SB 1070, The Latest Volley in the Long War
A SMALL BUT INSISTENT FACTION of this nation’s populace, have today, indeed “taken back the country.” Taken us back to revisit the spirit of our country’s ugliest moments with the passing of Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona.
BACK IN MY FIERY TAKE-NO-PRISONERS DAYS of writing this blog, I began referring to the “Long War” on the indigenous of this continent. It is a war of weapons, of lies, of law, of land, and a billion micro-aggressions against both the idea and the reality that this land—if land can really be said to belong to anyone—belongs to and has been nurtured and nourished and tended by peoples who have been systematically hindered, harassed, hounded and hunted by outside forces and their descendants. Those who know what I mean, know what I mean. Those who do not will not, for they have been brainwashed by the poison that the televisionation spews out daily to maintain an illusion that exacts a cost of blood, bad dreams, and the pain of millions. We call it The American Dream. And yeah, today I’m a bit angry. Today, we see not yet another micro-aggression through our oversensitive racial lens but a very tangible, very dangerous bill (Senate Bill 1070) signed into Arizona law by Governor Jan Brewer.
In February of this year, I tried to communicate my feelings and thoughts on this bill.
This bill makes the racists happy. Just dig the comment threads on any videos on this topic. Sweet lord, these vile, selfish, thoughtless creeps who cluster to threads on immigration oughtta be shipped out to their very own island as far as I’m concerned. Judging by 90% of the noise they make, they simply are not fit to share a community or society with other people. They should be airlifted to an island and stuck there with a library of history books and made to work their own land and wait on their own damn tables and watch their own kids and chop up their own steers and otherwise bootstrap their asses to their own private, ridiculous destiny and leave the rest of us out.
SB1070 makes nativist groups like FAIR happy. It makes proven racists like Mark Krikorian happy. It does not make those who must enforce this new law happy. It makes millions of the rest of us very unhappy. For very good reasons.
[Cardinal] Mahony, a nationally influential figure who heads the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese with 4.3 million members, lambasted Pearce’s bill on his blog this week, likening it to “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques” that compelled people to turn each other in.
“The Arizona Legislature just passed the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” the cardinal wrote on his blog. “The tragedy of the law is its totally false reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense.”
“First and foremost, we are concerned with public safety, and we don’t know that this will be of benefit to public safety.”
“This is a federal issue, that obviously needs some addressing on the federal level.”
– Josh Copley, deputy chief, Arizona Flagstaff police department
“Unfortunately, the governor is afraid to stand left of the radical politics of (Arizona Rep.) Russell Pearce. The issue has divided Arizona and divided the nation, and only in Arizona have we chosen to embarrass ourselves in proclaiming some sort of radical resolution to this issue when there isn’t an easy solution at all.”
“The real solution belongs in comprehensive immigration reform that John McCain outlined three years ago when he was running for president. Until we get that, and this law repealed, we’re simply going to have community division and chaos within the command of police departments.”
– Tom Chabin, AZ state representative, D-Flagstaff
“I believe that it’s bad legislation … I have a concern about putting my officers in a position to have them profile people based on the color of their skin and the language they speak.”
– Bill Pribil, Arizona Coconino County sheriff
“This really is a massive expansion of police power, promoted by a Legislature that claims to be in favor of small government.”
– Joel Olson, NAU political science professor [source]
Aside from driving a vicious wedge between the police and most of the community, there are the myriad legal problems that occur when you let fringey racist elements start trying to flesh their murky animosity into standing and practicable law:
Imagine the following scenario:
A Tucson police officer pulls over a white person driving alone for a cracked windshield. By what standard or metric will the officer use to determine “reasonable suspicion” that the white person in the vehicle is in the country illegally?
You can’t tell by just looking. Right? So there must be some other behavior that an officer must cue on in order to develop a reasonable suspicion. What would that be? Nervousness? Most people are nervous when they’re pulled over? Not in possession of driver’s license? Thousands of citizens are stopped every year and cited for driving without a license.
There is no way to determine citizenship status by just looking at someone. So the officer must ask. And, in order not to run afoul of the equal protection clause, police will have to ask everyone.
