The legislature of Arizona seems to have given the following message to illegal immigrants: get out.Yesterday the state’s Senate approved what may be the harshest measures against undocumented migrants. The bill, which was backed last week by the House, permits local police to check if a person has their immigration papers. The proposal also “targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.”
The controversial bill is expected to be signed soon by Gov. Jan Brewer though she has yet to speak out publicly on it. Proponents of the measure contend that it will help curb crime; bill author Russell Pearce claimed that the proposal would obligate police to “get (handcuffs) on the bad guys.” Opponents, meanwhile, said that the proposal would encourage “racial profiling” by police and unfairly targets Arizona’s Latino populace. The measure has even been criticized in neighboring New Mexico where some legislators worry that “a wave of illegal immigrants” could come to their state.
The bill received the backing of Sen. John McCain who called it “a good tool” on the same day he unveiled his security-heavy immigration proposal with Sen. John Kyl.
A silver lining to the controversial proposal may be that this forces federal officials content to brush off immigration to tackle the urgent need for reform. An editorial in this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle succinctly said it best:
Members of the U.S. House and Senate should take Arizona's actions as a cue to get to work on immigration reform. This nation cannot have 50 immigration policies.Image- New York Times (“Immigration advocates (in Arizona) want the governor to block the bill (that was passed on Monday).”)
Online Sources- New York Times, The Latin Americanist, CNN, Reuters, YouTube, San Francisco Chronicle
AP : Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony on Arizona : German Nazi or Soviet Communist Repression, Children turning in parents, neighbors prying into private lives to report to the State.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church fighting for Human Decency and against Racist Holocausts and Progroms :
Associated Press
Los Angeles Cardinal: Nazism in Arizona immigration bill
April 20, 2010
Los Angeles Cardinal: Nazism in Arizona immigration bill
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jBbaacHSTfwQFWSi7VYGq2utcS_gD9F6VRFO0
Some excerpts :
LOS ANGELES — The head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese has condemned a proposed Arizona crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying it encourages people to turn on each other in Nazi- and Soviet-style repression.
The measure wrongly assumes that Arizonans "will now shift their total attention to guessing which Latino-looking or foreign-looking person may or may not have proper documents," Cardinal Roger Mahony said in his blog Sunday — a day before Arizona's Legislature sent the immigration enforcement measure to the Republican governor.
Gov. Jan Brewer has not indicated whether she will sign the bill, which creates a new state misdemeanor of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document. It would also require officers to determine people's immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.
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But Mahony, whose archdiocese has a huge Hispanic immigrant population, said the Arizona Legislature was passing "the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law."
Similar laws that were previously passed in other states have been repealed or struck down in the courts, he said.
"The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources," Mahony said.
"I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation," the cardinal said. "Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?"
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Vicente Duque