Arizona shoots itself in the foot by targeting illegal immigrants

AMERICA:Arizona has become the first US state to criminalise illegal immigration by defining it as trespassing

ARIZONA HAS always had a strong element of the lunatic fringe/flat earth streak.

Only last Thursday, the state legislature abandoned an attempt to pass a “birther Bill”, rooted in right-wing assertions that President Barack Obama is not really American. In Arizona, you don’t need a permit or a background check to carry a concealed weapon, but it’s a crime to cut down a cactus.

The sheriff of the largest county forces all male prisoners to wear pink underwear – to humiliate them.

In the early 1990s, Arizona shot itself in the foot by refusing to follow the rest of the country in recognising Martin Luther King jnr’s birthday as a holiday. Some 170 conventions were cancelled before Arizona relented.

Now the state has done it again, becoming the first US state to criminalise illegal immigration by defining it as trespassing.

The law targets Hispanics, who comprise 30 per cent of the state’s population. Its most controversial provision is the “show me your papers” clause that requires police to demand identity papers of any person they have “reasonable suspicion” of being in Arizona illegally.

Police headquarters in Tucson have been flooded with phone calls by people saying: “Hey, there are some Mexicans standing on the corner. You need to check them out.”

Supporters of the law have the temerity to claim it has got nothing to do with racial profiling.

Since Republican governor Jan Brewer signed law SB1070 on April 23rd, there have been daily demonstrations in Phoenix, and protests are scheduled across the US today. “It must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time,” the Mexican foreign ministry warned this week.

Arizona is fast becoming a pariah state. One of its own congressmen, Raul Grijalva, has called on the rest of the country to boycott it. The American Immigration Lawyers Association cancelled its 300-strong meeting in Scottsdale.

Protesters carried “Boycott Arizona!” signs at a baseball game where the Arizona Diamondbacks played in Chicago on Thursday, and there are calls to boycott Arizonan basketball and hockey teams.

Lawsuits were filed in federal courts in Tucson and Phoenix on Thursday by a Hispanic police officer who says the law would force him to engage in racial profiling and by church groups who transport people in Hispanic neighbourhoods.

Attorney general Eric Holder and at least three major civil rights groups (the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund and the National Immigration Law Centre) are also considering legal action.

Constitutional lawyers say the Arizona law pre-empts the federal prerogative to determine immigration policy, and may violate the fourth amendment which forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures” and the 14th amendment which guarantees “equal protection of the laws”. Governor Jan Brewer reproaches “liberal east coast media” for negative coverage of the law, which she claims is necessary to fight drug cartels.

According to the Washington Post, unauthorised immigrants are four to eight times less likely to commit violent crimes than US citizens. Brewer this week invoked the Almighty in her crusade against illegal immigrants, saying “God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona’s governor to help the state in these difficult times”. Although Brewer has received moral support from parts of Texas and Oklahoma, from Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts, the Arizona law has divided Republicans, who fear losing votes from America’s largest ethnic minority.

Jeb Bush, Karl Rove and Marco Rubio are prominent Republicans who condemn it. Senator John McCain, who is facing a tough re-election battle against a sympathiser of the grass-roots conservative Tea Party movement, supported the law too late to do himself any good.

Obama calls the Arizona law misguided. “If you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to get harassed – that’s something that could potentially happen. That’s not the right way to go,” he said this week.

The Arizona law prompted Democratic senators to bring forward presentation of a draft immigration bill on Thursday. In a statement supporting the Bill, Obama said it was “unacceptable to have 11 million people in the US living here illegally and outside of the system.”

The legislation would strengthen border controls, unify standards for the detention and removal of illegal immigrants and outline a path to US citizenship for illegal immigrants who learn English and pay back taxes.

The fate of tens of thousands of undocumented Irish is tied to that of millions of Hispanics.

A provision in the draft Bill “creates an E-3 (two-year non- immigrant) visa for nationals of the Republic of Ireland” – something the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have campaigned for since the previous attempt at immigration reform collapsed in 2007.

Members of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform met with the Bill’s author, senator Charles Schumer, last Thursday. However, with the US in the throes of a mid-term election campaign, the chances of reform passing this year are almost nil.