So now what if our white driver, who does not speak with a foreign accent, refuses to answer the question? What will the officer do? The law says an Arizona’s driver’s license or state-issued ID card suffice as proof of citizenship. But what if the driver doesn’t have a driver’s license in his or her possession?
Can you imagine any scenario in which the officer would develop a “reasonable suspicion” that the white driver is in the country illegally? I can’t (if this was Vermont, I could).
Now change the white driver to a Hispanic driver. Is refusing to answer the question “reasonable suspicion?” Or is failure to have a driver’s license?
In a state with several hundred thousand illegal immigrants entering it every year, and several hundred thousand more living here, a reasonable person would have to argue that it is “reasonable suspicion.” But it’s reasonable suspicion based on race and that’s just not Constitutionally viable.
If the officer arrests the unlicensed Hispanic driver based on that failure to answer the citizenship question and being unlicensed (which is a civil offense that doesn’t require arrest as long as the person signs a promise to appear) under this law the city, county or state could conceivably hold that person until citizenship or legal immigrant status is proved. That flies in the face of presumption of innocence.
I can’t see how this portion of the law can possibly be equitably enforced. As I’ve stated, it has enormous 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment problems, as well as a near repudiation of presumption of innocence, which has been part of English and American common law for at least 200 years.
The only way to make it equitable is to ask everyone their citizenship status. But citizens are under no obligation to tell the police anything or to carry any proof of their citizenship.
The police can be sued if they fail to enforce the law but if they start rounding up citizens who refuse to provide proof of their citizenship, they’ll get sued for that too (though the law protects officers who wrongly arrest citizens or those in the country legally).
And then for some of us, this move has horrific resonances to it.
What can we do?
• 
Post about it. Talk about it. Tweet about it, yes. All these things. Keep this alive in the dialogue. This move is WAY too big to let it be subsumed into the everchurning news trash compost heap. Yes, it is part of the small but powerful and noisy faction of the populace that shrieks against change, fears a black president, fears a brown nation, changes textbooks to reflect right wing fantasy, elevates scumbags like rush limbaugh and glenn beck. But the uproar is massive—and plenty of it from white folks—because they understand that this is, ahem, beyond the pale. This law will creep like infection and twist the nation into a very chaotic, destructive, and divided state.
What else can you do?
• Join this Facebook group.
• Boycott Arizona. Make them feel the pain of taking our country “back” to our uglier eras. These lawyers are.
• Sign this petition to the governor. Or contact her yourself directly.
The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Telephone (602) 542-4331
Toll Free 1-(800) 253-0883
Fax (602) 542-1381
• See these sites for further resources.
I know there are other actions planned and things to do, groups to join, numbers to call. I don’t have anymore time today to hunt those down. But please do add your thoughts and info in the comments. And hang tuff, gente. Good will prevail. But it will be stank and bloody in the meantime, for the hard climb. That’s just life.
See you on May 1.
Tags: Arizona, bad law, Immigration, jan brewer, profiling, Racism, SB 1070, SB1070, Senate Bill
Posted in Accion, Borders, Cultura, Human Rights, Immigration, Indigenous, The Long War on the Indigenous
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by LatinoNewz, Nezua. Nezua said: Órale! New Post: SB 1070, The Latest Volley in the Long War: A SMALL BUT INSISTENT FACTION of .. http://bit.ly/a7vC7M [...]
Horrendous indeed. What gets me just as much is that you have Mexican@s who support this bill, spouting off the same nonsense as everyone else. Don’t they know that they or their family members and friends are not exempt from such racial profiling?
Usually the current state would have me saying “I’m not surprised” but even this made me slap my head & say “What the hell!!!”
I hope for a lawsuit before the bill goes into effect, for the simple reason that our MEXICAN publishing company’s book designer is in Phoenix, and — like other MEXICAN companies — we’re going to have to take our business elsewhere. Which sucks — we like the designer and she does great work — but do-able. The loser in all this is going to be Arizona: according to (PDF: http://www.ime.gob.mx/investigaciones/aportaciones/arizona.pdf) “Economic Impact of the Mexico-Arizona Relationship” — in 2003 the value of Mexican trade with Arizona was over 8 billion U.S. a year. Mexico’s 5 billion worth of trade are mostly in goods and services that can be met internally (attention Tuscon Walmart shoppers! — your store may be closing for lack of business) or are able to switch to alternative U.S. suppliers.
