In July of 2000, after living in China for nearly four years, I returned to the United States. When people asked me why I was returning to the U.S. to start again from scratch, I told them that I was returning because there was nowhere in the world like this country, a nation of immigrants that draws its strength from its diversity. Wherever I lived in the world, I was proud of being from the United States: A daughter of immigrants from Latin America who could stand with my fellow Americans while still celebrating the culture of my parents and their ancestors.
I do not live in Arizona, the home of a new law that makes it a crime to be without your immigration paperwork if police choose to question your citizenship status, and yet I feel its impact all these miles away. Now, for the first time in my life, there is a level of fear for me attached with being--and looking--Latina. A few times now I have returned home during the day after realizing that I didn't have my U.S. passport on me. Despite being a U.S. citizen, born in this country, I am fearful of having any issues if stopped. This is not the U.S. that I left China for.
I am multilingual. I have worked in countries all over the world. I have lived in seven states in the North, South, East, and West of this nation. I was born and bred in upstate New York and went to an Ivy League university. I am a published author, a public speaker, and have been a talking head on major news outlets. I have worked for a Fortune 100 company, a presidential campaign, an international nongovernmental organization, and am currently heading up a nonprofit. If I feel fear as a Latina daughter of immigrants, I can only imagine how my brothers and sisters who have not had the same privilege and opportunities feel.
Arizona's new law (and the copycat laws that are springing up across the U.S.), Arizona's new policy of re-assigning of teachers who have accents, and the recent rejection of ethnic studies in public schools in both Arizona and Texas, are all signs that we are heading down a dangerous path. The erosion of human rights at the state level has national implications.
If history has taught us anything, it is that once human rights are eroded, we have stepped onto a slippery slope. Already, we have slipped toward accepting hate crimes against Latinos in New York and Pennsylvania, the profiling of Latinos in Arizona and North Carolina, and possibly the next iteration of segregation in schools. We cannot be naive. We cannot forget our history as a nation. We have much to be proud of as Americans, but also much in our history to cause alarm: Japanese American internment camps, the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow.
My father came from Mexico to Fordham University to pursue his PhD in theology and philosophy. He became a social worker in upstate New York. He spoke English with a very heavy accent, but his connection with the kids was powerful. I remember people stopping us as we walked down the street to tell him, "Mr. Esquivel, you changed my life."
At one point in his career, he almost lost his job as a social worker because some people said his accent was so thick that it made him ineffective. Then they surveyed the kids he worked with. They rated him amongst the highest-rated social workers in the school. Despite his heavy accent, he was connecting with them, contributing to their lives in a way that no one else was. Imagine if he had been taken out of that position (in which he served with commitment for over 30 years) because of his accent. How many kids' lives would have remained untouched, unchanged?
His story is not unique.
As a nation, we are lucky to have men and women like my father. Our history is marked by millions of immigrants who have made powerful contributions to our society--from unsung heroes like my father to famous immigrants like Madeline Albright and Albert Einstein. We need to step forward bravely as a nation--as we have before in the days of the suffragists, the abolitionists, the civil rights movement. The struggles for human rights and civil rights are not new to us. As a nation and as a people, we continue to build toward the dream of what we can be.
We must reflect on the words carved on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" We must remember what we learned from Cesar Chavez: "Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore." We must pay attention, as Abraham Lincoln urged us, to the better angels of our nature.
If history has taught us anything, it is that once human rights are eroded--once we allow ourselves to overlook the humanity of certain groups of people--we have stepped onto a slippery slope. If no one stands up to the injustice, the erosion of human rights continues. I often think of Martin Niemoeller's words in the aftermath of World War II:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
We are standing on the brink of a critical choice as a people--a moment when we as a nation will choose who we will be. There is still time, but we must stand together against the injustice that we are seeing.
William O. Douglas, the former Supreme Court justice, cautioned us: "As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
Luckily, hundreds of thousands of people all over the country are on the watch. They've been finding creative ways to protest Arizona's new law and to stand in solidarity with those it targets.
But with polls showing that a majority of Americans support Arizona's law, we must go further. A majority of Americans once supported segregationist Jim Crow laws as well as the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans. Our responsibility to fight for civil rights hasn't ended, and will not end as long as we allow fear and hatred to tear us apart. We need to celebrate the immigrants among us as well as our national values of diversity and inclusion. We must have faith in the goodness of our people, and encourage each other to be the best we can be. We must be brave. Let us be the U.S. that so many have come to this shore to find.
