The No Immigration Destination

Forty-nine states in this country are in a tizzy over what the fiftieth did. On Friday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the toughest anti-immigration law in the nation, which is set to go into effect by the end of July. The measure has reignited national debate over illegal immigration. Opponents are calling for mass boycotts of Arizona, which seems absurd considering the people of the state didn’t pass that bill, but the government. Boycotting Arizona could put people’s lives at jeopardy due to something they had no part in. President Obama is holding up the law as a prime example of state governments' "irresponsibility" on the issue, but any time a state government passes a law during a Democratic administration they find some way to deride it. And by Arizona passes this law it has therefore spurred federal lawmakers to speed up federal immigration reform, something that should have come about before national healthcare, if you ask me. The president of Mexico is angry, protesters have taken to the streets in many extremes, and critics have denounced the law as a blow to constitutional rights and an invitation to racial profiling. So this prompted me to see what, exactly, all the fuss is about?

The law requires police to ask for immigration papers from anyone whom they have a "reasonable suspicion" might be in the country illegally. Law-enforcement officials are also empowered to detain anyone they hold in such suspicion. It's also a state crime under the new law for immigrants to be found without immigration papers; individual citizens, meanwhile, can file suit against state agencies that fail to enforce the law. Police can detain and demand papers from anyone they have "lawful contact" with, but since the law defines illegal immigrants as trespassing when in any part of the United States, this gives the police the freedom to question people who are otherwise not breaking the law or engaging in suspicious activity. Those found to be in the state illegally can be thrown in jail for six months and fined $2,500, a harsher penalty than the federal punishment of deportation.

The argument is that this is a license for law enforcement to start profiling. Since roughly 30 percent of Arizona is Hispanic and about 80 percent of illegal immigrants are also Hispanic, critics say the law basically mandates that police engage in racial profiling (apprehending people based on their appearance rather than on any evidence that they may be in violation of the law). After she signed the bill into law, the state's Republican governor discounted this view, saying that she had worked hard to amend the bill with language to prevent enforcement from "solely considering race, color, or national origin in implementing the requirements of this section." Critics have countered that the bill doesn't say what might be grounds for detention apart from race, color, or national origin. Marco Rubio, a Republican Senate candidate in Florida, said that requiring people to carry documentation is "not really something that Americans are comfortable with, the notion of a police state." Call me extreme, but I’ve carried documentation of my citizen since my fifteenth birthday, when I got my first job. I’ve never felt part of a police state, but I have nothing to fear.

Governor Brewer has sought to allay many such qualms by signing an executive order for law-enforcement officers to receive special training in the new law's implementation. Part of that training, she assured her constituents, will be a primer in what constitutes "reasonable suspicion." Brewer said in the statement, "As committed as I am to protecting our state from crime associated with illegal immigration, I am EQUALLY committed to holding law enforcement accountable should this statute ever be misused to violate an individual's rights.” Other supporters of the law see no cause to soften any of its strictures. State Sen. Russell Pearce, who authored the bill, told CNN that with its passage, "we're going to take the handcuffs off law enforcement, we're gonna put them on the bad guy. 'Illegal' is not a race, it's a crime."

Though a Rasmussen poll says 60 percent of Americans favor provisions like those in the Arizona law, the measure has sparked passionate opposition and debate. This is where I really missed having my friend Fernando in town. Not only is he Hispanic, but he loves to boycott stuff. Detractors of the new law are already planning to hit Arizona where it hurts most: the state's coffers. The city of San Francisco submitted a resolution today calling for residents to cut all business ties with Arizona. Democratic Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona is calling for a boycott of all conventions in Arizona, a striking stand for a lawmaker to take in his home state. The board of governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association has canceled its convention in Scottsdale. It's far too early to forecast what the impact of a national boycott might be on Arizona's tourist economy. But there is a recent precedent: In 1992, the state caved on its refusal to acknowledge Martin Luther King Day as a holiday after boycotts that culminated in the loss of a lucrative deal to host Super Bowl XXVII in Phoenix. But when you take actions like these, you are not only taking money away from the state, but also from its residents who survive on such money. So I ask, if this law is passed by the few who represent the state, then why boycott the entire state?

To quote Meghan McCain, “I think unless you are from a border state and have actually seen firsthand the effects illegal immigrants have on your community, you can't truly appreciate the complexities of the problem and how it should be litigated.” I’m not necessarily a fan of this law, despite some of the things I might have said today. Simply put, I think it is a bad law that is missing the bigger picture of what is really going on with illegal immigration. The concept that a law-enforcement official can stop an individual when “reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien, who is unlawfully present in the United States” is essentially a license to pull someone over for being Hispanic. But I also understand why this law came into existence in the first place. Due to the continued failure of the federal government to secure Arizona’s borders, all US borders in fact, along with the rampant drug smuggling that has gotten increasingly worse over the years, emotions have been running high. Thus far, I think that both Arizona legislation and the national media have done a poor job articulating the real problems with illegal immigration. And like all things in this country, partisan politics is getting in the way of actually solving the problem in an effective manner. When a flawed law is magnified through the prism of extreme partisan politics, it only looks worse. With President Obama calling the law “misguided” and the mainstream media painting Arizona out to be a rogue state, all it does is make people go to greater lengths to defend their position. And this is only the beginning…