As many have heard, Arizona has passed a law allowing police officers to stop anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant and require citizenship documentation to be presented on the spot. If the person is unable to provide said papers, the officers now have the power to detain those stopped. Note, for those unfamiliar with how this works, police officers must typically have probable cause when stopping any person. For example, if you drink out of a paper bag while driving, they have the right to stop you. Now, any person can be walking down the street and all the officer has to say is "hey, they look like an illegal alien" and the officer can make the stop.
Although I do not look hispanic, I am. All of my mothers side is of both Texas-Mexican and New Mexico-Mexican ancestry. In all cases, they are native to the states of Texas and New Mexico, close to the border. As a result, any person could profile them as "Mexican". The thought of my family members being stopped on account of their appearances is a terrifying one. I truly do worry for those citizens of Arizona who are legal residents, for what will prevent police officers from unduly harassing them?
I refuse to get into a debate over immigration. I am not a politician and do not have sufficient information to make an educated statement about whether or not we should open up our borders. However, I do know that all humans deserve the right to exist in a world free of unprovoked harassment from law enforcement agencies. Every person in this world has a right to walk down the street without being asked for documentation to prove that they're allowed to be in that spot at that moment.
For those ignorant to the details of the Holocaust (that dark period when a bunch of white supremacists decided they were Gods chosen people and had the right to extinguish all other races), a favorite past-time of Nazi soldiers was the stopping of Jewish people and demanding papers (documentation of legal presence). Many innocent lives were lost at the hands of power-crazed soldiers. Giving officers this power implies they have access to perfect knowledge of what an "illegal alien" looks like. Such an implication defies the very logic used when drafting the Constitution and developing the concept of "innocent till proven guilty".
Much of our Civil Rights movement has been aimed at the prevention of similar situations. Unfortunately, it seems that a new era of neo-Nazism has managed to dupe an entire state. Those who have supported this bill are either ignorant to its racists origins or do not care. This marks a tremendously sad backwards stumbling in the human rights movement. Our apathy, as a nation, has superseded any inclination to protect the most basic of liberties of which all peoples deserve. It is time that we take our heads out of the superficial glam-rock American Idolizing celebrity obsessed distractions, and start paying attention to the great injustices occurring under our very noses.
This video is from Rachel Maddow and has documented the neo-Nazi origins of the Arizona bill. Please share this video with everyone you know.
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