Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law claims its superiority over federal government and our constitution

[struggle4progress]

by Moses Apsan, Esq.
<former President of New Jersey Chapter of the Federal Bar Association>

The first state to claim its superiority over federal government and our constitution was Arizona when .. Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law a potentially anti-immigrant law that has the ability to mark as criminals not only illegal aliens but legal residents too.

The law makes failure to carry proof of citizenship or legal status a crime, and any immigrants who can't produce the documentation can be arrested, fined $2,500 and jailed for up to six months. Until the Arizona law goes into effect, a person in illegal status is not a criminal. Being illegal in the U.S. has always been an administrative violation subject to deportation and not incarceration.

The law opens a deep fracture in Arizona, with a greater part of the thousands of callers to the governor’s office urging her to reject it.

Under SB 1070 the police officers are required to arrest and detain people they perceive on a "reasonable suspicion" are undocumented. It’s not unexpected news, that this law has shocked the country. Most people understand that there is no such thing as looking undocumented or even American. Requiring the police officers to racially profile sets this country back to a disgraceful time in our countries the past where racial segregation was the law of the land. The law goes beyond racial profiling as we have known in the past as it now places the police “under color of law” to conduct discriminatory practice. The state of Arizona has become home to a laws that use immigration as a reason to criminalize anyone that is not white. The bill is an attack on this nation's fundamental values ...

http://news.jornal.us/article-4939.Arizonas-Anti-Immigrant-Law-claims-its-superiority-over-federal-government-and-our-constitution.html

[havocmom]

1. There is a part of the population there that is still fighting the Civil War

and they are pretty sure they are ahead.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. The AZ governor's foolish move and the sinking of the GOP

[ixion]

3. well, no, it's an assertion (albeit a ridiculous one) on State's Rights

but immigration matters are Federal, so the legislation will probably end up rescinded or unconstitutional and therefore moot.