The other day, the governor of Arizona got on the TV to express her outrage that some people might consider a boycott, or some similar action, in response to the adoption into the state’s criminal code a requirement that police check the immigration status of individuals they suspect are here illegally. It also allows for individuals to sue their local governments for not enforcing the new law and won’t allow any community to declare itself a sanctuary in which the law is not enforced.
We regret to inform the governor that sensible people in her state and the rest of the country are shocked, appalled and mostly determined to see to it that this attempt to create our first official police state will not stand. A boycott will be the least of it. Try thousands of lawsuits for starters.
Anyone with a lick of sense knows that the law very quickly will and should get shot down on constitutional grounds – if not instantaneously, then shortly after the statistics come out about just who is getting pulled. Unless the Arizona Highway Patrol wants to set up outside a Celtic Women concert in Phoenix and start yanking people named, say, McCain, the uneven enforcement of the law among races will be pretty clear. That, by the way, is unconstitutional. We even fought a big civil war over it. Look it up.
Even Tom Tancredo, whose visit to campus this week was again met with protest, has said the law would likely lead to racial profiling and abuse.
Really, ‘Zona, if you’ve lost Tancredo, you’ve lost the xenophobic middle. Until there’s a turnaround, the place will no longer be thought of as the Grand Canyon State or the Land of the Majestic Saguaro. No; Arizona has become the Papers, Please State, where you better know where your birth certificate is at all times and be able to get to it.
North Carolina and other states are not unaccustomed to seeing laws of this kind surface in the legislature. We’re thankful that they usually don’t get far and cooler heads prevail. This state and others see the value in our immigrant population and their contribution to our communities, our culture and our economy. We know that after a long wait, immigration reform at the federal level is coming, and through it we can have greater predictability and more safeguards than the awful system now in place.
This community in particular has long understood that tying local law enforcement into the immigration system ultimately makes us less safe and can have terrible unintended consequences. We have seen so many examples here of families being torn apart for no good reason and hard-working, longtime members of the community denied health care coverage, in-state tuition and even the right to remain any longer in a place they’d called home for most of their lives.
If Arizona’s government comes to its senses and repeals its law, these problems and racial profiling won’t suddenly disappear. The actions in the Papers, Please State are a potent reminder that there is a policy vacuum in immigration – and if the federal government won’t take action, then demagogues will.