On a personal note, there’s some irony in this that right now I’m walking around Mexico without proof of legal residence in Mexico. Seems that — as the next stop on my “path to citizenship”, my soon-to-expire FM-3 (“gringo card”) and U.S. passport are in the hands of the Secretariat of Foreign Relations while documents are being processed.
And, although I’m a legal resident, there are a lot of foreigners here (and throughout Mexico, especially in the Gringo Ghettos) working without proper papers. I’m seeing comments on the Mexican sites, and hearing comments, suggesting there is at least some support for a quid pro quo legal harrassment campaign.
Yeah, totalmente correcto with that assessment. Ironically, seems that the whole thing is blowing up in the Repub neo-imperialists’ faces. The hidden (or not-so-hidden) intent of the law is just that– to harass Latinos, Navajo and other Brown people, to try to force us out of Arizona, even though we are indigenous here, long preceding the Anglos. In fact, Arizona began as a slaveholders’ refuge territory which is why the slaveowners pushed for the US-Mexico War in 1846– they wanted to spread slavery into the Western region, which they couldn’t do when Mexico banned the slave trade and slavery itself shortly after 1821. That’s Arizona’s past and present– Anglo slaveholders and their wannabe feudal-lord descendants in the Republican Party, doing everything they can to step on and piss on the Latinos and indigenos in general, who they want to keep as the Untouchables in the North American caste system. The Anglos were so obsessed with their slaveholding aristocracy that they attacked anyone and everyone who stood up against the oppression, whether the indigenos themselves or anyone else who stepped up to defend them (e.g. Anglo attacks against German communities in Texas and Arizona who opposed slavery in the 1860′s).
IOW these Tea Party fools like Joe Arpaio are hateful people, descended from the slaveowning class that pushed the US to invade Mexico in the first place in 1848. Now that they realize their grip on power is slipping away, they’re lashing out in desperation.
They want us to leave Arizona, but we’re not leaving– we’re indigenous in the region, not people like Arpaio, Jan Brewer, Meg Whitman, or John McCain. In fact, more Latinos are moving into Arizona these days than moving out. Coming from New York, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina and other states, we’re moving back into our indigenous homeland from before 1848. And we’re registering to vote, so that we can kick out these bigoted bastards in the next election. Then the power will be back in our hands, and these wanna-be feudal slaveholders of 2010 will never again be allowed to trample as anymore. Sera asi tan pronto!
Beautifully put.
[...] at The Unapologetic Mexican describes what happens when you roll over the racist pig in the middle of immigration and leave it [...]
Hey Nezua,
For you and your readers, in case you have not read it yet, here is an ACLU step-by-step analysis of how S.B. 1070 is almost certainly Unconstitutional:
http://acluaz.org/ACLU-AZ%20Section%20By%20Section%20Analysis%20of%20SB1070updated%204-14-10.pdf
Now, barring a breakdown of well-established constitutional jurisprudence, Governor Brewer and all Arizona legislators that voted for S.B. 1070 have violated their oaths of office on an unprecedented scale:
“I, ____________________________________________do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will
support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona, that I
will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies, foreign and
domestic, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of
_______________________________________ according to the best of my ability, so help me God (or
so I do affirm).”
When the president of United States and just about every legal scholar outside of Kris Kobach told Governor Brewer that the bill was likely to be unconstitutional, I think it is safe to say by that by signing the bill, Brewer violated her oath to support the Constitution of the United States.
Hey, thanks B. Interesting point.
We will take back this country without firing a single shot, we will take it back in the voting booths-let’s vote!
Republican Party beware
Lets just accelerate the inevitable and destroy the world. jk. why do white men feel that they can “conquer” lands and kick out the natives and then make it illegal for them to come in? then call us aliens and have laws that keep us out and under? the horror…… the horror…
[...] and colonialist ideology on the part of the US continues today. For current trends, see Arizona (here, here & [...]
[...] Unapologetic Mexican: SB 1070, The Latest Volley in the Long War SB1070 makes nativist groups like FAIR happy. It makes proven racists like Mark Krikorian happy. It [...]
