Travis Vail / Roundup
About two weeks ago, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a bill allowing the state’s law enforcement to ask citizens to verify their legal status in the United States.
Since the passing of this bill, everyone from President Obama to my fellow Colombian Shakira have condemned this law as a form of legalized racial profiling, as well as a catastrophic blow to human rights.
Now I’d like to take a moment to investigate the exact stipulations of SB 1070.
According to its rhetoric, failure to carry immigration papers will now be considered a crime [hence the “illegal” part of “illegal immigration”], and the police will now have the right to detain those who cannot verify their legal status.
I’m fairly certain that I must be one of roughly ten who see the logic in this law, as Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angleles has gone as far as calling the law, “similar to nazism.”
While this would validate my theory that any 7-11 employee that asks for my ID is a nazi too, the public is turning this into an issue wherein they’d rather handcuff the police than illegal aliens.
How can we expect the police to stop any kind of crime if they’re unable to identify or detain criminals?
Most people can agree that while every human being deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, illegal immigrants do lack the “right” to live in the United States.
It’s not enough to support the government and its laws in theory; we need to allow them the ability to implement the legislation that we elect them to be responsible for.
An opponent’s response to this would be that the real issue is that Latinos, namely Mexicans, will be unfairly targeted in relation to other “suspicious” individuals.
In the interest of political correctness, I’d like to point out that I don’t support the masses of illegal Serbians that Arizona must have.
The fact of the matter is that Arizona shares a border with Mexico, and that means that a Latino just might make the list of suspects.
President Obama even made an unorthodox jump into the fray of state politics as he claimed, “[the law] undermines basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” during a naturalization ceremony.
Now, in my own vernacular, this translates to, “Dear Latino community, please make every effort to continue voting for me in the future. Yours truly, Barack.”
Speaking of our nation’s pop culture icon in the White House, Obama recently passed a widespread and costly healthcare bill.
The fact that illegal immigrants are able to cross the border and seek out free medical attention has always been a major portion of the anti-immigration argument, labeling and objectifying these people as a “burden.”
So, with our economy in the tank and illegal immigrants discovering new ways to forge or give birth to legitimacy, this is no time to turn a blind eye to the immigration issue.
I hope that Arizona eventually weathers the storm and demonstrates the effectiveness of a police force that can actually interact with the public, but we’ll have to wait a few months for the law to take effect.
It may at first seem unfair to those who are here legitimately but are now forced to carry identification with them, but if someone can’t handle the responsibility of carrying a driver’s license, they don’t have very much to offer any country.
