I mentioned the wonderful new Arizona law a few weeks ago. Since then, all manner of fun stuff has been happening. Los Angeles has decided that they're going to boycott Arizona over the new law. The city council of Los Angeles voted and decided, 13-1, that they would review all contracts with Arizona-based companies and work to cancel those that will have no significant economic cost to Los Angeles.
In response, an Arizona commissioner sent a letter to the Mayor of LA. In the letter, he claims that Arizona supplies roughly 25% of Los Angeles power and that he would be "happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation." He went on to say that a "state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill."
David Beltran, a spokesman for the Mayor of LA, stated that "the message didn't even warrant a response." He went on to say, "We're not going to respond to threats from a state which has isolated itself from the America that values freedom, liberty and basic human rights"
I find this whole thing really fascinating. Arizona has passed a law that, when tested, I am confident will be struck down by the supreme court. But until then, I support those that want to boycott Arizona.
Boycotts are difficult territory, though. The businesses and people of Arizona are not necessarily the ones that made and passed this law, but they are the ones that voted in the people that did. Boycotting the businesses of Arizona will pressure them to pressure their government to make changes.
I'm interested to see how all of this turns out. It would be great if LA turned around and cut the power from Arizona by themselves, but I'm not sure they have the resources internally to handle the power hit. Unfortunately, that would end up hurting them economically as power to businesses would be lost. It would be a pretty good scene, though, wouldn't it?
On April 23rd, Arizona interim Governor, Jan Brewer, signed into law the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act." In short, this act means that law enforcement officers must ask people about their immigration status if they're suspected of being in the country illegally.
Hrm.. let's think about this. First off, what the hell does an illegal immigrant look like? We're talking about Arizona where there are a huge number of perfectly legal immigrants, as well as a pretty large hispanic population that was BORN in the United States. I know, let's ask the Governor. Surely she wouldn't pass this law without having a good description of an illegal immigrant:
Oh .. well.. umm.. I'm not sure what to say. So the Governor doesn't know what an illegal immigrant looks like, but she's sure that there are people who believe they do. What really struck me about this answer is that it almost sounded like she disagreed with those who thought they knew. Odd way to answer.
At any rate, this really highlights one of the main problems with this law. Who do you demand ID from? The Governor seems to think this can be enforced in a non-discriminatory way, but I'm not sure that's even remotely possible. Let's be real about this. The majority of the illegal immigrants in Arizona are Mexican. That would lead me to believe that those who appear to be of Hispanic origin will be prompted for ID. I highly doubt that your typical white anglo-saxan will be bothered, even if they might be here illegally from Canada or Europe.
Illegal immigration is a problem, though, and we need to do something about it. We need to look at why immigrants are here, first. I would say the majority are here to take advantage of what the US has to offer with respect to freedom and opportunity. Others are here for purely illegal reasons such as drug trading. Obviously we'd like to get rid of that latter bunch. Arizona's Governor is trying to make the case that this new law is specifically aimed at that latter category of illegal immigrants.
Creating such a wide ranging law, just to prevent one specific group of illegal immigrants, is problematic, to say the least. If you think about it, law enforcement officers already verify identities when confronted with someone they think is in the country illegally. This law really doesn't add anything new other than to make it mandatory that officers specifically look for illegals to target. In the end, I think it will cause more harm than good as officers will be seen as harassing rather than complying with the law.
Stopping illegal immigrants from coming to America has another set of problems, though. Illegals do the jobs that Americans are "unwilling" to do. Unwilling jobs such as picking vegetables on farms, washing dishes in restaurants, etc. Let me redefine unwilling, however. Americans are unwilling to take jobs that don't pay enough and that don't have sufficient benefits. Illegals, on the other hand, don't make a fuss because they're here illegally. I'm not condoning this by any means, but it's a fact. Perhaps we should be going after business owners to prove that each and every employee is, in fact, legal.
What if we use technology to solve some of these problems? Perhaps we can build low-cost robotics to handle picking vegetables or dealing with dirty dishes. Maintenance of these robots still provides jobs to qualified personnel, keeping jobs available. Robotics removed the need for "cheap" labor, thus removing jobs for illegals.
Let me be clear, I am not opposed to people immigrating into this country, provided they do it legally. It appears that most of the immigration has to do with people being unable to provide for their families in their native homes. Can we do something to help those countries? Is there some other way we can attack this problem? There has to be another answer, because legislation that leads to profiling like this can't possibly be the answer.