(Originally posted on YES Magazine)
Follow Kety Esquivel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KetyE
You asked me to repost the responses to Dee321 that were unanswered. I'll post them in such a way that, hopefully, they'll be easier to read than the first time but I'll need this one approved so that I can post them as replies:
Dee321 07:52 PM on 5/24/2010 7
Here are the links to each portion of SB1070: http://tiny.cc/bknra
1.Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling = Suppression Sweeps = Lawful Stop
SB1070: Section 2, B: For any lawful stop
Examples: http://tiny.cc/fbyqx
2. Criminalizing Friends and Family
SB1070: Section 5, G, 2: Unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring or shielding of unlawful aliens; vehicle impoundment; exception; classification
3. Encouraging Gomer Pyle style "Citizen's Arrest"
Sb1070: Section 2, H: A person who is a legal resident of this state may bring an action
SB1070: Section 2, H is fuzzy to me, but then I’m no law student. I can’t think of another law that specifies this sort of privilege and I don’t know how the costs are distributed for such an action. However, I believe that a person would have to seek private counsel to initiate an action in superior court since this would be akin to suing someone as a civil matter. That person would have to be pretty darn certain that something wasn’t being done right to want to front the cost. This would appear to have nothing to do with a “Gomer Pyle style “citizen’s arrest””.
So far, I’m seeing only concerns about the possibility of racial profiling by those who exercise the law which is possible with any law and but is regulated by Section 5, 13-2929-B within the bill itself! Nothing in SB1070 authorizes or promotes such activity and it goes out of its way to prohibit racial profiling (Section 2B, Section 3-C, Section 5- 13-2929- C, Section 7-B, and Section 8-B).
SB1070: Section 5, G, 2 states ""Unauthorized alien" means an alien who does not have the legal right or authorization under federal law to work in the United States as described in 8 United States Code section 1324a(h)(3). " I suspect you meant to reference something else because Section 4 covers smuggling. All the same, if I have a warrant out for my arrest for stealing a case of formula from a store to feed my infant and my wife lies to a police officer about my location, then is it wrong to you if she is charged with harboring? It may not be “compassionate”, but the law is the law.
The burden of proof in Arizona now lies on the defendent to provide papers or in other words Guilty unless proven Innocent. If the case is taken up to court, what would happen? Would Coffin v. United States be brought up? That's why law enforcement is so split on this. They know they can be sued by both sides.
I suppose a decade of reading headlines about government abuses and denying people of due process would do that.
So Norski, let say a US citizen is going for a jog and it's reasonable to believe that he does not have his passport, driver's license or birth certificate on him and he was stopped by a police officer (as unlikely as that may be) asking for his paper to identify he is a US citizen. What legal rights does that US citizen have?
It sounds like profiling of the Police to assume that they will all ignore prohibitions against profiling and would all be automatically biased against Latinos. A quarter of Arizona's Police are officially listed as non-white. Does anyone seriously think that the one in four non-white Arizona Police Officers would stand idly by while their partners engage in racist practices? As Hillary Clinton once said, it would seem to me that it would require “a willing suspension of disbelief”. Like every other group of Americans, the Police have their “bad apples”. But why is it okay to bash all Law Enforcement for the acts of a few when we would not tolerate that behavior towards any other group of people?
Add to this the misinformation about the phrase “reasonable suspicion”. These words appear 174 times in the Federal Code of Regulations for the enforcement of Federal Law. These words touch almost every branch of Federal Law Enforcement. Yet those who oppose the Arizona Law claim that these words in the hands of State and Local Police would result in abuse. While those same words in the hands of Federal Law Enforcement are regarded as constitutional and paramount. Is this more unfavorable profiling of Police?
I have not seen that happen anywhere in the thread of comments. Have you? If so, can you please show me specifically where in these threads of comments you have seen this happen?
SB 1070 simply does not promote racial profiling. It specifically prohibits it at least 7 times along with a direct reference to whatever profiling is permissible under the US Constitution. In addition, it gives a person unlawfully dertained or questioned opportunity for legal action against the offending person/agency. As we all know, our Constitution does not authorize racial profiling. So, with all the talk about using this law to racially profile the ONLY people you could be talking about are police officers acting on their own prejudice while ignoring the law.
As you stated in another post, it takes guts to put your thoughts out where other people can critique them. But it takes even more guts to give those with differing opinions a fair hearing. Real enlightenment comes not from those with whom we agree. It comes from putting our ideas into the arena with friend and foe alike. Seeing if our thoughts stand up to the test. And having a willingness to grow should those thoughts come up short or if we learn something new. Pity the poor person who believes that their thoughts are the be all and end all of what can be known. For without learning there can be no growth. And without growth there can be no enlightenment.
