On April 23, 2010, governor Jan Brewer, an Arizona Republican, signed what is probably the toughest legislation in the US against illegal immigrants. It shall take effect on July 29 pending several legal challenges and a formal review by the Justice Department.
Under the law, police investigating an incident or crime will be required to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also prohibits solicitation of day-labor work on the state's streets and makes being in Arizona without papers a misdemeanor.
The law is supposed to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from making the journey. It has outraged civil rights groups, drawn rebuke from the Obama administration and led to mass protests by people on both sides of the issue.
The law's backers say that Congress has failed to reform federal immigration policy, so the state has been forced to address the issue.
Why'd they do it?
What were Arizona citizens' motives?
Many cite major budget shortfalls, overcrowded hospitals and public schools with thousands of extra kids and no money. In sum, the economy is a mess.
Another reason is security, fear of the daily narco killings right over the border and even terrorism. A third reason is law and order or, rather, the uniquely American way in which Arizonans think about the law.
In many towns across the state, up to 50% of residents don't have papers. They speak a different language and live on the outskirts. Few from the community know who they are.
And of course, there are racists.
The Race Card
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently predicted that the law would create “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.”
For these reasons (and others), this law is deeply flawed.
But there are untruths, exaggerations and omissions about why it happened, as well as a strong dose of hypocrisy, in Mexico and elsewhere.
Let's start with race. This argument alleges that the law is racist because (a) it overwhelmingly "discriminates" against Latinos; and (b) it involves judging people based on their physical appearance (what many call "racial profiling").
Are these arguments valid?
Maybe. But if they are, wouldn't ANY law that restricts illegal immigration be considered racist by definition?
Would nations lose their right to secure their borders because of possible racial discrimination?
Loss of perspective
The race card can always be used at its wielder's convenience. When it involves different races or ethnicities, nationalism itself becomes a type of racism.
And if the authorities judge people based on physical appearance, it becomes by definition a form of racism ("racial profiling").
Yet in a sense, aren't we all racists? If I presume that someone is Mexican because "he looks Mexican," isn't this a (benign) form of racism?
We all judge others based on how they look.
And yes, there are hard-core racists among those opposed to open borders.
But just because a law affects one ethnic group over another doesn't necessarily make it racist.
Put differently, if there were hundreds of thousands of poor foreigners who spoke a different language and pledged allegiance to a different flag streaming each year over an insecure border, would the locals not complain just because they were of the same race?
Clearly, we need to put things in perspective.
As
Time magazine recently said: "Just because there are some racists influencing the debate doesn't mean anyone who is for immigration control is a racist."
Shadow of hypocrisy
In April 2010, Amnesty International issued a report which urged Mexico to adopt procedures to protect the human rights of Central Americans in the country illegally.
"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis," said Rupert Knox, Mexico Researcher at Amnesty International.
"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world."
Kidnappings of illegal immigrants in Mexico is now at an all-time high. The National Human Rights Commission reported that in 2009,
nearly 10,000 people were abducted in a six month period, nearly half of them involving public officials.
Another report describes frequent anti-immigrant round-ups in Chiapas and southeast Mexico. Central Americans are often held for years in municipal jails and subject to torture, extortion and other abuse.
Why?
The answer is simple:
under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms.
In addition, the
General Law on Population enacted in April 2000 requires federal, local and municipal police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in the arrests of illegals.
Which all means that Central Americans in Mexico are prey. They are hunted down based on their physical appearance. They are rounded up and sent to prison. They are extorted, beaten and abused.
In 2009, an estimated six out of 10 Central American women who illegally crossed the Mexican border were sexually abused.
The report calls the problem an "immigration holocaust".
Convenient omissions
This detail is rarely mentioned by Mexican officials (or average Mexicans) in the clamor inspired by Arizona. But isn't it relevant?
Let's suppose the Mexican economy started booming and thousands of workers came flooding into Mexico City.
After 4 or 5 good years, more than half a million illegal immigrants were living in the Mexico City metropolitan area, most of them from Central America.
Suddenly, the economy tanks.
What would the Mexican government do about poor Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Hondurans (including many blacks) who registered their children in public schools now in crisis? How would Mexican officials react to overcrowded hospitals and public deficits?
Yet in the sunami against Arizona, politicians from every Mexican political party build careers on deriding the US for human rights abuse against Mexicans.
Is there a solution?
The Arizona law is a forced, narrowly-crafted attempt to address a pressing problem plainly outside the state's jurisdiction.
But if there's a human rights component of this law, it isn't racism: it's desperation.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, "a better solution is comprehensive immigration reform."
