What is wrong with the Arizona law?

[The Vegan Marxist]

After reading the bill, although I'm definitely an activist towards immigrant legalization, what exactly is wrong with this law? You can read the bill as provided by the link below:

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

[Red Saxon]

Here's the secret: It echoes the federal government's official stance while at the same time affirming the state's jurisdiction over it's borders.

It's just as much the Federal Government's policy as it is Arizona's.

[Jimmie Higgins]

After reading the bill, although I'm definitely an activist towards immigrant legalization, what exactly is wrong with this law? You can read the bill as provided by the link below:

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

Depends on what level of wrongness you want to look at it:

Legal: the Supreme Court has ruled since the 1970s at least that Immigration to be regulated and enforced on the federal, not the state level.

Racial-Profiling: Although they took out the language about being able to stop anyone to check their papers, it's still a racial-profiling green light. Police can do "routine traffic stops" without much reason, police can say they thought they saw someone smoking pot and use that as a pretext to stop people. This law was designed only to intimidate and scare undocumented workers and all immigrants in general.

In a state where an anti-immigrant sheriff imprisons people in the desert, created desert chain-gangs, and BEFORE this law was written had instructed cops to pull people over and check their papers; in a state that refused to recognize MLK day; a state where they want to fire teachers with accents; a state where they claim ethinc-studies classes teach latino supremacy... this bill has to be seen within the racist anti-LATINO immigrant context.

Class consciousness: This law has been called "Juan Crow". It is part of the fucked up immigration situation in the US, where restrictive laws on workers are used to make immigrants second-class workers.

Already I heard news stories about a California-born Latino being arrested and almost deported because he did not have papers. A Puerto Rican-born man (US citizen since Puerto Rico is a US territory) was threatened with deportation to MEXICO since apparently the pigs don't know the difference or what makes someone a citizen or not.

This law makes no sense on many levels and when you eliminate the justifications for it that don't quite fit (like are Arizona WASPs going to have to carry papers identifying themselves as citizens - Naturalized Asian or Latino citizens would if they don't want to be deported across the border), the only remaining factor is racism.

[Red Saxon]

A Puerto Rican-born man (US citizen since Puerto Rico is a US territory) was threatened with deportation to MEXICO since apparently the pigs don't know the difference or what makes someone a citizen or not.And that my friends is the definition of fucked up-ery.

[leftace53]

I wonder what happens if someday I visit AZ (I won't), and they pull me over asking for papers. I'm not white, and Canadian's don't need visa stamps to visit, its not like I'd have any other papers (because well I'm not American). I guess they could easily run my ID or whatever they do through the computers to check that I crossed the border legally, but with this blatant rascism, who the hell knows?

[Antifa94]

well they have revised it so that they can only ask citizenship if you are being interrogated for breaking a law at the time, of course this will lead to abuse with hispanics being pulled over for jaywalking or loitering or any other law they pull out of their ass.... the other bad point is that it transfers powers to the police. Now, Arizona is an Orwellian police state with racist overtones that have now been disguised under the facade of bourgeois legalism.

[Ocean Seal]

"A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON
IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES."
This is what's wrong. Probably cause may be an accent, a way that one dresses (looking working class), or just being Hispanic.

[Agnapostate]

It's just a matter of libertarian opposition to authoritarian state policies. This particular policy could be used to disproportionately target persons with an Amerindian phenotype, since those are the majority of illegal and undocumented immigrants, which many proponents admit plainly. I'm not sure exactly why so many people are concerned with insisting that the policy doesn't involve racial profiling when they defend such profiling at airports. It's an example of anti-[given ethnic group] bigotry stirred up by white populism during bad times (the combination of economic recession and social conservatism in Arizona, in this case), that can provide foundations to institutions like Japanese internment camps if things get out of hand.