Papers. Now.

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.