There are only 13 prehispanic codices left in the world, hundreds were burnt because they had “demonic” symbols on them. Mexican descendants need to make a heroic effort to study their ancestral past and not let anyone stop them. Knowledge is power and the manipulation of ignorance is also power (in the hands of evil)
Mexico had civilization when Europe was shrouded in medievial darkness. The Conquistadores were amazed at the great cities they discovered. Then the Colonial period came in and Mexico faced 300 years of slavery and opression.
There was a “Black Legend” in which the Spaniards told the world that the Mexicans were savage pagans and ignorant. They forgot to mention things like how the European Calendars had to be changed because the Mexican Calendar was more accurate. Revisionism set in.
Then the “White Legend” that claimed the Spanish came and educated the natives in correct religious beliefs and ways of “civilization”.
In 1810, the Mestizo & Indian population threw off the Spanish yoke and became independent. In 1910 Revolutionaries defeated the Capitalistic government and forged a Constitution based on the one in the USA. So Why arent Americans helping their neighbors instead of worrying about oil rich lands in the mid east? HMMM> I think I answered my own question.
SB 1070, The Latest Volley in the Long War [UMX | El Machete] http://bit.ly/aexyMX
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
YOu know, an almost identical law was passed in PRince William County, VA a few years ago. It was an utter failure. All it took was one traffic stop and there was a lawsuit. Furthermore, latinos and hispanics left in droves – not because they were illegal, but because they didn’t want the harassment.
We’ll see how far AZ’s law gets….
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Ugh, this law is so depressing. My only hope is that as American voting demographics change, conservatives and racists will have shot themselves in the electoral foot with laws like this, and will increasingly lose their positions of power. Angry white men are not a lasting voting base — although they are certainly trying to do as much damage as possible while they still can.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
The next thing you know, they’re going to require that legal immigrants wear puce triangles on their sleeves so the police know who not to talk to.
Maybe I watch too much science-fiction to not see the Big Brother implications of a law like this.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Look, I’m not racist, but why don’t they just sign their name on the way in?
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Angry white men are not a lasting voting base — although they are certainly trying to do as much damage as possible while they still can.
Is it just “angry white men” that are the problem? I’d argue that racism crosses political perspectives rather well. Limousine liberals and middle class “progressives” often harp on the dislike of illegal immigrants; yet, how many of them do everything in their power to move to mostly white neighborhoods and keep their children out of public schools with large minority populations?
It’s interesting to note that whites of all political stripes are leaving states with large immigrant populations (California, notably at the top) and that majority white states are scheduled to get even whiter in the future. Get ready for the new white flight.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
I have failed to make a working link: http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Jill,
Angry white men–often blue collar and working class– the base in places like Arizona because, unlike middle class whites, they can’t move away as readily. Hence, the upper classes get to feel smug about “racist white hicks” while they retreat to mostly white areas, where they can congratulate themselves on how progressive they are.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Holy, that’s part of it, but I really don’t think that’s the whole story. I mean, I agree with you about some of the smugness and the ability to be anti-racist when you don’t actually have to interact with people of different races. But the idea that blue-collar and working-class white people live in diverse places and that’s why they’re openly racist whereas wealthier white people retreat to their gated communities is a little reductive. A lot of those angry white men in Arizona aren’t blue-collar or working-class, first of all, and a whole lot of them live in their own gated communities away from anyone who doesn’t look like them. They’re nonetheless taken in by talk about Authentic Americans and Real America and blah blah blah.
I’m not saying that Democratic-voting white people aren’t racist. But you know, wherever they’re living — and I don’t buy the idea that Democrat vs. Republican falls squarely along class lines, not by any stretch — they aren’t the ones who are regularly promoting and passing these laws. Again, not saying that liberal racism doesn’t matter, but when there is a concentrated, concerted effort to pander to racist voters, and when the image of The Real American is an angry white dude, yeah, I’m going to call it like I see it. And “liberals are racists too!” is kind of a dodge.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Start moving majority latino populations into the suburbs and into white schools and see how their tune changes.
As far as your point about gated community conservatives, you’re correct. They often hold similar views as the working class but they don’t have to become the face of anti-immigration; they can hide behind the tea party folks and minute men who make up the public face of the movement.
