I'm not very proud of Arizona right now. Now, I love living here. I love the bright sunshine, gorgeous native plants and stunning sunsets. I love cheering for the Suns, eating hot dogs at D-back games and seeing amazing concerts. But, right now, I have to say that I am not impressed with our lovely state. A law was just passed that requires police to check the immigration status of every person they think might be here illegally.
"What's the problem with that?" you may ask. "If they're here illegally, they should be deported. If they are legal, they will have paperwork to prove it." That's technically true, but it's a very simplistic understanding of immigration and law enforcement issues. I can't begin to tell you ALL of the problems I have with this law, but here are a few reasons why I think it's a major problem:
- Anyone who is here illegally, or lives with or loves illegal immigrants, will be very unlikely to report crime. No one with connections to any illegal aliens will want to bring the police into their community. If a woman is raped or beaten, she will not report the crime. If she does, she may be deported. "So what?" you may say. "She's not even a citizen." The law will only protect citizens, even if the crime is committed BY a citizen. Think about it... would you call the police if your boyfriend, mother or friend could get pulled into the investigation? Or would you just let it go?
- Communities that are isolated from police protection become hotbeds of gang activity. Gangs generally begin as an internal enforcement squad, policing their own neighborhoods and delivering their own form of judgement. So, no, the woman from the example above would NOT call the police, but she may tell her brother, who's in the local gang. They take care of their own, which means another beating or murder. "Um..so what? Just one more dead alien, and they're all violent anyway..."
- Profiling (questioning people based on their appearance) builds a relationship of distrust and fear among people who ARE citizens but look different: Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, people of mixed ethnicity, people with tans (well, it IS Arizona!) So now, even citizens don't want to work with the police. Our own citizens feel like they are being singled out as "the other" by our government. Our young people are being shown, on a daily basis, that equality is a pipe dream and that they will always be judged by the color of their skin.
SNL got it right this weekend. There isn't a WWII movie made that doesn't include the line, "Show me your papers." Nazi Germany as able to commit the atrocities of the Holocaust because good people were silent. People who saw what was happening at the beginning of the movement chose not to speak up and take a stand against bigotry and injustice. Remember, it didn't start with killing. It started with dividing the community into little groups based on ethnicity and citizenship and forcing people out of the country. That sounds a little too familiar. I will not be silent.Labels: Arizona, immigration, Lezli Goodwin, SNL