“Thank God you’re here, officer!” a Spanish woman said to a white police officer. “My bag is missing. Please help me!”
“I hope your ID wasn’t in your bag. Can I see it?” The Arizona police officer barked.
“I just said, my wallet was in there,” the citizen whimpered, confused.
“Ma’am, you’re now under arrest.”
This was one of the strained relationships between citizen and law enforcement official that MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), a student organization that promotes Chicano/a political activism, staged to demonstrate their disgust and indignation at the recent immigration law passed in Arizona by Governor Jan Brewer. The law, known as SB1070, was signed on April 23 and will take effect 90 days thereafter.
SB1070 gives police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally and demands that immigrants carry identification at all times to legitimize their presence on American soil. The law is aimed at identifying and prosecuting illegal immigrants, with Governor Brewer purporting that the law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”
The law received immediate criticism. President Obama was reported in The New York Times to have commented that the law threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” Large demonstrations were held in Arizona in the days leading up to the law enactment and many minority groups railed against the law because of its potential to be used in racial profiling.
MEChA member Elisabeth Young ’10 gathered org members to stage a demonstration in Blanchard on Tuesday. “Our sincere concerns stem from the law’s implications that support the legalization of racial profiling, violations of our fellow community member’s civil rights, and the increased vulnerability of minorities [and the ability of] all law enforcement agencies to function within the context of the promotion and fostering of safe communities,” she explained in a statement.
MEChA organised petitions against the law to be sent to the Department of Justice and Governor Brewer. The org also staged a theatrical display of the possible scenarios the new law will now make possible. In the piece, students representing members of the Chicano, Hispanic and Latino communities were arrested by police for harmless matters such as failing to produce ID or simply looking like a possible illegal immigrant. “I am an American, I am human, and I have rights,” each of the arrested students pronounced at the conclusion of the play.
Governor Brewer was under intense political pressure to make a step towards immigration reform, exacerbated by the killing of a rancher in southern Arizona by a suspected smuggler. She argued that the law would be an indispensible tool for police in a border state that is a leading magnet for illegal immigration, The New York Times reported.
Related posts:
- Arizona Immigration Bill: Appropriate or Not-zi?
- “Can I See Your ID?”
- Prison companies funded immigration law
- Is immigration next on Obama’s checklist?
- The Big Apple goes sour on immigration
