I’ll just say it. I can’t believe that SB 1070 was signed.  What’s SB 1070 you might ask? It’s the controversial law that was just passed in Arizona that allows law enforcement officers to

“without a warrant, to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the U.S.”

To do this legislation justice, you really need to read all of the verbiage (SB 1070 Fact Sheet).  There are things in there that do need to be addressed such as the hiring (exploitation) as well as the smuggling of illegals.  It is absolutely wrong for criminals (coyotes) to charge exorbitant amounts of money to hard working people for the slim chance of crossing into this country.  It is even worse for employers to hire illegals for a wage lower than anybody else would be willing to accept. Why is it okay for this exploitation to exist?

I think that, unless you have your head under a rock, we can admit that we need to revamp the immigration AND the citizenship processes.  However, this legislation is going about it completely the wrong way.  The language is just too vague.  Let me offer an example.

Under the first enforcement provision, it says that SB 1070 “requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person during any legitimate contact made by an official or agency…if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S.”  I’d like to know what the hell this means? Does this mean that everybody will be required to carry their birth certificate? What is enough to remove this “reasonable suspicion?”

I’m sure that there are some smart legislators in Arizona.  If they’re smart, they’re really going to consider doing something different to accomplish their goals, which is to start addressing immigration issues.  Nothing good will come out of this legislation.  I watched the news tonight, as I thought long and hard about what to write for this piece.  There is serious talk about boycotting Arizona.  Truth be told, after I heard about SB 1070 being passed, it gave me practically no reason to return to Arizona.  I’ve never felt like I would ever have to carry documents to prove that I was born here.  It’s bad enough that people like me have travel issues and don’t know why (Not So Random Searches).  We don’t need this.  We need a law that clearly and justly addresses the issues that, truthfully, have been very poorly addressed if at all.

Author: José A. Rodríguez