SB1070.....New Government Racism or a plan for a country-wide control system?

We have been, actually the WORLD has been watching Arizona for at least the past month with the emergence of Senate Bill 1070 (SB1070). The entire U.S. and even countries such as Mexico, Spain and even India have been covering the story of this bill, now turned law since AZ Gov. Jan Brewer signed it last saturday. The few details alone give you a sense of what the law was designed to do and what means can be used to enforce it.

According to azleg.gov SB1070 the purpose of this bill is to:

"Requires officials and agencies of the state and political subdivisions to fully comply with and assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws and gives county attorneys subpoena power in certain investigations of employers. Establishes crimes involving trespassing by illegal aliens, stopping to hire or soliciting work under specified circumstances, and transporting, harboring or concealing unlawful aliens, and their respective penalties."

Translated to plain english, that says that law enforcement agencies have the requirement or responsibility to enforce immigration laws that we already have. This law gives them and county attorneys more power and ways to enforce this.

What this law does is allow police officers to use "reasonable cause" to detain someone and demand that they show their immigration documents, and to ARREST those who cannot produce them on the spot. Anybody who knows what does documents are, and how valuable they are, know that they don't carry them around for fear of them being lost or stolen. It takes years to get a green card and even more time to get your citizenship. If you lose those papers, it takes years to get a replacement.

While this is supposed to be targeting people who are here illegally, it also makes legal hispanics a target. Brewer, in her press conference in which she so publicly and proudly signed the bill into law in front of hundreds of cameras, said that:

"This training will include what does and does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States. Racial profiling is illegal. It is illegal in America, and it's certainly illegal in Arizona"

What training will allow a cop to make a judgement on who looks suspicious enough to be illegal? There is no way that a cop can tell the difference between a legal citizen or an illegal immigrant....unless he looks at their skin first. Now this is where conservatives freak out saying that this law isn't racist and that there are more illegals here other than Mexicans. Sure, there are illegal Canadians. But how many illegal Canadians are in Arizona?

This law targets illegal immigrants who are Mexican, Hispanic or Latino. It's about the people who do the jobs that nobody else wants to do. If they are deported, are legal Americans really going to take those jobs that make next to nothing? Doubt a man who got laid off after making enough to support his family will be happy making minimum wage at a burger joint.

Let's step away from the race issue for a minute. This law required that immigrants carry their legal papers. Right now it will be affecting legal latinos in the state. Let's say that this law is expanded to include Japanese immigrants, Indian immigrants (of which there are many in Phoenix), Korean immigrants ect. Soon enough EVERYBODY will have to carry identification, which means that somewhere in government, there will be a database with YOUR information on it.

This has already come up in the federal government with the suggestion that requiring all citizens to carry National I.D. cards would somehow help with security in the country. That would mean questioning anybody who the police see fit, for their I.D. (or immigration documents....sound similar?) The U.K. has National I.D.s.....and guess who got them first...that's right foreign nationals a.k.a. immigrants.

Arizona has been the starting place for some of the craziest legislation that has ever been brought up, and here we go again, being played as guinea pigs for another ridiculous law.

Lastly, I want to bring up the police. People like to believe that police officers are honorable people, and I agree that most are. MOST. We have seen different instances in which cops themselves have been convicted of committing crimes using their jobs. Police brutality, murder ect. (check out http://www.policecrimes.com/ if you want examples)

Police officers don't make enough money to keep putting more stress on them than they already have. The good cops do their job, take their paycheck home and raise their families. They legitimately care about their communities which they have been charged with protecting, with their lives if necessary. Turning them into immigration officials on the street just makes it harder for them to do their jobs, not to mention the backlash that they are certain to get if they stop legal citizens who feel harassed.

There is also the issue that this law will be taking police away from what their primary functions are: to protect people. If someone is being raped, or someone's house is broken into, or someone is getting mugged, they call the cops. Sorry, the cops won't show up for another couple of hours because they happened to stop someone who happened to not be carrying their papers, they had to arrest them and drive them to ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, http://www.ice.gov), only to find out, that person was a legal citizen. Then they have to file paper work ect. Even if the person IS an illegal immigrant, then there are more steps they have to take before they can get out to those calls of murder/rape/robbery ect.

We need to wake up and realize that those people who we have entrusted to lead us in government, are regular people just like us! Some of them are not too bright, and even more of them decline to read the bills they read, instead going off of what they are told, as many Americans these days do.

Do the research, look up the facts and then state your opinion. Stop taking the information that is fed to you from various sources such as the news, your neighbor, your parents and (yes i've seen this case in Phoenix) your pastor. Stop being lazy, get off your couch and pay attention to what is happening in YOUR world, because today it's the latino community getting screwed, but next time it may be YOU.

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME, YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIGN IN TO COMMENT. LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS, LET'S SEE WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK. READ THE BILL IF YOU HAVE SOME TIME, THE LINK IS UP TOP IN THE POST. THANKS!