to enforce laws, regulations, ect. There is always going to be a chance for one of those people to abuse the law and use it for there own personal reasons. But built into this law is says that a law enforcment officer can not use profiling and can only ask about an imigrants legal status when they are being pulled over for breaking another law. So officers can not just walk aroung asking everyone if they are legal. Plus if an officer does use racial profiling no judge will hear the case and all charges will be droped.
These are all facts and are things that are going on right now not just here in Arizona but in other states as well. Again I ask you what facts do you have? All I see up there is alot of “this could happen” and “Arizona is the enemy and racist” but there is nothing to back those claims, just your opinion. So if you are fine with paying for other people to free load that is all up to you.
You think you’re giving someone a free ride? Really? Look, I am not arguing in favor of illegal immigration at all. Every country has borders and rules for those borders. But this is the country of the free and we are built on the backs of slaves. We ain’t got much room for complaining here, buddy, when nearly everything we know about was built by a guy with a strap across his back. When people get their feet onto this soil, they are free people and they are treated as such. They have all the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
It should be common knowledge that when police are told they need some sort of reason to stop someone before they ask for legal status those police will find any reason under the sun to stop people they already suspect of being illegal. They can use ‘loitering’ as a legal reason to stop someone. Do you know what loitering is? It is standing on a sidewalk. That’s it. Any cop can arrest you for loitering if you so much as stand on a street corner for several seconds.
Get it?
No white people in Arizona will ever be asked for immigration status. Anyone who looks Hispanic will be asked.
And if you don’t like the trash the illegals are leaving in the desert when they cross over, then go and pick it up yourself.
Just as I thought, you have nothing to go off of except the mindless rhetoric that everyone who is against this law keeps repeating. You are insane if you think your not paying for illegals to take advantage of our system. Try going to the hospital and telling them you want to get free medical treatment and watch them laugh at you. Do you think any officer in Arizona would be dumb enough to use racial profiling after all of this heat that the law is pulling not only from the hispanic population but also president obama’s administration? The answer is no. They would crucify anyone who did not follow the law to the letter just to prove a point. Again what you are not following is that this law is targeting ILLEGAL imigrants, not imigrants. You and all of the people who are against the law are supporting the failed federal system which lets illegal criminals go and they are criminals because they decided to say forget the law of the land in the united states. They come to our country already breaking the law by being here without paperwork and they should not be punished for breaking the law?
I know that I can not change your opinion by showing you facts and using statistics. You are a sheep following the shepard and the shepard in this case is the federal system who has no idea where they are going. So regardless of weather or not this law stays a law in Arizona it has already shed light on this problem that is destroying our economy. Now the american people see what is going on and that is going to force the federal system to create a better border protection system. So it will only be a matter of time before more laws just like this one pops up all around the U.S.
So keep using the racism card to try and cover this problem and just keep blaming the “white people” for this failed border protection system. Soon all of that will wear thin and this law will stay a law.
Lee, listen, no one supports illegal immigration. We are all against illegal immigration. And certainly, if people are caught who are here illegally, they should be sent home in the proper way if the federal government thinks they should be. As long as there is not some kind of extreme cruelty involved, the law should be upheld and illegal immigrants should be deported. Preventing illegal immigration is certainly important and, yes, the federal government has not been handling the situation very well. We all know that.
But the problem with this Arizona law is really for Hispanic people who are here legally. They are now subject to harassment and suspicion. If they are pulled over for going 1 mph above the speed limit, they will be asked for their papers. A white person pulled over will not be asked for papers. That is discriminatory. There are many legal residents who cannot necessarily prove their legal status with papers when asked. My gosh, if I were pulled over and asked to prove if I were a legal U.S. citizen, I’m not sure that I could prove it.
Being subject to differing treatment because of one’s skin tone or general appearance or language is offensive and it is clearly unconstitutional.
The failed border protection has nothing to do with general racism going on in Arizona. The state could certainly have demanded troops for the border. It could have deputized people to help out at the border. What it chose to do instead was enact a racist law that scares every legal Hispanic resident of the state, not just the illegals.
This on top of an assault on ethnic studies in schools! Arizona has also seen fit to prevent schools from teaching kids about their cultural heritage because it does not fit the general white notion of what an ‘American’ is.
I have been pulled over before because the cops thought they saw someone in my vehical give them the middle finger. I have also been pulled over and given a ticket for doing five miles per hour over the speed limit. The first thing that a cop will ask you for is License and registration, that is pretty much universal in any state you go to. That is how they determine resonable suspicion if you are a legal resident or an illegal because if you don’t have a license you are going to go to jail regardless of what your skin color is. You say you can’t prove you are a citizen of the U.S.? Everyone is required by law to carry identification on you weather it is drivers license, identification card, green card, visa paperwork if you are here temporarly.
I have lived in Arizona my entire life, and my mother is from Mexico and my father is from Arizona, so I am half and half but I look more hispanic. Amazingly enough I have not been harassed by any officers and have not been rounded up and shipped out. My mother, who is a legal imigrant, has not been treated any different since this law has been public attention but yet Arizona is so racist that it is trying to stomp all of us out and get rid of us.
I can’t change your mind and that is fine. If you want to be racist against white people and put all of your problems on them that is also fine. But i would bet that if you lived here in Arizona and got a chance to see how bad it is around here then you would have a diffrent point of view.. or maybe not.
Actually, no, we are not required by law to carry any form of ID in the U.S. unless we are operating a motor vehicle. I’m not racist against white people. I am a white person. But I’m opposed and angered by racist laws that put people at a disadvantage because of who they are.
As for statistics in Arizona, it is common knowledge that the rate of serious crime has been dropping along with increased immigration.
I do appreciate that you are presenting an opposing side to this argument and you are doing it forcefully and well. I disagree, but I certainly respect your argument.
Then we shall agree to disagree on this subject.
Yes, but thank you for arguing with me. The more we argue, the more I seem to like you. It’s very strange but true. So don’t worry about my sometimes overly dramatic writing. The argument is actually an important one and really stems from everyone’s frustration at how to handle this illegal immigration problem.
Lol yeah it is always good to argue with someone with a point of view and have them actually defend what they say. Most will just back down because they lose confidence in what they are saying. Just as long as something good comes out of all this and the government can take care of both sides on this issue then I am sure it will all eventually run its course.
I agree. And you are welcome to argue with me any time you like. I can be very forceful and somewhat obnoxious, but don’t let that throw you!