Arizona Immigration Laws
For a long time, the United States of America has been receiving large numbers of immigrants, with the 2007 immigration data records revealing that approximately seventy million immigrants were authorized to reside in the country. During the period, USA witnessed both authorized/legal immigrants, as well as a large number of illegal or unauthorized immigrants, enter the country for permanent or temporal stay (LeMay, 2007).
Indeed, the issue of illegal immigrants became problematic specifically after 1970, and today’s statistics show that illegal immigrants in the USA are estimated to be around 10.5 to 11 million (Pew Hispanic Center, 2005; cited in LeMay, 2007).
Currently, the issue of illegal immigration in the USA heavily dominates USA political forum, the Congress body and even the policy agenda in the federal government and even the states’ government. Moreover, the federal government enforces foreigners aged 14 years and above residing in the country for more than thirty days to be legally registered and ensure they always carry their registration documents with them.
The State of Arizona is one of the US states which continue to experience a high influx of immigrants, and this has prompted the state to legislate a new immigration bill known as Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (Arizona SB 1070), which has drawn one of the fiercest debate in the United States.
Primarily, there are many people who support the bill as well as those who have come out to strongly criticize the law. Therefore, the essence of this research paper will be to investigate the Arizona SB 1070 Immigration law in terms of its usefulness if there are any and also its destructions which to most people they appear to be many.
Perspective into the USA Immigration History
Until the 19th century, immigration to the USA was free without any restrictions, and anyone who could afford to pass through the ocean to this land found a new life and ‘home’ in America (Isaacs, 2007). The immigration policy was largely intertwined in liberal ideologies, with the USA accepting immigrants freely to boost its new work power and also to establish new inhabitants.
The USA, during this period, operated without any substantive immigration policy until the 1970s when the USA Congress passed two major laws concerning immigration: the law on naturalization in 1790 and another law which banned the importation of slaves in 1808 (Isaacs, 2007).
The law on naturalization recognized only those persons who were born free and belonged to the white whereas the law that banned the importation of slaves, in reality, become dysfunctional as more people continued to participate in the illegal importation of slaves which went on until the end of the Civil War. During this era, some groups came to oppose and even restrict the right of immigration to some groups of people such as the criminals, Catholics, and Quakers.
However, the USA Supreme Court thwarted their efforts when it declared in 1875 that, it was only the USA Government with powers and constitutional authority to oversee the immigration issues (Isaacs, 2007). In the same year, Congress voted in favor of law which put restriction on immigrants who were criminals, prostitutes and also the Chinese; at the same time, the law did not spare those who were mentally ill, ‘idiots’ and those seen to be a burden to the society (Isaacs, 2007).
World War I disrupted the migrations especially to the USA as some migrants opted to return to their homelands, but after the war, the migration movements occurred again. However, this time, it was less intensive as many people became victims of economic crisis and xenophobia attitudes towards foreigners.
To put a limit on migrants, especially those from Southern and Eastern Europe, the ‘nativist’ movement became vocal in demanding for stricter laws on those migrating to the USA. These particular episodes prompted Congress in 1921 and 1924 to pass laws which restricted mass immigration to the USA (Isaacs, 2007). Again, despite the quota laws being enacted during this period, many people continued to migrate to the USA outside the specifications in the quotas.
As World War II came to an end, the USA remained as the only country that attracted many immigrants from various parts of the world, among then refugees from communist countries.
Starting from the year 1965, USA started to receive a large number of immigrants; for instance, it is estimated that between 1965 and 1979, about 5.8 million immigrants came to the USA and between 1980 and 1995; 15 million immigrants entered USA (Isaacs, 2007). In the 1980s, USA witnessed immigrants from Europe and Canada decrease to 11 percent while the percentage of immigrants from Latin America increased to 38 percent (Isaacs, 2007).
USA Immigration Policy
From the 1990s, as the number of immigrants continued to soar, many analysts started to fault the USA immigration policy, strongly arguing that the existing immigration policy was responsible for the negative consequences that were being experienced in the American society. Such negative impacts were observed by the critics to be evident in fields of economics, demography, and culture, while the fiercest criticism centered on illegal immigration (Isaacs, 2007).
From the mid-1990s, the number of those advocating for immigration reforms grew very fast, and members of the Congress embarked on a process of passing an immigration reform bill. Towards mid-April 2006, a restrictive bill that proposed punishing undocumented immigrants and even those who help them was passed by the House of Representatives.
