ARTICLE AND VIDEO HERE SOURCE Don't know how biased examiner is or to which side, never heard of it, but yeah. This kind of pisses me off. I'm Hispanic, I grew up with a lot of racism, but I'll admit that I believe some profiling is necessary when it comes to national security. I might not even have an opinion either way if it wasn't for the way it was worded. When asked what an illegal immigrant looked like, Governor Jan Brewer (who signed the bill into law) stuttered and then said "I do not know, I do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like. I can tell you that I think that there are people [in Arizona] that assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like." EDIT: I found it funny how one of the people who introduced the law was found hugging a neo-Nazi.
This law would be fine, if not for that line of 'looks like an illegal immigrant'. It's just opening up a can of worms.
How the hell is he boycotting the law if he's across the country? And how do you boycott a law? Just break it? But they can pull over any suspicious looking person because the law pretty much is saying "Judge them by their cover."
Just throwing this out there, Hispanic is not a race. It's an ethnicity. I do think this is unfair, though. Kinda reminiscent of how we put Japanese Americans in internment camps in World War II, or a more recent (and better/relevant) example, how people who looked middle eastern could get stopped at airports or even attacked because they 'looked like' a terrorist. The term 'look like' is just plain wishy-washy. You could have lived in Arizona all your life, never even been outside of the state border, but because you have hispanic heritage you have to go through a whole lot of trouble just because you 'look like' an illegal immigrant?
I agree that it is unfair and it is borderline at best when it comes to the issue of profiling, but illegal immigration is a serious issue facing America, especially in southern countries near the border. Something has to be done to fix the situation, but I'm not sure that this is the correct way to do it. If they have probable cause, I say go ahead, but if they just "look" like an illegal immigrant... Well that's just stereotyping. :|
For god's sake, just put Obama's plan into effect nationwide. Which would be that illegal immigrants would be found, and would be able to come back in legally, but would have to go to "the back of the line", and while they're waiting, learn English. Then when it's their turn, they can come back in legally and be able to not worry about being caught, and most likely get their people more respect. This can also put an end to the English/Spanish stuff on signs, newsletters, etc. It's a waste of resources and time. It's also rather rude.
The only problem I have with that is that I know innocent people are going to have to go through all kinds of crap to prove that they're legal. It'll be a huge inconvenience. Just the other day someone asked me to sign his petition and I said sure, and he asked me, "Are you over 18 and a U.S. citizen?" I said, "Sorry, no". He said "Oh...are you allowed to come to this college? I thought there was a law against immigrants going to college." I laughed and said "Wrong one." He didn't believe me.
It's happened already. A natural-born US citizen who was a truck driver was asked for his papers at a weight station. His name was Abdon. He showed them his commerical truck driving license and his social security card. It didn't cut it. Before he knew it, he was locked up. He had to call his wife who had to leave work, drive home, pick up both their birth certificates, and drive to the police station to get him out. Most people keep their birth certificates safe at home. Those aren't safe there anymore.
Just involving myself in the recent UK elections has really opened up my eyes about how smaller segments of a country, such as the United States, are able to govern themselves. It really has some benefits I adnire, but then again sometimes it seems that the best of people are put into power. But I guess that's politics as a whole. Anyway, onto the actual law, I can't really say if it's a good or bad thing. I mean in a time of supposed heighten terrorist concern it's smart to keep your eyes open and alert at the possible dangers. However, in these types of situation certain racial profiling could cause a great wound in the effort to combat genuine racism. Like LilBueno's case study about the genuine citizen who was wrongly acussed, he could very well claim for compensation after being wrongly imprisoned, thereby weakening the Governments standing point. I'm not part of a minority, well not by skin colour anyway, unless my ancestores were looked into. But if I was, being constantly persecuted and suspected of being an 'enemy' because I look like someone who could cause harm, in my mind that's totally wrong. I just hope that racial profiling is used for the right and not wrong reasons. To actually protect it's citizens and not harm them.