THE FINAL DETERMINATION OF AN ALIEN’S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE DETERMINED BY EITHER:
1. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER WHO IS AUTHORIZED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO VERIFY OR ASCERTAIN AN ALIEN’S IMMIGRATION STATUS.
2. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OR AGENCY COMMUNICATING WITH THE UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT OR THE UNITED STATES BORDER PROTECTION PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).
If the cop gets it wrong, well, it was the cop's responsibility to get it right. "We have to trust our law enforcement," AZ Gov. Brewer says, "racial profiling will not be tolerated."
http://dclatino.org/?p=12
Furthermore, USA anti-discrimination law holds that the affect of any action which disproportionably affects a recognized and protected group of people that is not reflective of their proportion of the relevant population constitutes a Prima Facia case of discrimination. If 80% of those illegally residing in the USA are “Latino” does this not mean that to insure no Prima Facia case of discrimination exists should not 80% of those investigated for being illegally in the USA be of Latino origin? Would not departing from that percentage be discriminatory to Black, Asian, and White Americans?
What other civil matters face this kind of enforcement?
This also gets interesting when people want to enforce civil matters as criminal.
How can a federal civil case also face a criminal case in state prosecution?
Would that be double jeopardy? If that's the case and states can bypass federal laws, then every state will see fit manipulate other federal laws. Like Texas that seems to think its the only state exempt from the clean air act and the EPA. The nation is a nation because it is a cohesive entity.
According to what I have seen in the media reports. Arpaio has been charging people with smuggling themselves, while sure you can argue they participated in the act. You also have to first establish they are undocumented, that takes sixty days. Which means Arpaio just violated a lot of peoples rights, yet we see no enforcement in those laws.
1. Illegally crossing a border to enter the USA is called Illegal Entry. This is punishable by up to six months in prison and/or a monetary fine followed by deportation. This is the highest a MISDEMEANOR PENALTY can achieve before it crosses the line to be called a CRIMINAL PENALTY. This is a violation of CRIMINAL LAW and is prosecuted in CRIMINAL COURT.
2. Illegally overstaying a Visa is called Illegal Presence in the US. This is a violation of CIVIL LAW and is subject the CIVIL PENALTY of deportation. It is called CIVIL LAW because the penalty includes no jail time. Cases of this type are handled by Administrative Immigration Courts which are separate from other courts. As such, these laws cannot be compared to other laws except possibly Tax Law violations.
Those who cross the US Border Illegally are very lucky if they are only charged with Illegal Presence. And double jeopardy only applies across one body of law. Federal and State Laws are separate bodies of law so being charged with a crime at both levels is not uncommon.
I am very concerned about my constitutional rights and the impact of this law on U.S. citizens like myself. If anyone is unclear on that, please go back and re-read my article. It is clear that many of those posting in the comments are not responding to my article nor to what I have written but to their agendas and grand standing on their agendas.
Kety - your words - yet you accuse people on this post of going off point every time the question comes up as to why you would feel threatened in the context of this law when all the examples you cite are subject to existing laws) and why the law is discriminatory? Read the post and the law dn tell me why you as a citizen have to have your papers with you because of this law despite the weight of case law precedent and constitutional protections?
Follow a car, any car, on the road. Follow it long enough and you WILL find legal, probable cause to pull the driver over. Want to know the average time experts in law enforcement tell you are required to follow the car before probable cause is evident? Statistically, it takes about 4 1/2 minutes. A tire that looks too low, brakes misapplied during a routine yield, 1 mile an hour over the speed limit... 4 1/2 minutes, phinney, and you'd be pulled over for a perfectly legitimate reason."
Police Chief Gascón says something similar http://bit.ly/9ATgsk
"There will also be a greater incidence of pretextual stops of individuals of color in Arizona, as officers under pressure to comply with the law will use pretextual reasons to stop or question individuals they believe to be in this country illegally.
If an officer is motivated by race or ethnicity he or she can easily find a valid pretext for encountering an individual, whether by following a car until a minor traffic violation occurs or by approaching a pedestrian for “consensual” questioning. Consequently, the law permits, and inevitably makes more likely, the disparate treatment of Latinos and other persons of color."
"The disparate treatment of latinos and other persons of color is hereby authorized and required to the full extent practicable to rid them from our State."
Show us anything even remotely like this in the bill. If you can't, then you are hypothesizing behavior not law.
I'm Latino and a citizen of this great country. Let me tell you - when I drive my clunker to work and I'm followed by a police officer - I will most likely get pulled over. It is assumed that I have no drivers license or insurance because of the color of my skin and the vehicle I drive. I have been stopped for silly reasons such dirty license plate. I have a perfect driving record and from all the times I've been stopped, not once have I been given a ticket. I'm used to the harassment and live with it. Living in Arizona would be a real nightmare for me compared to Chicago.
