Immigration or a Historical Labor Issue?
By Herman Baca / Committee on Chicano Rights / San Diego Free Press
To this date, it never ceases to amaze me that the biggest problem/issue (the war in Afghanistanand economy) for the great-great-great grandchildren of immigrants who immigrated to the U.S.is…. immigration? This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s (Nazizona) draconian SB 1070’s main provision, “show me your papers.”
The court left standing SB 1070’s most controversial provision requiring Sheriff Joe Apario type, “state and local police to check the immigration status of anyone that they suspect is in the country illegally; if that person was initially detained for other legitimate reasons.”
There can be no mistake that the ruling was aimed solely at persons of Mexican ancestry and their rights, whetherU.S.born, legal or undocumented. The unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court Justices’ (including Sonia Sotomayor) brings the U.S. closer to a police state, legalizes racial profiling, revives the segregationist “Jim Crow” system, and sanctions a South African apartheid state for this nation’s fastest growing (50 million Chicanos/Latinos) population.
The ruling (in my opinion) is still unconstitutional, violates the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and is contradictory. The Justices’ ruled that the, “show me your papers” provision was legal, and then struck down, “the provision that makes it a crime for an immigrant to not carry registration document at all times?” However the court left the question unanswered as to what kind of papers they were making reference to? Also what papers police are required to ask for, and the suspects (brown people) are supposed to produce… birth certificate, baptism, passport, military discharge, social security cards, marriage, divorce etc., or? Another issue left untouched was how police determine the validity of documents, and which ones are acceptable?
For the remainder of this article, please go to San Diego Free Press.
{ 0 comments… add one now }