Immigration Law In Arizona Is No Good

In 2006 former president, George Bush, supported a proposal that would've required undocumented immigrants to take English classes and pay fines and back taxes in exchange for guest worker status and, eventually, citizenship.

"I know this is an emotional debate," said Bush. "But one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect."

But Bush was shouted down by angry people carrying "Go back to Mexico!" sings. Their counter proposal? To somehow round up and bus an estimated 11 million people to the border, an idea that was to pragmatism and practicality as Lady Gaga is to modesty and restraint. Similar thinking if you want to call it that, is evident in the bill recently signed into law by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, of Arizona, that has vaulted that state into a raging controversy.

The so-called Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act includes a provision empowering police officers to ask people they encounter for proof they are in this country legally if the officers have "reasonable suspicion" they are not. Which quite naturally raises the question of what constitutes reasonable suspicion; what cues might a person give that would make police think he/she is illegal?

Only three suggest themselves: dark features, accented English or "hablando en espanol." Given that any number of native and naturalized Americans also fit that description, we face the troubling prospect of police approaching Hispanic citizens and demanding their papers, an image you'd think belongs more to some totalitarian regime than to the US.

Predictably, the new law has galvanized protesters throughout the country. Incredibly, one of the state's own congressmen, Democrat Raul Grijalva, has even called for a boycott. He told Politico.com, "If state lawmakers don't realize or don't care how detrimental this will be, we need to make them understand somehow."

You know something is haywire when a congressman campaigns against his own stat. But Grijalva is right. Until this shameful law is rescinded, Arizona is a great place not to be.