Did anyone else feel sickened reading this in The Guardian yesterday?
Thousands upon thousands of Arizonians (landed emigrants or not) are leaving the state because of Bill SB 107 which allows the government and its agents to stop and arrest citizens on the suspicion of being off-white in colour and possibly undocumented. And if you or I help them, we can also be charged.
Politicians have responded to demands for the border to be strengthened and for more deportations, culminating in SB 1070. The legislation, in effect, turns Arizona's undocumented residents into criminals, handing responsibility for enforcement from immigration officers to the police. Anyone without proper papers who comes into contact with the police – be it for something as minor as a broken brake light – can have their documents checked if police suspect them of being illegal immigrants, and find themselves rapidly deported. Anyone who helps an undocumented person, whether by housing them or offering them work or even feeding them or giving them a lift, can also find themselves in trouble.
Many successful businesses in Phoenix are closing their doors due to this repressive, obscene and regressive legislation. Many parents are leaving because of the fear of future harrassment of their children. Many brilliant students can't attend prestigious universities because of laws against raising scholarship funds to do so.
I am chilled to the bone.
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PS And I'm sure there will be some that think I am extreme in my opinion, but from the reading I've done over the years, this is exactly what Germany was doing in the thirties. I would love to be corrected.
It's a crazy policy. As the article says, these are people who are building businesses, building the economy and paying taxes to support public services, and if they all go other Americans will find their own quality of life suffering. So what if they're undocumented? Then just give them the necessary bits of paper and let them contribute to the economy.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you and the sad part is other states want to adopt the same policies...there has to be a better way of dealing with this
ReplyDeleteI am so saddened by this mess. Arizona was my mother's home and I've always had a soft spot for it. It's also upsetting that other states are jumping on the bandwagon, including my state of Georgia (of course!)
ReplyDeleteIt's a tough one, WWW. Arizona has gone way over the top though.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it'd be fair just to say - okay you can all stay, here are your "papers", when legal immigrants have had to jump through numerous hoops and spend thousands of dollars and years for the opportunity to live in the USA (I'm on of these, as you know).
Even so, I don't agree with Arizona's remedy.
The federal government has dragged its feet for decades on this. There needs to be a proper route for illegal immigrants to become legal, even if it takes then 10 or 20 years to do so. Then, having been offered such a route, if they don't take it - then something akin to Arizona's remedy might be seen as fair.
No concentration camps, no midnight razzias, no guillotines in major prisons, no Brownshirt armies battling Communists in the streets. Not Nazi Germany yet.Not even the Greatest Mass Murderer in History's Soviet Union ,yet.
ReplyDeleteI agree - I've read enough about the lead up to WWII to see the same signs. Have you watched the Naomi Wolf - The End of America? Youtube video?
ReplyDeleteNick:
ReplyDeleteEven if there was a means test of some kind and also based on how long they've been in the country, etc.
And their kids are USians anyway!
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Yes, Twain, like a virus it is spreading....
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Marcia:
ReplyDeleteIt is incredibly sad to see the beginning of this kind of fascism. They wouldn't be in the US without the jobs being available (usually under the table payments by employers). I would consider the employers equally culpable if the agenda was to legalize where possible.
I think with unemployment being so high these Macjobs are now needed by native borns.
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T:
ReplyDeleteIt is the racial profiling which appals me the most in all of this and the 'themming' and 'thosing' of these unfortunates.
Stealing jobs? Only the jobs no native would do.
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PS and wasn't Arizona stolen from Mexico?
GFB:
ReplyDeleteThe 'yets' are all important. The beginning is the 'othering' in the steps to a fascist country.
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Pauline:
ReplyDeleteI'll make a point of watching it. Thanks.
Yes, all the signs are there, beginning with the 'othering' and racial profiling.
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Pauline:
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten I'd seen it when it came out first.
Amazing. Highly recommended.
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Oh, from the news we have had in the UK I thought the feds were winning on this one and the law was going to be thrown out.
ReplyDeleteDO:
ReplyDeleteThis was in the UK newspaper!
Many US citizens support these discriminatory practices.
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What is Canada's policy on illegals?
ReplyDeleteBrighid:
ReplyDeleteRacial profiling is against the law here as it should be everywhere.
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That doesn't answer my question. I just wanted to know what the Canadian policy was on illegal immigrants.
ReplyDeleteBrighid:
ReplyDeleteI would respectfully point out that my blogpost was on racial profiling, not on illegal immigrants.
But to answer your question which is off topic, here illegal immigrants, once apprehended, are provided with legal assistance to state their circumstances and appeal any deportation orders. Many are refugees from horrific circumstances and are granted the right to stay here. Others are deported immediately if criminals.
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I read the article you sited and if it isn't about illegal immigration, as well as profiling I must have misread it.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I agree with Twilight, there needs to be a more uniform way to become a Legal citizen.
My neighbor, an ex Brit, spent 7 years getting her citizenship. Way proud of her for taking the legal way.
Brighid:
ReplyDeleteI landed here as a legal immigrant and gained citizenship some years later.
I do not advocate illegal entry.
I have tremendous difficulty with the hunting down of "suspected" illegals by the colour of their skin. In the early thirties, in Germany, this is how Jews were rounded up - strictly by appearance.
It frankly horrifies me.
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" The legislation, in effect, turns Arizona's undocumented residents into criminals,....???" They are here illegally..."undocumented residents" is a term that pro-illegal immigration action groups came up with...if you are here illegally you are an illegal alien, you broke the law by sneaking in thus you are a felon and a criminal subject to jail time and deportation. I live in Phoenix..the kidnapping and home invasion capital of the US...Sinadrottrarola drug cartel, human smuggling,etc..check out Mexico and Canada's immigration laws.Come visit us in Phoenix and i dare you to drive around the West side or South Phoenix after dark...
ReplyDeleteAh Anon:
ReplyDeleteI don't know where you find the time to post as much as you do!
You know what I've observed about all these pro-racial profiling types?
No one ever, ever addresses the so- called 'legal immigrants' hiring these 'illegal immigrants' at punitive wages and conditions with no health care or unemployments insurance or the protection of government agencies.
And now they're going to be hunted down by the colour of their skin?
And as I've said before, we don't have racial profiling in Canada.
My post was about racial profiling.
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