Arizona and Obama Do Not See Eye to Eye on Immigration

Arizona has just recently passed one of the toughest and most controversial immigration laws in the history of the United States. Going into effect April 23, the move immediately created protests from people who believed the law violated major civil rights and even President Obama was wary about the law. He has since strongly criticized the law, stating that it undermines fairness that we as Americans hold so dear to our hearts.

To sum up the law in a few words, it made it illegal to immigrate to the United States without the proper papers and identifications of immigration a crime and more importantly gave a broader power to the police force, making it okay for them to detain anyone who they believed was in the country illegally. This is basically opening up the floodgates for discrimination and profiling of mainly Mexican Americans who are here legally and will ultimately violate their civil rights as Americans. As Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote in Democracy in America, ever political question that arises in the United States will ultimately be decided by the one Supreme Court, and this case looks no different.

Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer (Rep.), stated after she signed the bill into law that it helped the state of Arizona to solve a specific crisis in which they did not create and in which the federal government refuses to do anything about. Many protesters have started to worry about the repercussions of the law, stating that it could invoke national protests, distrust of law enforcement, and an increase in overall crime. Time will certainly tell if this strict and tough immigration will ultimately help the country's illegal immigration problem or hinder it further.

In the mean time, the state of Arizona, which voted for Senator John McClain in the 2008 Presidential Election in the electoral college, has to pay for the actions. Phones have been ringing off the hook at the Governor's office asking, pleading, and threatening not to sign this bill into law. If anything comes out of this, it is that the state of Arizona is deeply divided on key political issues and may be the victim of a trial and error system that the state's officials are willing to try.