Next Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the anti-immigrant Arizona law SB 1070. This law promotes discrimination based on the way people look and speak and that is un-American. The Arizona law, and a number of other copycat laws in states like Alabama and Georgia, encourages discrimination against all of people of color, including those who have been American citizens all of their lives.
We need the Supreme Court to protect our basic rights and strike down this discriminatory law. State “show me your papers” laws like the one in Arizona are not the solution to our broken immigration system. We need Congress and the President to take leadership on immigration; what we do not need is a confusing patchwork of fifty different state laws that promote discrimination.
After Alabama passed its law, farm workers left for other states and crops were ruined. When Arizona gained a reputation for discrimination after passing its law, the state lost an estimated $145m in convention business.
When teachers in Alabama were forced to become immigration agents, students were afraid to attend school. When cops are required to check immigration papers, they spend less time solving serious crimes. When states sanction profiling, U.S. citizens and immigrants alike get stopped and harassed. We must do better than SB 1070�the Supreme Court must strike it down.
Francisco Vicente-Vidal
La Jolla