As most of us are already well informed, there is a huge controversy currently going on in Arizona over its new immigration laws, which gives police greater authority to question possible aliens. On Wednesday, July 28th, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked the core aspects of the new policies. The next day, when the new laws were to take effect, there was an outburst of violent protests toward the immigration laws. One protest even led to a bullet hole found in the office of an Arizona congressman. It is an issue with constantly growing heated debate, and is likely to head to the Supreme Court.
I feel like in cracking down on illegal immigration, the state of Arizona is just carrying out the law, which is being excessively broken around the Mexican border every single day. There has always been a law banning aliens, it just was not watched closely, but now that illegal immigration is getting out of hand and Arizona is finally acting, people are behaving as if it is something new. Arizona should be able to carry out the law without so much violence and rebellion. It would be one thing for people to protest immigration restrictions as a whole, but to be angry that Arizona is trying to make laws to carry them out is completely different. It is wrong for a state of the U.S. to not be able to create laws that support other long-standing laws without its courts blocking it. They are there for a reason, and we should support that.
It is not new news that Arizona is attempting to pass their Immigration Law to protect their borders. Recently Judge Susan Bolt of Federal District Court ruled against major provisions of the law. This ruling sent outrage to both sides of the argument, those opposed were upset because the whole law wasn't rejected and those for are upset for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteIn this blog, Van Cleave argues that Arizona is "just carrying out the law." She cites this through the everyday border laws that are being broken by immigrants and Arizona's attempts at enforcing those laws. Van Cleave reflects over the violence that has occurred since the judgment. Through her words she is appealing an audience that is in support of the Arizona Immigration Law.
I disagree with this stance. To say that Arizona is only upholding a that already exists is incorrect. One of the provisions of the Immigration Law was to allow law enforcement to approached citizens and non-citizens and request documentation, which is a form of racial profiling. The result would thus be that people will be wrongfully detained due to lack of documentation and according to the law they will be detained until they are able to prove they have a legal right to be here.
Judge Susan Bolt's argument was that border laws are the responsibility of the Federal government and not that of the states. The whole border should be enforced the same. This law has created a lot of controversy but I stand on the side of opposition. Does Arizona really have the authority to execute racial profiling? I think not.
In holding with my own post, I decided to respond to a post concerning illegal immigration and the immigrant-reform laws currently in Arizona, titled “Attacks on Arizona,” by Andrea Cleave. My biggest problem with this argument is that it seems to be rooted quite heavily in biased, right-leaning commentary that too often uses divisive “scare tactics” to instill fear in an individual, thus creating a sense of security with their (the right’s) proposed intentions. This tactic is I’m sure bounced between both sides of the political arena, but I’ve seen its most abundant use by the right within these immigration debates. To explore this pronounced fallacy in your argument, I propose a few facts. You write, “There has always been a law banning aliens, it just was not watched closely, but now that illegal immigration is getting out of hand and Arizona is finally acting, people are behaving as if it is something new.” Now I must ask you, what proof have you seen of Illegal Immigration getting out of hand? One prominent argument held in this debate is that illegal immigration is getting out of hand and rampant violence surrounding their increase in “illegals” are both reasons for the Arizona laws, and legislation of the like, to be passed (on its necessity). These claims simply aren’t true, and it’s available for anyone willing to look to see for themselves.
ReplyDeleteLet’s look at the numbers: the number of murders in Arizona have went down from 404 in 2007 to 322 in 2009 (and even lower now), the number of aggravated assault is down from 16,889 incidents to 15,430, and Larceny-Theft is down from 166,531 to 151,755 incidents- so what violence is there that is so declaratively running rampant? The list of crimes goes on and on, but the numbers are all down from the previous year, holding true for the year previous the one before. In looking at the comparative count of detainees of Arizona’s border patrol, this being the best aggregate measurement of the number of (captured) illegal immigrants, the number of detainees is also down from the year before. From this arises the issue of those that aren’t caught, afterall that is the nature of illegal immigration. To this I respond, the only other thing we could look at to measure the number of estimated “illegals” in this country is the number detained within the state border of Arizona, apart from the number captured at the border. This, like all the other numbers explored thus far, is down from the year before. So what are the political pundits and personalities looking at? Only God knows, but I found that after watching political commentary from both the right and the left, respectively, I’d do my own research. And, not surprisingly, I found (quite easily I might add) the figures above, by literally typing “Arizona’s crime statistics” and “Arizona’s illegal immigrant stats” into Google. The information, also worth mentioning, is via a report made by the state of Arizona Department of Security.