The first of seven lawsuits against Arizona's controversial immigration law is being heard this week in federal court in Phoenix. The Justice Department will challenge the state for usurping federal authority to enforce immigration laws. Americans are divided on the issue, as is always the case with immigration. Some worry the legislation will lead to police harassment of people of color. Others are busy making private donations for a defense fund of the law.
On the other side of the world, another battle over immigration drags on.
In Mumbai, India, the Shiv Sena and MNS political parties continues to declare that Mumbai is a city only for Marathis (people from the state in which Mumbai is located). The parties enforce this notion with gangster tactics. In the past, party members have beaten up non-Marathis working in Mumbai, threatened Marathi celebrities who call themselves 'Indian' instead of 'Marathi', and attacked media offices. Just this week, the Shiv Sena told a radio station it must start playing more Marathi songs or 'face the music.'
There are fundamental differences between these two battles, of course. Arizona's law seeks to discriminate on the basis of a person's color. The Shiv Sena and MNS seek to discriminate on the basis of a person's home state. Arizona's law attempts to control immigration from outside of the country, while the Shiv Sena and MNS want to control immigration from within. Arizona wants to do it legally, while the Shiv Sena and MNS resort to violence.
What is common between the two cases, however, is fear.
At a recent town hall meeting in Casa Grande, Arizona, televised by CNN, one Arizonan woman expressed her concern over immigrants in her state to Senator John McCain: "As a normal citizen what do we do? ...Besides sitting here, you know, worried and wondering and frustrated?" Another resident proposed a violent solution: "Shoot, shovel and shut up." The room laughed nervously. The fear of the Casa Grande residents, whose town sees around 80 percent of illegal immigrants pass through, was unmistakable.
In Mumbai, the Shiv Sena and MNS parties continue to warn the Marathi people that Indians from the north will come and steal their jobs, destroy their language, and dilute their customs. Most of the parties' rhetoric is laced with these kinds of fears.
In Robert S. Wistrich's book Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism, and Xenophobia, he talks about how we demonize that which is other than us in part because we fear them. Our fear is used to fabricate images of the "other" as an enemy that must be destroyed.
Change.org last year put up a Global Anti-Immigrant Hall of Shame (a list which the Shiv Sena was on), and writer Prerna Lal pointed out that xenophobia was to blame. Xenophobia is defined as the uncontrollable fear of foreigners. That fear should not dictate the immigration dialogue any longer.
Lal wrote: "Governments have the right to control their borders and numbers of immigrants but in a way that protects and safeguards human rights." Let's hope that Mumbai's government can find a way to deal with the Shiv Sena and MNS parties' concerns in a less violent manner. And that Arizona's law, however it may turn out, protects and safeguards both American and immigrant rights.
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Section 264
d) Every alien in the United States who has been registered and
fingerprinted under the provisions of the Alien Registration Act, 1940, or
under the provisions of this Act shall be issued a certificate of alien
registration or an alien registration receipt card in such form and manner
and at such time as shall be prescribed under regulations issued by the
Attorney General.
(e) Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry
with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien
registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to
subsection (d). Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this
subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for
each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than
thirty days, or both.
Some of these authors should be called on the carpet for their fear-mongering and pandering and actual fabrications.
CBS New Poll of July 13, 2010
"Poll: Support for AZ Immigration Law Hits 57 Percent"
The title masks the fact that ANOTHER 17% agree with the proposition that the law "Doesn't go far enough." IN SUM, nearly THREE QUARTERS (+++74%+++) of those surveyed--at the very least--approve of S.B. 1070!!!
Approval of S.B. 1070 up 5% since May(!!!); disapproval correspondingly down.... At this point, ONLY 23% agree with "Goes too far." (3%: "Don't know")
Obama and the AMNESTY-obscessed, Democratically-led Reidites have played this politically stupid--especially, in suing Arizona for encroaching on a Federal obligation which it's failed to observe. Obama et al. MIGHT have finessed even unemployment numbers had he not "stood up" for the right of ILLEGAL ALIENS to occupy jobs otherwise available to citizen jobless.