A similar thing happened during desegregation in the 60s and the busing campaigns of the 70s. Working class whites fought against the integration of schools and neighborhoods on the ground, while conservative, and yes, liberal whites, voted with their fleet and fled many metro areas.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Doesn’t this get struck down on 4th amendment grounds once the first citizen wrongly targeted refuses to produce documents? I can’t imagine the obligation to show id extends to proof of citizenship.
I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just settle for mandating an immigration status check for someone arrested for something else. Not so many obvious search and seizure issues there.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
The irony about Arizona was that we got it from the Mexicans who were there before there was a United States not to mention there’s a sizable number of Native American reservations in Arizona who definitely preceded both the Spanish and the Americans.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
I live in Arizona and will surely not get stopped for anything since I am blonde and blue eyed. I want to leave but have few skills that can gain me much, I am unemployed for a reason. Anyways back to the subject at hand. Back in the day Arizona could only get the Super Bowl here if they would officially acknowledge and adopt Martin Luther King Jr day. I (and others) see something like an exodus occurring in 2011, of the MBL franchises that come here for spring training. Same could be said about companies either leaving or not coming to lay roots to employ the many unemployed in Arizona. Yes, there is violence and drug cartels worming their way up here, but I see that more a mark of our failed “war on drugs” and insatiable hunger for illegal drugs like meth. I like many would hope that people in Arizona will vote out the people that would drain the monies on useless and ineffective laws, but many who would vote are felons for having little more that an once of pot or other non-violent crimes. This is what really happens here in effort to curb illegal immigration, http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-05-28/news/two-statutory-rape-allegations-tell-us-everything-we-need-to-know-about-the-mcso-s-priorities/
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
I’m curious about how long you think ti will take for this law to be legally challenged? It seems kind of … illegal, or unconstitutional, or something.
Then again, the Roberts court seems happy to make completely crazy decisions.
Can’t the fed. administration just challenge the law on various grounds?
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
From what I heard on a conference call yesterday about SB 1070, hosted by RI4A, with local, state, and national organizers and advocates, right now organizers in Arizona are making “3 asks” of people outside their state: (1) hold solidarity vigils and actions in your own community, and send pictures or video to rlopez@communitychange.org; (2) escalate May Day demonstrations into a vocal protest against SB 1070; and (3) put pressure on President Obama and your Congressional representatives to seek a federal injunction against the implemenation of SB 1070 because local and state police are not authorized to enforce federal law, and to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
There will surely be more targeted actions and campaigns, seeking to apply economic and political pressure on key points, as peeps get some more time for research and strategic deliberation.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“It’s interesting to note that whites of all political stripes are leaving states with large immigrant populations (California, notably at the top) and that majority white states are scheduled to get even whiter in the future. Get ready for the new white flight.”
What’s the empirical basis for this assertion? A significant percentage of people leaving California are moving to Texas, which has a huge immigrant population and has been “majority-minority” for at least 5 years. (Texas and California are both 36% Hispanic.) I don’t think people leave California because it has a lot of immigrants; they leave California because the taxes are high, regulatory burdens are heavy and jobs are scarce. They’ll move to a state that has the same proportion of immigrants and an even larger border with Mexico if that state seems like a better place to live based on economic factors. More people moved to Texas than to any other state during 2008-09. Does that really look like white flight?
Also, note that even the super-conservative politicians in Texas are wary of stoking anti-immigrant/anti-Latino sentiment. For example, Gov. Rick Perry (perhaps best known to the rest of the country for declaring secession an option) signed into law a measure that allows undocumented college students to qualify for in-state tuition.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just settle for mandating an immigration status check for someone arrested for something else.”
A) I think they probably already do that in a lot of places.
B) The point of this is (probably) not even mostly to catch and deport people who are here illegally. The point is to give the police the power to harass anybody who fits their idea of “does not belong” and be really, catastrophically loud and aggressive about how that’s now enshrined in law. Presumably they felt this was classier than building a “Brown people get out” sign that could be seen from space.
“I live in Arizona and will surely not get stopped for anything since I am blonde and blue eyed.”
