New Arizona Immigration Law

There has been a lot in the news recently over the new immigration law that was passed in Arizona that basically gives law enforcement the right to stop anyone with “reasonable suspicion” who they think could possibly be in this country illegally. This law basically makes racial profiling a legal and acceptable way to fight illegal immigration in the state of Arizona. After hearing all of this outrage it reminded me of an article that I had read this semester in one of my other classes. The article was written by Mary Romero, a sociologist, and it shows that the practice of racially profiling people to prove citizenship has been around in Arizona for a very long time.
In this article Romero talks about a tactic used by the INS and local law enforcement in the town of Chandler, Arizona to round up undocumented workers in 1997. The events that resulted were later referred to as the Chandler Roundup and were an example of law enforcement using racial profiling to find undocumented workers in the town. Romero suggests that the roundup had something to do with a new urban redevelopment type of program that the town was implementing and wanted to get some of the more “undesirable” people out of the area.
The way that the INS and local law enforcement went about rounding up people is they went to areas of town where there were lots of low income Latinos and started stopping people and asking them for papers to prove that they were citizens. Romero talks about how by simply looking “Mexican” and having a lower paying job automatically classified you as someone who could possibly be an undocumented worker. Law enforcement therefore was able to use the way you looked as a reason to stop and question you about your citizenship. This is the fear of many of the opponents of this new law, much fear that just because of the way they look it would be suspicion enough to be stopped. Even though the governor of Arizona has said that an amendment to the bill stating that race can not be the only reason for law enforcement to stop someone is included, it will not stop officers from using race as the only reason to question someone’s citizenship.
Going back to the Romero article, one of the big problems that came with these “random” stops of people was many times those who were asked to prove their citizenship status were here legally. Also, lots of people who were able to prove their status were still detained and questioned. Another issue was that many of the people who were stopped were citizens who were born and raised here and whose ancestors had been here for sometimes hundreds of years. This is a concern with the new bill as well because there is the problem of citizens who have been born here being asked to prove their citizenship. There is talk around Arizona of people who might fit the profile of a potential “illegal” would now have to start carrying around proof of their citizenship like their passport. This is an unnecessary burden to be placed on a population whose only crime is that they fit the “profile” that officers are now legally able to use as a reason to stop someone on the street.
In the article, there were also examples of officers stopping people who were coming out of Mexican owned stores or in Mexican dominated apartment complexes solely because they fit the “profile.” In some instances officers would wake up people at 11 o’clock at night in their homes and ask them to prove their citizenship status. All of these tactics were unfair and clear forms of racial profiling and are problems that people might soon have to deal with in Arizona now that this new law has passed. I predict similar events happening in Arizona again. I could see the police hanging around areas with high immigrant populations, and stopping people for no reason other than the way they look.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.” People have the right to immigrate; they also have the right to not be harassed once they have immigrated by people who may not want them there. I feel like this law violates not only laws in our country about racial profiling, but also violate the UDHR and everyone’s right to live where they want. There is clearly a problem in this country when it comes to illegal immigration, but this is no way to solve it. People will continue to come into this country however they can and the best way to solve this problem is with immigration reform. However, the kind of reform Arizona has passed is not the way to go and I hope people will realize that there are other ways to deal with it that don’t include the violation of a population’s right to move about freely.