Arizona SB 1070?
(Disclaimer: as a super-white, almost-middle-class, mostly centrist anti-factionalist in my early 30's, I struggle sometimes. There are a handful of issues, mostly social in nature, where I know that I'm in complete disagreement with virtually all of my favorite, most intelligent, and most respected friends and peers. Especially when I disagree with them, I like to at least understand their counter-arguments, so that I can rest comfortably knowing that I really do believe what I believe; my conclusions sometimes cause me to stand beside people whom I don't like or respect, and that makes me wary. In this case, I'm finding myself standing next to some very ugly people.)
Thus it is with the Arizona law that is known as SB 1070.
Here's what I know about immigration in the U.S.
Native Americans have a legitimate claim to being non-immigrants. The rest of us came from somewhere else. We either chose to come, or that choice was made by others. We either obeyed existing immigration law, or we didn't (or, the people who brought us here either obeyed existing law or they didn't).
Some people waited in line for three years or more, made tremendous sacrifices, learned to speak, read, and write English as a second (or third, or fourth...) language, successfully navigated the U.S. immigration process, swore an oath of loyalty to this nation and its Constitution, entered the workforce, paid taxes, voted, and advocated for the reforms they wanted through nonviolence and via their elected representatives.
Call these folks "Group A".
Some people didn't want to wait in line. They instead paid a couple hundred bucks for a spot in the back of a dingy van or leaky boat, crossed the border at night while the border patrol was absent or being paid to look the other way, made their way to a big city, and started looking for work. They took jobs paying cash under the table, and remitted a sizable portion of that money back to their home country. Some paid another couple hundred bucks to fraudulently acquire an unused Social Security number, so that they could get better-paying jobs or access to banks or food stamps. Some lived here for so long and paid so much in taxes that they came to believe that somehow they'd "paid their dues", and now feel entitled to stay here and get out of the shadows and get all the rights and privileges afforded to the "Group A"ers.
Call these folks "Group Z".
Some other people were carried here by one or both parents as infants or children, partially or completely oblivious to the circumstances of their arrival or powerless to control it. They grew up never knowing their "home" nation, sometimes never traveling there or even being exposed to that country's language(s) or customs at all. They worked hard, stayed out of trouble, some even found ways to get through high school and college here, and now they want to contribute even more to this nation -- but the Congress can't seem to find its way to passing the DREAM act, or similar legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for them.
There could be ten million or more unique stories out there, describing how and why any given immigrant came to try and build a life here.
But it's always been my opinion that we need to find ways to encourage participation in Group A (possibly through incentives) while discouraging people from joining Group Z (possibly through punishment), all the while maintaining standards of fairness and human dignity.
Suppose that SB 1070 is applied as it is written, and that existing standards for "probable cause" are observed in all stops and arrests. Suppose people are allowed to have their paperwork establishing legal presence in this country be at their homes or in some other safe place, instead of being on their person at all times. Suppose that the people in Group A are treated politely and fairly and are only ever even inconvenienced when there is some legitimate misunderstanding of the probable cause for their being in the country illegally. If this were the case, is this bill (law) still the sort of racist bigoted neo-Nazi abomination that people are making it out to be?
I understand the argument "ah, this law is likely to be abused!", but I reject it. All laws are prone to abuse. If that were the litmus test, we'd have no laws at all. I understand the argument that it will cause illegal immigrants to fear deportation. That's exactly the point of the law, to help pave the way toward the better enforcement of immigration law. Illegal immigrants should fear the enforcement mechanisms of the laws that they broke. I understand the argument "this law is unfair because the current immigration laws are currently too stringent!", but I reject this argument also. If you want to loosen the immigration laws, your route is through Congress and the Executive, or else the Judiciary. Being opposed to enforcing existing laws simply because you've been unsuccessful so far in getting them changed to your liking is the road toward anarchy, assuming that those laws are just and Constitutional, which many of our immigration laws are.
I just can't seem to find any good argument against this law that doesn't fall into one of these above categories. Arizona law enforcement is not the Gestapo, they're not going to be hanging out in junior high gymnasiums checking the papers of the winners of the spelling bee. But if you get pulled over for blowing through a traffic sign you couldn't read, and you can't produce a driver's license or explain your immigration status to that peace officer, why should your next stop not be county jail, a judge for a speedy arraignment, and then immigration and customs enforcement?
I'm really asking here. Why is this thing so bad? Nearly a million people claim to oppose it on Facebook, but why?