There’s already at least one city that’s promising to have officers check papers on everyone they stop “to avoid lawsuit potential.” It seems pretty clearly intended to do double duty as a form of protest against the law’s passage.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
One last thing about Texas: it got $1.5 billion of the $15.9 billion in federal earmarks in the 2010 budget. The state has almost exactly 8% of the U.S. population, but got 9.5% of earmarked money. Not bad for a state whose politicians constantly talk about how oppressive the federal government is.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
I talked to a conservative friend who supports this law, and he said it is totally going to allow for racial profiling. The only reason conservative politicians pretend it doesn’t is that racial profiling is Constitutionally suspect and has a bad reputation among the general voting population. But conservative commentators have consistently defended profiling as a “sensible” way to use limited enforcement resources, whether it’s profiling at the airport for who gets the full-body frisk, or profiling on the streets of Phoenix for who gets asked for proof of residency status.
So I wouldn’t even bother arguing about whether the law allows for/encourages racial profiling. The law’s supporters know that it does and they don’t consider that a bad thing.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
To be somewhat fair to Texas, they have second largest state economy in the country, and the 15th biggest in the world based on GDP. There’s a reason they get earmarks. However, they need to be more honest about their conflicts of interest vis-a-vie the federal government.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Uhh, but what if you are a U.S. citizen and don’t carry “papers” on you??
This reminds me of my alien card when I lived in Japan. Luckily I was never stopped by the police (probably because I’m a girl), but my male white/colored friends were routinely stopped.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
@ PG: You’re completely right. I’ve debated the “merits” (ha) of racial profiling before with people who aren’t hard-line conservatives. People who, up here in my “liberal” Canada, support it. The general argument is that, sure, it’s technically discrimination, but security comes at a cost and we have imperfect law enforcement and relying on techniques like racial profiling cuts down on crime and blah blah blah.
Sometimes progressive groups forget that racial profiling isn’t a tactic that is defended only by hard right-wingers; it’s a technique that has support in moderate and centrist communities as well (and there are even some liberals who consider both the pros and the cons of the issue). Those who support this new law might be avoiding the language of “racial profiling” in the media, but they’re fully aware that’s what it is and they’re completely fine with that.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“Uhh, but what if you are a U.S. citizen and don’t carry “papers” on you??”
They deport you to Mexico for kicks.
(Not entirely kidding about that.)
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
This law is disgusting. I somehow got the recessive green eyed blonde genes in my family, but my mom and sister regularly are mistreated and profiled for having the nerve to have darker skin and curly dark hair.
My mom said furiously that she should just carry her birth certificate around at all times for when the police ask for her papers, and perhaps she should get an armband so that people can distinguish her from the “aliens”.
We live in southern California, where racism against Latin@s and people who vaguely look like people think Latin@s look is rampant.
And we aren’t even Latina! We’re generally considered white! The shit my family deals with being not perfectly pasty white clearly pales (sorry) in comparison to those who are actually Latin@ or who have the nerve to speak Spanish in public.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Athenia,
Here’s the relevant text of the law (sorry about all-caps): FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES,
A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON’S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).
8 U.S.C. 1373(c): “Obligation to respond to inquiries
The Immigration and Naturalization Service shall respond to an inquiry by a Federal, State, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information.”
So it doesn’t help even if you do carry your citizenship papers (either U.S. birth certificate or certificate of naturalization) with you. The law says status is to be verified by checking with INS, which no doubt has dozens of excess employees with plenty of time to spare answering phone calls from Arizona about this or that dark-skinned person. It’s not like the INS employees have any other responsibilities, such as actually processing people’s paperwork in a timely manner so that they don’t fall out of residency status in the first place.
Also, I was born in the U.S. and thus never immigrated nor naturalized, so I don’t know if the INS even *has* records on me. And I think this might be the first instance of a state putting an “unfunded mandate” on the federal government, as the AZ law doesn’t provide for giving the INS money to hire extra employees to do these checks.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Thank you for the update, Cara. I just signed my (real) name at Change.org. It may only be symbolic, but at least it’s something.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“This reminds me of my alien card when I lived in Japan. Luckily I was never stopped by the police (probably because I’m a girl), but my male white/colored friends were routinely stopped.”
I’m very familiar with that. Ironically enough, the current Arizona law is pushing us closer to Mexico’s immigration policy, the toughest on the continent. Illegal immigration is a felony in Mexico. Yet, the Mexican government protests American immigration policy.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
If someone asked me for proof of citizenship randomly as I was going about my day, I’d be so pissed that I might burst a blood vessel.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
I’ve seen other people posting on this topic on a couple of forum sites I use; and I’m shocked speechless that there are so many people out there who really don’t think this is authoritarian, police state-style racism.