It should be noted that the USA immigration policy seems to serve the role of creating a compromise position between the economic, social, and humanitarian objectives of the nation. For instance, the immigration policy objectives tend to rely “in part on the priorities assigned to the welfare of… people who were born in the United States, people who were born elsewhere but have come to live in the United States and people who live in other countries” (Edmonston and National Research Council-USA, 1996, p.16).
These groups have continued to influence immigration policy formulation in the USA for a long time now. Indeed, what has been accepted across by many in the USA especially the Task Force set to investigate the immigration policy is that the current immigration system is largely dysfunctional and that it is necessary to effect changes both to the law and to the current immigration practices to make the system perform more effectively.
Moreover, the Task Force proposed for the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill as the priority for the Congress and the Obama administration (Council on Foreign Relations et al., 2009).
Immigration Issues in Arizona
Currently, the state of Arizona is experiencing a huge illegal immigration problem with the USA Department of Homeland Security, estimating that about 460, 000 illegal immigrants reside in Arizona (Davenport and Cooper, 2010). The state remains as one of the top states with illegal border crossings as it borders Mexico, where the majority of illegal immigrants come from. Today, the state’s health records show that undocumented immigrants constitute 34 percent of the state’s uninsured people.
Furthermore, the education statistics records in the state indicate that almost $2 billion are spent educating children of undocumented families each year (Camarota, 2010). More discouraging is the report that Arizona’s youth experience stiff competition from the illegal immigrants in the process of trying to secure employment. This particular illegal immigration problem has further led to the proliferation of immigration offenses such as the infringement of federal law.
Arizona is credited with a history of being a state that passes some of the most restrictive laws on illegal immigration. For example, in 2004, the state passed the famous Arizona Proposition 200 (2004), which was intended to disallow illegal immigrants from using the state’s social service facilities. During the years 2006 and 2008, the state also passed strict laws on illegal immigrants, but the then Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano, prevented the laws from taking effect.
Some of the issues that have been fronted with regards to actions taken by Arizona are: the shifting demographics that have led to greater number of Hispanics in the state; the increasing drugs and human smuggling activities which is always accompanied by violence and which are prevalent in Mexico and Arizona; the ‘ailing’ state’s economy which was accelerated especially by the 2000 recession; and lastly, the citizens of Arizona have became impatient and disheartened by the federal progress initiatives on immigration.
New Immigration Law: Arizona SB 1070 Law
On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer signed into law the Arizona Immigration Bill that has popularly come to be known as Arizona SB 1070 Law. Before and even after the bill was made law, many people had reacted differently to the bill, with some supporting it while others especially from the human rights groups are vehemently disparaging the bill.
The law regarded as one of the toughest legislation in America makes it legal that all immigrants in the state of Arizona must always possess their immigration registration documents, while the police have been given authority to interrogate anyone they perceive or suspect to be in the state illegally (Judd, 2010). At the same time, the law doesn’t have good news to those employers who engage in hiring illegal immigrants or even those who transport them since the new law will act tough on them.
The law has drawn one of the fiercest court battles whereby, on July 28, 2010, the federal court judge, Susan Bolton, issued on an injunction to most controversial propositions of the SB 1070 law including one that vest police with authority to conduct unquestionable checks on the status of immigration on those who are arrested.
As if to put a blow on the new law, the federal court suspended the requirement that asked all immigrants to be in possession of their immigration documents at all times and the provision that made it illegal for all immigrants with no proper immigration papers to look for jobs in the public places (La, 2010).
Is the Arizona SB 1070 Law necessary?
The criticism to the Arizona SB 1070 law seem to outweigh its defense; there are those who have come out to applaud the law and even detailed its usefulness to American society and Arizona state. First, the proponents are convinced that American borders have become havens for criminals. Also, the country and especially the border states are prone to criminal acts if no stringent measures are taken to regulate the immigrants.
For instance, there is the case of Rancher Rob Krentz, from Arizona, who was shot by a suspected illegal immigrant from Mexico believed to be a drug smuggler (Allen, 2010). Arizona’s Senate hearing on the border violence found out that most people who reside on the USA-Mexico border within arrange of 60 to 80 miles had become victims of terrorist acts that were being spearheaded by illegal drug cartels and human smugglers.
Moreover, another rancher complained that between 300 and 1,200 illegal immigrants trespass his ranch every day, and in the process, his properties were being damaged, his vehicles stolen and his fence destroyed; and for almost the last two years, he had come into contact with seventeen dead bodies and numerous copies of Quran (Allen, 2010).
