Posted on May 12, 2010 - by David

Arizona Immigration Debate is America’s Problem

Everybody has an opinion about Arizona’s new immigration law. Some have praised it as a reasonable attempt to fix a broken system that the federal government has neglected to deal with. President Obama and California’s legal immigrant Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have cracked jokes. The U.N has raised a critical voice.  On Sunday, U.S Attorney General Eric Holder mentioned the possibility of bringing a suit against Arizona for creating a law which might lead to civil rights violations. Cities from LA all the way to Boston are deciding whether to boycott the law by terminating public contracts with Arizona-based business, while  states like Michigan, Oklahoma, and Maryland are considering following Arizona’s lead in drafting tough immigration legislation. Meanwhile, several challenges to the law have already been filed and are on their way to federal courtrooms.

Some of those on the pro-side, (like Margaret Bengs of the Sacramento Bee and Brit Hume of Fox News), cite the limited context in which immigration status will be checked and the specific language prohibiting racial profiling as evidence that this law is not racist in spirit, and will not be racist in practice. The problem with such a defense is that this evidence comes not from the initial version of SB1070 which Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law on April 23, but from the revised version produced a week later in response to the uproar over the law’s supposedly racist measures. Opponents of SB 1070 will not easily forget that it was watered-down from what its sponsors initially wanted.

When it first became law, SB1070 did have some seriously troubling teeth, but now that it’s been toned down, its supporters say it merely upholds the federal government’s own laws on immigration enforcement. Even if this is so, it is still a constitutionality question, as the law basically turns every police officer in the state into a U.S immigration agent. Of course the supporters can then counter by telling the federal government, “Do your job and enforce the law so we don’t have to, and secure the border while you’re at it.”

Though George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act in October of 2006, which called for the construction of 700 miles of double reinforced fence along the border with Mexico, it seems that slipping across the border (and constantly going back and forth if you’re a drug smuggler) is still a totally realistic goal.  The fence is still under slow and harshly criticized construction, and trying to figure out how much of it has actually been built was rather difficult,  but according to the U.S Customs and Border Protection website, about 300 miles of vehicle fence and 370 miles of pedestrian fence are in place (see a virtual map here). Of course this still leaves over 1200 miles of border open, with the feasibility and timeline of the high-tech measures which were supposed to serve as a “virtual fence” being called into question.

So, while I wouldn’t say I’m in favor of SB 1070, it’s pretty clear that Washington isn’t living up to the standards it has set for itself. If the nation really has a problem with Arizona cops doing the job of immigration agents, then we should reconsider the federal laws, as Michael Zuckerman suggests.  And while various cities and organizations clamor for a boycott of everything Arizona, there are a number of products which you can bet will continue to flow from Arizona to the rest of the country without interruption: illegal drugs. There is plenty of outrage and accusations of racism, but little sympathy for the situation Arizona finds itself in due only to its geography. The bloodbath between Mexican cartels that is spilling over into this border state is driven by America’s desire to get high. As Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote the other day:

The war on the supply of drugs was launched more than 40 years ago because the U.S. found that prohibition failed to contain Americans’ appetite for drugs. Thousands of Latins have since died for the cause. In 2008, according to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, 36 million Americans had used illicit drugs in the past year. Rounding up low-skilled Mexican workers and walling off the entire border is not likely to solve the problem.

The condensed version of the complaint against  immigrants from south of the border (whether legal or illegal) looks something like this: “they bring in drugs and take our jobs.” As the O’Grady article points out, lumping the criminal element in with those willing to trek 50 miles through the desert in search of a better life is probably an unfair distortion. And I don’t think I’d be the first to question who, exactly, the immigrants are taking jobs from? Are they simply doing the jobs we now consider beneath us? I understand the claim that the growing number of immigrants who are willing to work for very little is keeping wages low, and I can’t say I know enough to argue against it. But I wonder if the people making this complaint are really concerned about whether the immigrant workers  are legal or not? And I wonder how many of us pass up the jobs that these immigrants “take” because they would be an intolerable blow to our dignity? In the meantime, we either fight for our right to party, or get so lost that we become slaves to substance, while thousands are slaughtered in Juarez over the right to supply us with what we demand. This is not just Arizona’s problem. It is not all Mexico’s fault. This issue has its roots in an American mentality that can’t be changed by writing a law, or by putting up (or tearing down) a fence. Whether immigration legislation is aimed at enforcement, reform, amnesty, or security; whether drug policy goes the way of legalization, regulation, or prohibition, all I believe we will see are subtle shifts in the dynamics of the current conundrum. Without a change in our culture, which is to say, a change in our minds, we’ll be dealing with this problem for decades to come.