By Laura Vasquez, Immigration Legislative Analyst, NCLR
As one battle dies down, another heats up. With the oral arguments in the Supreme Court on health care reform over, millions of Americans across the country are turning their attention to the highly contentious case over Arizona's extreme anti-immigrant and anti-Latino bill, SB 1070. NCLR has wasted no time jumping full force into this case, filing an amicus brief alongside a host of other national organizations that advocate on behalf of Latinos, including the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic National Bar Association, Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
So what's at stake? The amicus brief details a number of concerns raised by SB 1070, including its potential to:
Our groups are not alone in voicing disdain for this bill. More than 300 organizations joined 19 amicus briefs supporting the U.S. government in its legal challenge against Arizona's SB 1070. From faith, labor, business, and law enforcement communities, we voiced to the court that we cannot stand by and simply ignore the very real threats to all Americans that could result from allowing this law to stand.
Overturning the injunction on SB 1070 not only jeopardizes the safety of Latinos, subjecting them to increased violence and harassment, but it also encourages and legitimizes other states' attempts to pass anti-immigrant bills.
SB 1070 and the similar racial profiling bills that have followed are disguised as policy solutions for our broken immigration system. They have done nothing but demonize immigrants, undermine the civil rights of all Americans, and drain states of millions of dollars in business.
We will be listening closely on the steps of the Supreme Court as oral arguments begin on April 25, and we hope the justices take our concerns seriously. Once again, we find ourselves in a battle that hinges on the decision of the Supreme Court. And once again, we find ourselves in a battle that the Latino community cannot afford to lose.
This was first posted to the NCLR Blog.
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Who was Pablo Escobar selling hundreds of pounds and tons of cocaine too anyway. Wealthy Americans living in mansions in the suburbs! Who brought crack into the African American communities. It wasn't Pablo and it wasn't Latin Americans.
Without these resourses, a woman's ability to maintain a family have gone from subsistance to zero. First the Spainards and then the Americans (working with the Spainards) have established Rubber, Coffee and Banana etc Plantations on these stolen lands The Indiginous women and their families are shoved onto the rocky hillsides to fend for themselves for the best lands have been stolen from them. When the torrential rains come, they're wiped out. Destitute they move to big cities. If they die on the street, their children survive eatting from the city dump. When these children reach puberty, they have no opportunity for education. So what is left for them to do: Prostitution, theivery, drug dealing....or to go North for migrant farm work. These lands were stolen mostly because the Indiginous people didn't have the taxes to pay for their land. For thousands of generations our people gave tribute to their local tribal leaders who cared about them. Everyone was taken care of.
Supreme Court must preserved the will of the people embodied in that law.
In the absence of Federal leadership, states groaning under insurmountable costs of providing educational, medical and correctional services will quickly enact similar legislation.
Get ready folks, the law will stand up.
If your enthusiasm for this law does not factor in these possibilities, you are being played.