Arizona Against Immigration*

Arizona Against Immigration

A controversial Arizona law has caused grave concern to immigrants

Dr. Uttam Kumar Das writes from Minneapolis, USA

The US immigration system has been an area of interest during my program here. I am taking a full-course on Immigration Law as part of my LLM (Master of Law) program this Spring Semester 2010.

The topic has dominated much of the discussions starting from the academic debates to professional conferences. Much has been in debate following the filing of an Immigration Reform Bill in the US Congress last December. However, when this law is going to be passed or implemented, no one could say.

In another development, a new legislation adopted in the southern border state of Arizona has sparked new debates.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed an immigration bill into law for the state on April 23. This is considered as the “toughest law against the illegal immigrant.”

Legal and judicial questions have also emerged whether a state could adopt such a law overruling the federal position with regard to immigration.

Though immigration is a federal matter, Arizona has challenged that principle. The Department of Justice is reportedly to challenge the legality and validity of the Arizona law.

The much debated law will take effect on July 29 unless its implementation is blocked by any legal or judicial intervention, i.e., court injunctions etc. So far, there have been three pending legal challenges already filed by a Hispanic clergy group, a police officer and another individual.

The law is likely to make it a crime if an immigrant doesn’t carry his or her immigration documents with them apparently at all times.

It also empowers the police to detain anyone who are “suspected of being in this country illegally.” The law’s reported aim is to “identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.”

It has provisions that in enforcing law, police might question anyone about his or her “immigration status” if there is "reasonable suspicion." However, there is no definition in the law what this “reasonable suspicion” means. The Arizona law also makes it a state crime to be in the US illegally.

The critics of the law comment that the law will result in “racial profiling of Hispanics.” Some are opposing the new law because it seems to encourage “racial profiling” which is prohibited by numerous existing laws in the country.

The New York Times/CBS poll finds that only 0.51% of the public opinion is in favor of this new immigration law. Opposition is overwhelming.

On May 5, Mayor of Boston Thomas M. Menino and Boston City Council asked the residents of Boston to protest against Arizona’s new immigration law by “cutting ties with companies based in Arizona that agree with the new law,” according to Boston-based Irish Immigrant Newspaper. Mayor Menino whose grandfather was an immigrant comments that Arizona has opted for isolation adopting such as law.

This has a cost as well. Phoenix, a major city in Arizona has already reports loss of $90 million due to “immigration law boycott,” as the New York Daily News reports on May 11. Professional and other organizations are shifting their scheduled events out of Arizona.

However, there are other moves as well: at least 10 States are reportedly looking to copy Arizona’s law. Those States include Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas and Maryland, according to the Huffington Post.

According to Minneapolis-based Senior Immigration Attorney Scott M. Borene who has been advocating for the reform process, it (immigration reform) is in the top three priorities of President Obama administration. The Attorney acknowledges that U.S. economy is benefited both from the legal and illegal immigrants. “We need immigrants to meet up the deficit in the workforce,” says Attorney Borene at a presentation at the Minnesota State Bar Association on April 19.

The reform aims to pave the way for legalization of an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants among others.

However, President Obama administration is now likely stuck with other priorities. After the battle over the health care reform bill, the administration has likely been busy with Afghan war, “home-grown terrorism” issue and at the latest fire in the oil reserve in the Mexico Gulf.

That is why observers see that it is very unlikely to pass the federal immigration reform by this year.

However, professional bodies like the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have come up with bunch of recommendations. According to a release of AILA, it “…believes any effective, long-term solution to the immigration problem must: 1) require the undocumented population to come out of the shadows and earn legal status; 2) ensure that American businesses are able to hire the workers they need to help grow our economy while protecting U.S. workers from unfair competition; 3) reduce the unreasonable and counterproductive backlogs in family-based and employment-based immigration by reforming the permanent immigration system; and 4) protect our national security and the rule of law while preserving and restoring fundamental principles of due process and equal protection.”

I find no other recommendation but to support AILA’s ones to cover the issue as a whole. It is true that without a specific plan of action by President Obama and the Congress (especially support of the members from the opposition Republic) this new immigration reform bill may also embrace the reality of “no vote” like previous ones as happened in 2008 and 2009. And that is the fear of the related professionals and observers.

Dr. Uttam Kumar Das is a Bangladeshi human rights lawyer currently affiliated with the Human Rights Center and Law School at the University of Minnesota, U.S.A. as a Humphrey Fellow. E-mail: udas1971@gmail.com.

*Originally appeared in the PROBE News Magazine (Dhaka, Bangladesh), May 21-27, 2010; link: http://www.probenewsmagazine.com/index.php?index=2&contentId=6043.