Anyway, after doing my filming, and research work that went along with Post-Production, I had an epiphany and am now for Major Immigration Reform - to allow a guest worker program - to allow families to move back and forth across the border without waiting 4-6 hours to get back into the US from Mexico.
The border is 2,000 miles long!!! Only sensible New Immigration reform laws where folks are allowed to move back and forth will this insanity stop. Please Google “Bleeding Borders” for more information on my mission to collect 1 million signatures for Major Immigration Reform NOW!! (MIRNOW), or click http://tiny.cc/5tnlk Thanks, Steve Timper PS: Have the Supreme Court judge just how constitutional, and or legal SB1070 is!!
Note that I speak only of illegal immigrants. If we need these people, as many claim, then they should be allowed to come legally and they should avail themselves of the opportunity, again, legally. It's in their best interests to do do. When they come illegally, they need to hide which makes them vulnerable to exploitation.
The problem of enforcement remains even if some dispensation is made in terms of guest worker or even citizenship. For the sake of argument if somehow magically we woke up tomorrow morning and all hispanic illegals had legal status under a guest worker program so could produce paperwork if challanged, woudl the hispanic community still be screaming?
Go a step further and say that every hispanic that was in the country today was made a citizen - would the hispanic community still be screaming about profiling and teh uncostitutional nature of the law?
Every law currently on the books is vulnerable to the same abuses that we are being told makes SB1070 unjust - which is why the constitution is continually tested and case law precedents set to give context to the policing of the laws. All of the examples being cited are either hypothesizing or subject to existing laws elsewhere in the country - not subject to 1070. Why then single out this law?
#1- Danger of Racial Profiling
A- In an article for The Crime Report, George Gascón, San Francisco police chief and past chief of the Mesa, Arizona police force between 2006-2009 writes, "The criminal provisions of this law would be extremely difficult to enforce in a race-neutral manner. When police officers attempt to determine whether an individual they encounter on patrol is in the United States illegally, as the bill requires, they will likely rely upon race and ethnicity as factors in establishing reasonable suspicion to investigate potential violations. As a practical matter, even the amended language, which prohibits consideration of race, color or national origin, will not prevent the improper use of race or ethnicity.
Short of directly observing an individual actually crossing the border in a surreptitious manner, there are not reliable indicators that would give rise to a reasonable suspicion to believe that a person is unlawfully in the United States." http://bit.ly/9ATgsk
Well, gee, Foundersten what if the driver is white and not brown?
Golly, if the person's identity can't be verified SB1070 says they are to be handed over to immigration authorities only if they are, well...gosh, it doesn't say what color or race! I guess EVERYONE who doesn't have an ID is supposed to be detained. And if you happen to be a legal immigrant found to be without documentation per FEDERAL LAW, then yes...you broke the law!
All of the actual examples you have quoted are subject to existing laws and the constitution. You have failed to come up with a rational basis for a problem with SB1070 except to draw on problems with existing laws that are in any case subject to all of the criteria that would be in force to regulate SB1070.
So again I put it to you that what you are in effect saying is that it is impossible to enforce even the current illegal immigration laws in a race neutral manner??
"The Pew, NBC and Wall St. Journal polls say:
. 60% of Americans polled support sb1070
. 71% of Americans polled think legal Latino citizens will be harassed by police
New polls of AZ Latino Voters say:
. 81% of Arizona Latino voters oppose SB 1070
. Arizona Latino voters overwhelmingly oppose SB 1070, are increasingly frustrated by federal inaction, and are moving swiftly away from candidates who support the bill.
These polls provide us three insights:
1. The majority of those nationally polled are non-latino, believe sb1070 racially profiles Latinos and DO NOT CARE the bill racially profiles Latinos.
2. The majority of Latino voters polled believe the bill racially profiles Latinos, oppose the bill and oppose being racially profiled.
3. The majority of Latino voters polled believe the state bill and federal inaction on immigration reform is increasing Latino Voter frustration which is resulting in a heightening of political awareness and a call to action by Latino voters across the U.S.
