Arizona SB1070 - Controversial Immigration Law

Those opposed to Arizona SB1070 because it's a "hate law" and that it's based on racial profiling are being misled by sensationalist propaganda that Arizona will become a Gestapo state violating civil rights is not only insane, reactionary and totally hyperbolic but adds nothing to a reasonable political solution. Across the country, grass roots efforts to boycott Arizona has formed in protest of the law effective July 29, 2010. Boycotting Arizona is wrong because the law specifically prohibits racial profiling and will hurt the very people that the protesters are trying to help.

Profiling is not used solely. In Tim Gaynor's book, "Midnight on the Line", page 64, a CBP officer remarked "If you are working on the assumption that you can just look for any profile, then you are being beat. Because if you are looking for Hispanic males of 18 to 25 years age ... if you are looking for that for your profile, the next grandma and grampa will be carrying."

Profiling is not based on color of skin but on many factors. If an immigrant is nervous, they are coached before going through port of entry to grip the fake ID tightly until it bows slightly - to avoid a shaky hand which is looked for by the border agents.

On the Mexican side, spotters gather intelligence on shift changes and look out for less than vigilant agents to direct crossers in the 24 multi-lane port of entry to California. Commingling with the waiting traffic is the Anti-Terrorism Contraband Enforcement Team called 'rovers'. It's a pre-check in the traffic jam in order to keep traffic moving.

The detection technology includes radiation sensors, gamma x-rays and other high tech equipment - or could be just a simple as knocking on hollow spots of the chassis like a melon to see if it sounds empty as it should. Exotic animals from South America are also secreted over the border in this way. The most feared tool on the US side is the sniffer dogs, who not only can detect marijuana, heroin cocaine and meth but even hidden humans within a modified auto body to hold them.

On the ground the sniffer dog is the best detector. In the air, the one with the most stealth is the Predator B drone spy plane that is able to light up drug smugglers with an invisible laser light that can only be seen with night vision glasses worn by the pilot of a Black Hawk or A-Star helicopter carrying a Special Response Team akin to police SWAT. Underground detection of tunnels uses ground radar, magnetometers, and seismic detectors.

The federal lawsuit is about states' rights versus federal jurisdiction. States' rights versus the federal government is resolved in the United States Constitution that in any event of conflicting law, federal overrides states according to the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. SB1070 reflects current federal law and is not a draconian anti-immigration statute. The federal lawsuit is based on "states may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes with the federal immigration laws." Arizona has not developed it's own immigration policy nor interfering with federal jurisdiction - but dove tailing it and enhancing it out of frustration that the overwhelmed Customs and Border control doesn't have enough man power when a 'banzai' run of 30 border runners cross at the same time. The US federalism is "a theory of multiplicity -- overlapping layers of government in which the goal was the overlap itself."[1] Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said, "States like Arizona shouldn't be prosecuted for protecting their citizens when the federal government fails to do so."

Only a fascist regime that serves business over citizens would allow illegals to work without benefits and at sub-standard wage - effectively lowering the standard of living for everyone. Why hire an American with FICA, Worker's compensation an OSHA oversight when can hire at half the wages with little safety and no insurance? Boycotting legitimate Arizonian businesses is a a vote for sweat shops and not for civil rights.

What image do you have when you think of a illegal border crosser on the US-Mexico border? The poor, tired and hungry who yearn for a better life in America? If the border is porous enough - but not too much it makes more money for those criminals who are rich, and ruthless killers.

Retired border patrol agent Paul Wells said, "It used to be almost entirely immigrants the patrol dealt with, but as the deterrence strategy started to work, agents began seeing a higher percentage of criminals." Coyotes, (chicken handlers), transport the pollos, (chickens), for a price. In the tunnel sewer of the border town Nogales, some migrants are robbed of everything including their clothes by the time they reach the far side of the tunnel.

Coyotes get paid to guide the pollos through the desert, if any of the pollos get hurt they are left behind to die. Many migrants dying of thirst have crawled to the highway and flagged down the US Border Patrol, who rescues countless people but there are untold deaths also. As of July 2010 the rate of bodies could surpass the highest single month of found corpses since July 2005. As border control tightens, the border runners go to more dangerous territory to elude border security.

After making it though the border, sometimes sealed in a coffin within a modified gas tank, the migrants are taken to a 'safe' house and held hostage by the coyotes to have their stateside relatives release them. They are routinely tortured to bring a better price. The 'safe' house is barred, the windows covered and the shoes are taken so they cannot run away. At times, an electric cattle prod is used on the hostages for control and fear.

For those on the Mexican side - whose violence has already spread past the border and into the US - It's a Latino chaos of open war between rival drug barrios, (gangs), that appears to get worse in the future.

OTM's, 'Other than Mexicans, from the south of Mexico have already traveled thousands of miles to get to the US-Mexico border. The border itself generates it's own business and not all flows one way. Deadly automatic weapons flow from the north to the south, sustaining the brutal drug cartels. There is a special style of song around the northern border called Narcocorridos - Mexican drug ballads.

What will result if the Arizona boycott succeeds? It will hurt everybody- including the very people - undocumented aliens that the boycott it's supposedly helping. Unintended consequences of a economic tailspin from an Arizona boycott may blow back to the very states that are boycotting! San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom said, "There's concern if the boycott is made uniform, 2,500 San Franciscans could lose their jobs."

Wanted criminals charged with felonious crimes are unable to ever cross legally and will pay top dollar for the coyotes to ferry them over - up to $4000. They are unable to go through port with false papers because fingerprinting is routine. Sometimes the corruption of government officials are not always on the Mexican side. In 2007, a border agent received a 5 year sentence in San Diego. With increased border control, the coyotes place border officers under surveillance in a effort to study their weakness and recruited to take large sums of money. This is done in the same way abusers eventually gain control - a little at a time, with each little indiscretion a little more past the boundary of propriety - until the compromised agent realized he has been ensnared - unable to back out.The federal lawsuits says that state laws are always pre-empted by federal law. It appears selective enforcement if allow medical marijuana state laws that are in conflict win federal law - yet prosecute Arizona for using same the guideline that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has. According the the Arizona Daily Star on 7.22.2010, it was reported, "Congress passed a special law in 1996 allowing state and local police to receive special training to enforce federal immigration laws, it also 'reaffirmed that each state's inherent authority to enforce federal immigration laws was not to be restricted and stat state could continue to assist in immigration enforcement."

The federal lawsuit states that the SB 1070 language is contrary with the federal's accommodating discretion towards humanitarian and political nuances.

Unable to cross with the tight border security has only hardened the border crossers who are unable to cross, "unless your have criminal assistance, or some kind of Olympic athlete." - according to Arizona's Attorney General Terry Goddard. The US State Department Travel increased warning to 'travel alert' for Northern Mexico and US Consulate family members are being offered a free ride back in the USA for safety.

References

[1] Steven E. Levingston, "How the noisy debate over states' rights distorts history and the intent of federalism" 03.25.2010

Sources

Port of Entry
United States v. Resendiz-Ponce
Vitter Introduces Amendment with DeMint to Stop Obama
Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona desert soaring in July amid unrelenting heat
Lawrence Taylor & Maeve Hickey, "Tunnel Kids" 2001
Tim Gaynor, "Midnight on the Line, The secret Life of the U.S.-Mexico Border" 2009
John Annerino, "Dead in their Tracks, Crossing America's Desert Borderlands in the New Era" 2009
Arizona Daily Star, "81 Congress member back Ariz. on SB 1070" 07.22.2010