I'm pretty sure that the reason this plan hasn't been put into effect is because of the difficulty of finding all of the illegal immigrants in the US and legalizing all of them as well. It's easier said than done. Chances are that if they could have gotten in legally, they would have done it but the US legalization process takes a lot of time and most people can't wait and I'm pretty sure that it's still going to take a lot of time if the plan goes into action. Please explain to me how it's rude? I'm curious. I should get back on topic This basically sums up what I wanted to say. I just know that this law is going to be a big inconvience for the people who aren't illegal and Hispanic and I feel sorry for them. And like PAW said, the government will lose its standing point if things get out of hand and people get wrongly imprisioned.
I can't wait for the day that we give people actual reasonable wages for their work in agriculture and such. I mean, 8 dollars for a tomato would be a good thing. Exactly. And put them in the back of the line? what's stopping them from just doing the easy thing and coming back illegally? Send them back and they'll just come back. Putting them at "the back of the line" gives them less incentive to actually do wait their turn. I also read a story about a woman who's been married five years and has a 2 and a half year old daughter with an immigrant on a visa who's in the process of being legalized. So far, they spent 10,000 dollars and he still isn't in. And due to the process, they need to pay ANOTHER 10,000. They're selling their house in order to pay it. Mhm. This summed up my thoughts pretty well.
I also can't wait but we all know that America needs cheap labor so we don't have to pay 8 dollars for a tomato. I can actually relate to this pretty well. I lived in the US for 14 years. First year I was there, my parents wanted to get legalized while their visas were still active. I know that while we were waiting, their visas expired but they could still legally work and live there because we were in the process of being legalized. I have no clue how much money was spent but even after 14 years of waiting, we still didn't get legalized so my parent decided to give up and go back to our home country. It isn't bad over here but is it bad for people to want to have better things in life? I don't think so. That blog sums up about everything I think about this subject. It's like he read my mind.
this is completely and undeniably racist. me, being of Mexican descent, ask why they must carry A FUCKING CERTIFICATE THING around everywhere they go because they border patrol doesn't do their job? bullsh*t. does it happen with canadians that sneak into america?of course not.
Canadians aren't what you think of when you think of drugs smuggling. And most Canadians don't shoot people on their way over, like the deputy who was shot when he and the sheriff stumbled onto a group of Mexicans smuggling weed into...wait for it...Arizona.
It is racist. So is the effort to build a stupid fence across the borders. That's also a horrid waste of money when we could just make immigration laws easier on those Mexicans who want to come here to work. If people want to attack anyone over illegal immigration, why aren't they going after the corporations instead that hire them and do not pay taxes for them? That is simply their responsibility since they are buying these people's services and the main gripe on why immigrants shouldn't be here is because they pay no taxes. I too find that unfair when a good chunk of these illegal immigrants also get injured or bring women over to have babies in our hospitals and pay nothing. If the corps that hire them have to remove taxes from their pay so that money gets into the system, I doubt many people would have such an issue with Mexican immigrants who simply want to come here to work because their economies suck and Mexico political arenas are seriously corrupt. The sad thing is that the fences they want to build and have started on suck and if Penn and Teller is any indication, Mexicans could technically get by a fence area in a few minutes. We are -humans-, not animals and fences really don't mean crap. The thing to do is go after the right people and lower our expectations some so that the immigrants aren't 'illegal'. This is racial profiling and Arizona can't even claim that crimes have gotten worse because of the Mexican border crossers that are simply here for cheap labor. Yes, there are drug runners, and yes, we need to stop -those people-. To be honest, let's face facts here. We had people in this country on expired passports and the CIA knew about it and no one did crap and look what happened.... 9/11. If we were going to do anything, why aren't we going after people who are here on expired passes and that are from hostile countries to us. Mexico has its issues but it's also not threatening us with war and calling us infidels. I think there are greater things we need to be worrying about and I can't see this really in any other way than racial profiling against a people we aren't at war with.