This isn't the first time polls reflect the majority of Americans DO NOT CARE about oppression of minority groups. Back in the 60's, Jim Crow laws in Alabama and Mississippi were vastly supported by the majority of Americans. During World War 2, there was virtual consensus that government had done the right thing in establishing Japanese Internment Camps and moving Japanese aliens away from the coast. 59 percent of the interviewees also favored moving American citizens of Japanese ancestry into
Dee321 previously posted, and you supported, the following as evidence that SB1070 is racist and unjust:
1.Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling = Suppression Sweeps = Lawful Stop
SB1070: Section 2, B: For any lawful stop
Examples: http://tiny.cc/fbyqx
2. Criminalizing Friends and Family
SB1070: Section 5, G, 2: Unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring or shielding of unlawful aliens; vehicle impoundment; exception; classification
3. Encouraging Gomer Pyle style "Citizen's Arrest"
Sb1070: Section 2, H: A person who is a legal resident of this state may bring an action
I have demonstrated how none of these provisions are either racist or unjust, but no response from either of you. Do you have any other arguments or can we consider this one closed?
All the same, this seems to be a done discussion. Even in the other posts you have not clearly explained how SB1070 is racist. If your argument is strictly that the bill could be misinterpreted to justify racial profiling then you may have a point- but you have emphatically denied this.
At this point I have to agree with Voyager48 that you definiteley present more as an immigration activist then someone who is concerned about this one bill. I'm not saying I'm right- it's just how things appear.
"Foundersten, I suggest you read the bill. The bill is draconian in nature...
1. Racial Profiling
2. Criminalizing Friends and Family
3. Encouraging Gomer Pyle style "Citizen's Arrest"
The bill promotes racially profiling ala Arpaio. Today, arpaio recruits volunteer masked goons to sweep Latino neighborhoods like Guadalupe and conduct "Suppression Sweeps." (his term). He doesn't go to non-Latino neighborhoods. He goes to Latino neighborhoods and pulls all Latinos over. His volunteers wear HOODS. Having a drivers license is NOT sufficient. Educate yourself. Pictures: http://tiny.cc/fbyqx
He arrests Latinos during these sweeps for minor infractions, including broken tail lights or missing license plate lights. He publicizes his arrest numbers to the local press. There are many citizens he has zip-tied and made to stand on the side of the road for 3 or 4 hours, forcing them to pee on the side of the road..
Arpaio is under investigation for racial profiling by the DOJ. Mayor Gordon and other sheriffs requested this investigation. Arpaio had lost over $40M in lost law suits due to deaths and mistreatment in his tent city jails which are infested with disease...
...arpaio employed Kris K Kobach, the author of sb1070 to train his masked goons to spot "illeegals". Kobach from the Hate Group FAIR. Kobach who says the intent of the bill is "Attrition through Enforcement" = Mass Deportation of the 12M here plus their children."
You have NOT demonstrated that these provisions are NOT racist or unjust.
Suppression Sweeps in Latino neighborhoods IS racial profiling. Citizens have provided documentation yet held in cuffs forced to pee on the side of the road. Do you call that just? http://tiny.cc/fbyqx
Did you LOOK at the pictures? Until you are willing to allow your mother to be tied in handcuffs and forced to pee on the side of the road, her ID is not held sufficient, until you allow YOUR MOTHER to undergo that treatment, DO NOT ASK ME to allow MY Mother to undergo that inhumane and racist treatment either!
Second: Until YOU are arrested for your mother Jaywalking (a civil violation), DO NOT ARREST ME for a Civil Violation or take my car away or fine me $1000 as the racist bill sb1070 states.
Third: The next time you and your friends are at a Home Depot, when I call the police on YOU they better come out or I will sue them.
What is FAIR for one is FAIR for All! You call this justice whenn only ONE Group is Demonized? I don't.
As far as the pictures, I AGAIN say that for such behavior to go undocumented except conveniently on activist blogs and websites is more than a little suspicious. Show me ANYTHING supporting your stories in the mainstream media. I don't doubt there are racist jerks for law enforcement, but their behavior IS NOT written into policy. If it were you couldn't begin to convince me that whatever agency is doing it wouldn't get sued into the ground!
Not Arizona
Not SB1070
A problem? Yes, and the gentleman will have the ACLU calling off the hook to represent him in court.
This is a job we should put for bid to UPS and FEDEx. They can track a tiny package anywhere in the world from its point of origin. Government? Not so much. Ever consider what happens in any county's Federal Building after closing time? Don't laugh--a relative actually had this job. Someone has to go over the surveillance tapes and sign in registers to verify everyone who entered actually exited. It never, ever matched up. Someone had to go looking which would be my nephew. I could only wish I were kidding!
I have become over the past couple of years extremely disillusioned that we have to keep fighting for the most basic rights, and the fact that so many self-proclaimed patriotic Americans are so quick and ready to destroy our constitution just to artificially feel a bit safer from poor brown people most of whom simply come to work. It reminds me of that Ben Franklin quote:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."