Arizona Immigration Reform Sparks Outrage and Reminds of Slavery

Racial Profiling Is Not Immigration Reform
Arizona is the face of the Republican solution to immigration reform. While some may think President Obama is dragging his feet on reform, the GOP would rather drag you by your feet out of America. The purge of moderates and the increase of conservative ideologues is destroying the Republican party. Governor Jan Brewer just passed a bill that gives the officers an additional tool to fight the influx of illegals into the state. This will become the foundation for the emergence of the states’ rights movement that is sweeping the country. The bill further allows and extends existing laws to nothing more than racial profiling. The reverse engineering of America is on display—written with this bill, and signed with the heart of inhumane separation. We have gone backwards in America as it relates to the safe passage and protection of our immigrants. All so-called liberals and conservatives have ignored the problems that come with an open border. The neglect of immigration reform, as it concerns Hispanics, has brought us to the point of reactionary law. The state of Arizona has been given a free pass by a conservative legislature and Governor—with that pass they chose to promote police resources to legal profiling with Arizona’s latest Immigration Reform law. The state had full run to do with their immigration policy whatever they choose, and profiling is the product of that Republican control. The Arizona legislature passed the reemerging of something far worse than the Jim Crow south, as it relates to the Hispanics in this country. This new law that requires all citizen documentation to be held on a person or face jail and even deportation is parallel to a darker time in the country, slavery.

Saying that the Arizona law is reminiscent of the days of Jim Crow is giving the law a little more credit than what it deserves. The law could be more aligned with what happened to blacks in the days of slavery. The manumission papers of the days of slavery are being put right back in the forefront of how this country deals with citizenship. During slavery, manumission papers were documents that free Blacks were required to produce if any white man should ask for them. The exact same heavy handed approach that was looked upon as evil and unconstitutional in this country years ago, is the same tactic being implemented by like minded people—that so happen to have similar color skin. In this case the police act as the freedom watchers that pick and choose their targets. Some people would argue that the police are trustworthy and capable of such power, but that is terribly wrong and ignorant to our very recent history in this country in regards to police aggression.

The police have overstepped their authority in Black America for years. Blacks have been harassed, beaten and murdered by police officers, on and off duty. It is not rational to say, a discretionary law like the one in Arizona isn’t going to open the door for profiling. No state has ever had profiling language written in any law for Blacks, yet the amount of police harassment and profiling is innumerous. There were no laws on the books allowing plain clothes officers to follow Sean Bell and his friends from a bar and shoot 50 shots into the car killing the groom (Sean Bell) and injuring his fellow passengers, yet it happened. The overused footage of the Rodney King beating in L.A. is not an isolated incident, just one of the first shown to the world. None of the harassment and murder that the police inflict on blacks has been written into laws, yet it continues to take place year after year.

The law that was signed in Arizona for immigration reform is not called a profiling bill, but it does in fact give suspicious officers the right to profile. When you allow suspicious cops to profile, you allow racist cops to harass the Hispanic community, in the name of suspicion. In the case of a bias officer—the law allows them to intimidate and threaten legal residents who may have left their manumission papers home that day. This law will cause division between officers who harass and officers who simply use this law as an additional tool in which they combat illegal immigration. The Hispanic population will not see the inside division between officers who agree with this law and those who opposed it. The officers will be group together as the enemy of the Hispanic population. Tensions in these communities will become strained as more and more acts of violence against legal and illegal Hispanics are taken by officers. The evidence of giving officers more power to infringe on peoples lives has been shown to produce a disadvantage to the people, and not a deterrent for crime. Arizona is part of a larger strategy that is taking place in the country—one that is more political than a matter of border security. This is purity testing for the GOP and this is what the future with them in power looks like.

The wing nuts in the Republican Party are affecting the way the party, as a whole, approaches legislation. Arizona is a prime example of a right wing talking point becoming an engineered law for Immigration Reform that targets Hispanics. The neo-cons have not been pushing immigration reform, but immigration extinction. A balanced government and rational thinking have prevented them from producing legislation like this in the past. But, that is over. The purge is on, and rational minds will not prevail in the political landscape we find America in. This country is at a crossroads of how to deal with this very sensitive issue; but profiling should not be part of any debate. Both parties have failed to do anything federally about immigration because they are the fastest growing demographic in America. The hands off approach by democrats have forced the hand of the radical Republican Party to be played.

No longer can either party sit back and count votes as long as this issue is unresolved. We must pass direct action reform as it relates to the problems of border security, amnesty, and most importantly corporate exploitation. We also cannot allow any law that dehumanizes man—as we have seen that slippery slope in this country before. The constitution must be at the forefront of our decision making and legislative process. Hispanics have a great deal to offer this country and those traits should be highlighted, not divorced as inferior. We must also keep the majority in mind when talking about immigration reform. Most of the population that are undocumented are workers with families that are looking for a better life in America. It almost seems reminiscent of an earlier culture of Americans—who sought prosperity and an escape from tyranny and oppression abroad. We should give those who are looking for that same security and embrace of freedom a chance to find it here, in America. Equality and justice must be part of the solution to immigration reform—lest another president should have to apologize for yet another American mistake.