Arizona's SB 1070 law - a serious challenge for migrants rights in the USA

I used to live at UCI’s campus, one of the several public universities of California located in Orange County. One could not imagine a single day when the streets were dirty or full of tree leaves. Every morning Hispanic workers would be cleaning the streets of Southern sunny California to keep all of us in a bubble full of guilty cleanness.

I very well remember being stopped by the police whilst driving several times, under any pretext; my Mexican heritage looks definitely would help in the cop’s decision to stop me and ask for my documents. Just like it happened to me, in Arizona nearly one-in-ten (9%) Hispanics said they had been stopped by the police or other authorities and asked about their immigration status.

It has now been a month since the state of Arizona passed and signed a law that authorizes local police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being in the United States illegally. 

The law SB 1070, signed on April 23^rd 2010 by Governor Jan Brewer (a Republican), has generated a sharp debate between advocates who say it is needed to combat illegal immigration and opponents who say it is an infringement on civil liberties and an invitation towards racial/ethnic profiling of Hispanics by the police. Some say the law will create tensions between police and Hispanics that will hinder general law enforcement.

SB 1070, as amended, enables police officers to lawfully stop, detain or arrest a person whom they have “reasonable suspicion” to be unauthorized, in order to determine the person’s immigration status “when practicable”.

Even Arizonans could sue the police to force them to comply with the law. This means that if a member of the public sees “somebody” looking suspicious (hence Latino), and a police officer does not stop him/her to ask for immigration documents, it is lawful to sue the cop for not executing his/her job carefully.

Arizona’s immigrants must now carry proof of their legal status, and show IDs to police officers who suspect they might be illegally in the US; violators can be fined $2,500 or jailed up to six months.

According to Pew Hispanic Center tabulations from the 2008 American Community Survey, there are 2 million Hispanics in Arizona, representing 30% of the state’s population. One-third (33%) of Arizonan Hispanics are foreign born. Nationally, there were an estimated 11.9 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2008. Three-quarters (76%) are Hispanic.

The SB 1070 law will take effect on July 29^th 2010. Employers who knowingly or intentionally hire unauthorized workers can lose their state and local business license. Therefore they are forced to use the federal E-Verify system to check the legal status of new recruits.

Recent national polls – one by Gallup, the other by Pew Hispanic Center – have found that a majority of Americans strongly approve of the state's immigration crackdown. In fact, some even think it doesn't go far enough.

Supporters say the legislation is needed because the state can no longer cope with illegal immigrants.The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 500,000 undocumented immigrants resided in Arizona in 2008. Nearly all (94%) of these undocumented immigrants are from Mexico. Moreover, approximately 10% of Arizona’s workforce is undocumented.

But opponents of the legislation say it will lead to victimisation of anyone who looks or sounds Latino. The head of the Organisation of American States, José Miguel Insulza, said: "We consider the bill clearly discriminatory against immigrants, and especially against immigrants from Latin America."

Legislators in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania have already introduced similar bills to the Arizona law. In Arizona itself, the trend continues. Another law was signed by governor Brewer on 11^th of May 2010, prohibiting ethnic studies at Arizona universities, especially those focused on “Mexican-American studies”.

This is getting even more absurd. It is one thing to racially profile people through laws, (already outrageous), but another to try to annihilate academic programs that educate future policy makers that will try to integrate migrants into society by knowing their cultural origins. Sadly, the fact of trying to keep people in ignorance as an instrument of domination is nothing new.

SB 1070 is not only a step-back for race relations in the US, but also puts the president in a real dilemma about delivering on his original promises towards much wider immigration reform, including some kind of amnesty for the 13 million undocumented migrants - mostly Mexicans - in the country.