In the last few weeks the immigration bruhaha, because of the actions of the Governor of Arizona has reached a peak not seen since the last presidential election. Now this is a very important problem , nowhere near as important or maybe as immediate as say the economy, the oil spill, the wars, health care or economic regulation. But it does have its place in the national debate so let’s take a look at it. There are three principal voices now making the most noise in the situation, Jan Brewer, the Governor of Arizona, The President of the United States and Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico.
The President of Mexico, you say. What the hell does he have to say about it? Well quite a bit it seems. He appeared before congress and had a lot to say against Jan Brewer’s new law. A lot of members of Congress applauded him, Obama had good things to say about him but no one felt the need to point out that it was none of his business or that our problems with illegal Mexican immigration were being caused to a great extent by his country’s inability to feed its people or keep them safe. Maybe if Calderon spent as much time solving his country’s problems as he spends getting involved with ours, we’d have at least one less problem. So Felipe baby, shut up!
Then there’s Obama who has jumped in and said that the new law is unconstitutional. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I mean, it sure looks like it is. But that’s not for him to decide so maybe he should be spending his time securing the border. No, 1200 National Guardsmen aren’t going to do that and maybe the problem isn’t just coming from the Mexican border. We have just as long a border with Canada and it’s way less secure than the Mexican border and there’s just as much illegal traffic coming that way but whereas Mexico’s traffic is illegal labor that is taking jobs from poor white workers, Canada’s is drugs and weapons and who cares about that?
Actually 40% of illegal immigration in this country comes through our airports in the form of tourists, students and temp workers who when their Visas expire, just stay. Now a lot of these illegal’s are much more desirable immigrants than brown stoop labor but that doesn’t really make them any more legal. So when the right wing starts yelling about all these people being criminals because they’re here illegally, just remember, these people include a lot of well-trained scientists, kind of like the guys who invented the atomic bomb.
Brewers law, as it will certainly come to be known, prohibits, as every Republican worthy of his party will tell you, any kind of profiling. Gee, that’s great. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But let’s forget, for the moment, about the legal aspects of the law and look at the practical execution of it.
Since the Arizona police can’t profile does that mean that they must ask everyone regardless of size, shape, skin tone, hair or eye color for their papers? Do they have to ask the governor for hers? It would seem so, making the execution of the law just a tad impractical.
Now we all know that, that’s not how it’s going to work so let’s have a look at the reality. Unless you’re completely inexperienced on a personal basis with the law, hopelessly naïve about how citizen/officer confrontation works or terminally stupid you have to know that the bottom feeders in the Arizona police departments, and every state, country and local department has them, will take advantage of this law to harass both immigrants and citizens who bear even a distant resemblance to anyone Hispanic. That makes it a bad law, not necessarily an unconstitutional one but just one that will cause more problems than it will solve.
So what’s the solution? Well, for openers to do a better job sealing the borders and not just to stop poor workers from coming across. We absolutely have to solve the problem of those immigrants who come here legally on temporary visas and then just disappear into the system. That’s where your bombers and terrorists will come from.
The big question, however, is what to do with the twelve million illegal immigrants who are already here. I say, find a way to make them legal. If they want to stay, they must become legal so they have to learn English, learn the naturalization information and get on track to citizenship. Then they have to pay some kind of fine.
But they’re criminals, the right wing screams. Sure they are, but on a very low level; on a lower level than a drunken driver who has the potential to kill your kids, on a much lower level than all the greedy manipulators who crashed our economy, on a much, much lower level than every congressman who votes against the needs of his constituency because some lobbyist has promised him election funds. Let’s face it; these people have snuck into our country because they are looking for a better life, just like my grandparents and probably yours. This is not a heinous crime and should not be treated as such… unless you have another agenda. Unless you’re a bigot.