In an emergency meeting Friday night, a group of Colorado
immigrant’s rights activist decided to provide shelter to families fleeing Arizona in terror. Governor Jan Brewer signed into effect a law that makes being an illegal immigrant a crime and requires local and state police officers to detain workers whenever they suspect they lack documents. Those ascertained as being undocumented will be made available to immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) for deportation.
Meanwhile, Sheriff “Little Joe” Arpaio, a bully with a badge, has sworn to use the law to his advantage.
Free at last, free at last, ohh lordy, free at last!
Sheriff “Little Joe” Arpaio can pick on
Latinos to his hearts content!
"Now if we show they're illegal, we can actually arrest them and put them in our jails," Arpaio said.
“Little Joe’s” statement is ridiculous since he brags about detaining over 80,000 undocumented workers during his rein of terror as sheriff. If there had been such grand impediments to arrest and detention he would not have been able to ruin so many lives.
One can reasonably imagine the reaction of the undocumented community. Arizona has always been right-wing and anti-immigrant in their sentiment. Like Colorado, they begrudge medical treatment to needy workers unless it is “a life threatening emergency”.
However, the new Arizona law is so vicious it will strike terror in the hearts of grand mothers as they drive to the store. Entire families are destined to be harassed, ripped apart, and displaced. Employers will lose significant sums of money when their workers do not show up. Middle class fathers may want to re-think sending their kids to college since mundane jobs like washing dishes will pay significantly more than they did before. You can bet some of the Republican voting base that supported the law will be the first to bitch as restaurant food prices go up to cover increased labor costs.
The biggest losers in the Arizona hate based law are citizen Latinos who are confused for immigrants. Now is a great time to own clothing stores that carry yuppie style clothing. No one is going to want to look remotely like they came from the poor villages of Mexico. Woe be it to the Latino tourist, still full of the vibrations of little Mexico, if he forgets to change back into his gringo attire after crossing back into the U.S. If he makes a mistake like that he is likely to find himself face down on the pavement as a cop slaps on the silver bracelets until the citizen’s true identity can be ascertained.
None of this will change the
Coyote business which transports 80,000 plus
immigrants across the Arizona border every year. Very few of the humans who are treated like smuggled cargo remain in Arizona. Most of them are transported to other states as fast as possible. Hence, the Arizona hate law changes nothing. Law enforcement has always profiled for human smugglers.
Meanwhile, immigrant groups are preparing for the flight from the witch hunt which is surely to begin.
Sheriff “Little Joe” Arpaio is not the only cop who loves harassing immigrants in order to grab headlines.
There are plenty of copycats. Frankly, common sense says, if you are Latino and have not made arrangements to leave Arizona, now is a great time to call your travel agent.
Arizona is going to be just as unpleasant a place for Latinos today
as the deep South was for African Americans in the 1950’s. It won’t take much pretext to stop anyone of Hispanic descent, and the concept of
probable cause, a reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed, might as well be abolished for Latinos. All an officer needs to do to make his unreasonable search and seizure case stick is claim the cat he stopped looked like an illegal immigrant. Most police officers can tell just by looking these days, although we have yet to hear a definition of the illegal immigrant look.
Surprisingly, Arizona has done the pro-immigrant legislation movement a huge favor. National interests are focusing on the immigration debate after the issue has been wholly ignored by the press. President Obama pledged support of immigration reform this year just a few minutes ago. Such attention will likely lead to
comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) in part through the efforts of RIFA organizing, which will make hate based laws like the one in Arizona obsolete.
Technorati Tags:
arpaio,
civil rights,
hispanics fear,
protesters rally,
foes promise,
h.b. 1070,
hb 1070,
tim paynter,
jan brewer,
cir,
cir asap,
circ,
refugees,
racial profiling