The "Murkan" people read his action as standing up for the employment status of ILLEGAL ALIENS whilst millions of CITIZENS.....fall into the rank of the poor.... How politically astute
was that? Even pro-AMNESTY Latinos will not offset the surge of those sympathetic to S.B. 1070....and the effect of the latter on fall election results....
Obama needs to affect a "Sister Souljah moment"--if there's time....?
India and the US have something in common: Both have a right as nations to say what people from what countries have a right to legally be there. In India they extend that to the state level. Here Arizona is extending it on it's own.
It is not about people from other states in Arizona, but from other nations.
"Arizona's law seeks to discriminate on the basis of a person's color. The Shiv Sena and MNS seek to discriminate on the basis of a person's home state." Dead wrong on the first part and in the second they may have a right.
The Arizona law specifies "Unregistered Aliens." not "Brown people"
The reason Mexico and other nations would like this to be about color is because they want to continue to hide their citizens among American hispanics. It is not race or civil rights in this game.
No other race or civil rights group in America has EVER had their own government other than our own. And their governments want US laws to bend for their people.
Yeah, a lot of Americans are going to object to that.
What I meant by that line is that the Arizona law could in some cases be used to discriminate on the basis of a person's color, even if that is not spelled out in the law.
There are many cases in which a law has been used in a different way than the way it was meant to. My hope is that this does not occur with S.B. 1070.
My point in this blog was not to divide, as happens too often in the case of the immigration debate, but to stress that fear should not dictate what happens next.
Like BP, we give and give and give but don't really get for the most part. And, if and when we stop giving, we then have enemies. LOL. C'mon people STOP BEING DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND. Pretty soon we'll be owned or blown the F up.
"Some worry the legislation will lead to police harassment of people of color. " "In Mumbai, India, the Shiv Sena and MNS political parties continues to declare that Mumbai is a city only for Marathis (people from the state in which Mumbai is located). "
It may be based on color, however, majority rules...meaning the offending color rules. Regarding Mumbai, that's a different issue and not necessarily pertaining to ours, however, if we aren't welcome, fine we shouldn't be there. I'd have no problem with that. BUT and at the same time, our jobs shouldn't be going there. I am soooooo tired of not being able to understand tech support lol.
Lastly and most importantly, RACISM is alive and well! We aren't the only one's but we seem to bear the brunt of unwelcomes. Don't get me wrong, I feel for these people BUT here in AMERICA, while the rich get richER! and the poor get poorER, what am i to do? The middle class is the most affected by all of this and "I" am in that class...actually, I am no longer in that class. I.....AM NOW POOR! YUP>>>GOOD OLE AMERICA AND IT"S POLITICS...LET THE RICH GET THEIR WAY and LET THE POOR BE POOR!!! I've been given cake...BUT, I CANNOT EAT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually, no, there are several things - called human rights - that are set aside from majority rule.
"Lastly and most importantly, RACISM is alive and well!"
Yes, I can see that in your comments about tech support.
"Don't get me wrong, I feel for these people BUT here in AMERICA, while the rich get richER! and the poor get poorER, what am i to do?"
Well, you could blame the rich who have taken all the money (like 99% of the wealth of the country is in the hands of the wealthy), who run the companies that compensate you less and offshore your job, and who hire and exploit illegals to save a buck. Obviously, you've decided it makes more sense to blame those who are more powerless and poor than yourself.
Polls have shown that this law that AZ is trying to uphold or fight for that has been in the books for "decades" has a majority vote.
So when does our vote count?
And your claim that Arizona law is 'DISCRIMINATION " against anybody but criminals who entered the country illegally is blatantly false and inflamatory.
Or white and cant speak english.
Or pink and cant produce identafication.
ALL legal immigrants are required by law to carry proof of status at all times.
Then they have the audacity to run a PR campaign sying that a US immigration law is fascist conspiracy againt Latinos.
They tell American Latinos to be very scared, their rights are being taken from them;
when in truth, only their Foriegn citizens are having a right taken away, and that is one their government does not have the authority to give them.