Further, those in support of the law cite the prevalence of drug trafficking and human smuggling as the issues to be addressed by the SB 1070 law.
For instance, a man in Arizona testified that his ranch had become a major transit for drugs in the state and the drug traffickers were well armed. Indeed, “a point man with a machine gun goes in front, a half-mile behind are the fully armed guards, a half-mile behind them are the drugs, and behind the drugs are more guards” (Allen, 2010), was what the ranch owner summarized about how the drug dealers are highly organized.
Another observation made is that most prisons in the state are congested with a disproportionate number of undocumented immigrants who are responsible for most crime acts in the state. Although the media has become silent and blind on the issue of insecurity accelerated by illegal immigrants, the true story is that illegal immigrants are a threat to the security of the state and of the country as a whole; indeed, not all of them are law-abiding as the media would want to portray them.
Why is the Opposition for the Law so High?
The Arizona SB 1070 law has continued to face criticism, with numerous groups and individuals faulting many of its propositions. Their concern is that the law goes against the federal powers and authority to regulate immigration in the nation. Also, the law infringes on the constitutional rights of people, especially by vesting a lot of powers to the police to conduct unquestionable checks on suspected illegal immigrants.
First, the law is maimed about the proper criteria to be used in identifying foreign or those perceived to be immigrants; therefore, many people even legal migrants who may sound foreign or their skin color is in suspicion may be subjected to unnecessary inhumane checks.
Second, human rights activists have faulted the law by describing it to be ‘racist’ in nature. The argument is that Arizona is one of the states with highest supremacist groups, and having such a law in place acts as a catalyst for ‘racial profiling.’
Moreover, other people are concerned about the discrimination tendencies the law will promote, for example, Chris Newman, an official at National Day Laborer Organizing Network note that “this law criminalizes undocumented status and turns dishwashers, janitors, landscapers, and our neighbors into criminals and at the same time the bill constitutes a complete disregard for the rights of nonwhites in Arizona” (O’Leary, 2010).
The tendency for people to carry immigration documents everywhere are also the demeaning aspects of this law. In other words, if the police suspect an individual to be a foreigner and the individual has no documents to verify his or her status, then the police have powers to lock-in the individual.
This infuriates Newman who states that “it singles out the failure to carry ID as a reason to believe you are an undocumented alien, what this means is that people will have to carry papers with them at all times. This is the most anti-immigrant legislation the USA has seen since the House bill of 2005 and which set off huge demonstrations across the country” (O’Leary, 2010).
Conclusion
The Arizona state action to legislate the immigration law that appears to be discriminatory and infringing on people’s rights indicates how the immigration policy of the country continues to be dysfunctional and frustrating. Generally, illegal immigrants is an issue that is hot in the country, which requires an immediate remedy in the form of a ‘progressive, sustainable’ immigration policy.
Interior immigration law enforcement agencies need to be ‘updated’ and strengthened while all stakeholders in the economic, social and political and legal sphere need to be involved in coming up with a comprehensive and workable immigration policy framework.
Moreover, the existence of legal loopholes in the immigration policy are the ones heightening misunderstanding between the federal government and state government, hence need for re-dress. In summary, illegal immigration is an issue that no particular section or level of the federal or state government should show laxity in.
References
Allen, S. (2010). On Arizona’s Immigration Law: Arizona’s immigration law called necessary. Web.
Camarota, S. A. (2010). Will Arizona’s Immigration Law Survive? The New York Times. Web.
Council on Foreign Relations, et al. (2009). USA Immigration Policy. NY: Council on Foreign Relations. Web.
Davenport, P. and Cooper, J. J. (2010). Arizona governor signs bill targeting illegal immigrants. Web.
Edmonston, B. and National Research Council-USA. (1996). Statistics on U.S. immigration: an assessment of data needs for future research. NY: National Academies Press. Web.
Isaacs, A. K. (2007). Immigration and emigration in historical perspective. Web.
Judd, A. (2010). Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070: What Does it Mean? Web.
La, S. (2010). Parts of Arizona Immigration SB 1070 Law Blocked; L.A. City Council Won’t Remove Boycott Yet. LA Weekly Journal. Web.
LeMay, M. C. (2007). Illegal immigration: a reference handbook. CA: ABC-CLIO. Web.
O’Leary, K. (2010). Arizona’s Touch New Law against Illegal Immigrants. Web.