I’ve actually come across people who go so far as claiming that undocumented people have no rights at all. Usually, these are the same people who cheer Arpaio and use the word ‘illegal’ as a noun. At that point, you just have to stop engaging with the person, as they’re beyond help.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Kai, thanks for the additional info; I’ve added an update to the post.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Please forgive the linking, but as a resident and Native of Arizona, I have been somewhat vocal about it, and recently posted this to my own blog and Bilerico.com
http://www.dyssonance.com/?p=1631
I’m getting to the point where I repeat myself when I talk about this stuff, as it affects me personally in multiple ways.
It’s just bad. There is nothing positive about this. And its one of those times where I can only cry, and not laugh.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Begging your indulgence, this MIA UK video was tweeted by musician @kayhanley at the same time the tweets of outrage about this law were coming in. They video and this issue are dancing around each other in my head right now (along with Iraq & Afghanistan, etc.).
I’m pretty liberal with my use of the word fascism, but I think what we’re seeing could be considered fascist by the strictest of definitions. Peace.
http://www.miauk.com/
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
NB: Janet Napolitano is not just the Secretary of Homeland Security, she was also Arizona’s governor before being appointed to that post. (She was a LOVELY governor. I want her back, please.)
I’m blindingly white, and I’m not going to be leaving the house without ID. This shit is terrifying and I hope SCOTUS strikes it down.
Amarantha: I beg your pardon, but I’m quite crazy, and mental illness has nothing to do with bigoted court decisions. We don’t need the further stigma, thanks.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“If someone asked me for proof of citizenship randomly as I was going about my day, I’d be so pissed that I might burst a blood vessel.”
This is pretty much off topic but…my parents house is right by my old high school. Which is huge. And weirdly laid out. To the point that a major street divides the campus. The easiest way to walk downtown from my parents house (a grand total of about 10 blocks) is right down that street. I don’t always think about what time it is when I walk downtown. One day, when I did so during passing period (or maybe lunch?) I got stopped by the rent-a-cops. Who told me to get back on campus (or some such).
As they were merely rent-a-cops, I just scoffed and said “SO not a student” and kept walking. But, yeah, I think I’d have flipped if they had been more forceful or asked for ID.
Back on topic – the law is such an insult to justice and liberty and equal rights that I don’t even know where to begin.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
This law is only set up to harass Latin@s. What’s going to happen when they pull over a car full of US citizens who appear Latin@? The police are going to ask for their documentation.
But what documentation proves US citizenship? Only a passport, or an original certified birth certificate.
How many conservatives carry those types of papers on them? Because I know I don’t.
So the car full of people will have to sit by the side of the road while somebody calls ICE, and the ICE agents will come and take the folks in to detention (possibly separating any children from their parents), and the folks will be questioned, possibly intimidated, and have to sit in detention until (when they’re eventually permitted to use the phone) they call somebody to come bring their birth certificate or passport to the detention center. Then, hopefully, the ICE officer won’t simply look at it and say, “I think this is a fraudulent document, I’m going to file a Notice to Appear against you and put you immigration court proceedings” (yes, this happens). HOPEFULLY the officer acknowledges it’s a legit document and that the person is a citizen, and they get released then, only having spent six or seven hours in detention, missing work, with their children under the care of god-knows-who.
This law permits this to occur every time somebody is pulled over for a (real or imagined) traffic violation; every time somebody calls the police to report a crime; every time somebody is questioned as a witness….
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Andrew Sullivan’s blog today had this photo, which I think I’m in love with.
I’m horrified at the chilling effect this will have on law enforcement. By the sounds of it, a lot of Arizona cops are too.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
Persia,
Love the pic. I’m road-tripping through Arizona in a couple months, and will have to soap something similar — “I’m Brown, Pull Me Over” — on the back of the minivan.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.
“But what documentation proves US citizenship? Only a passport, or an original certified birth certificate.”
Apparently under the wording of the law if the individual produces a driver’s license or any state-issued ID they’re assumed to be here legally.
This comment was originally posted on Feministe – In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set.