Racial profiling encouraged by new Arizona law

By Matthew GomezThe Guardsman

If Texas rewriting history  isn’t enough, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a bill into law on Apr.  23 that essentially allows law enforcement officers to racially profile  people they think might be illegal immigrants.

I’ve never had a  reason to hold anything against the Southwest, but if these offenses  continue,
I may just have to find a suitable bumper sticker to  express my rage.

The law, Senate Bill 1070, will take effect in  either August or September; which month must depend on how the Arizona  heat affects Brewer’s racism. Legal immigrants would be required to  carry their alien registration cards at all times, just in case they  happen to be looking especially illegal one day.

At the defense  of Brewer stands Joseph Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona,  who’s had a long history with the issue of immigration. Arpaio is  infamous for raids — often conducted illegally — on towns where he  rounds up anyone he finds suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

He  even claims that in October of 2009 the Department of Homeland Security  tried to limit his power. At one time he had been allowed to check the  immigration status of prisoners and make field arrests concerning  immigration, but the Department of Homeland Security barred him from the  latter. The DHS didn’t want him enforcing federal immigration laws.

Arpaio  “vowed to keep scouring Maricopa County for people whose clothing,  accents and behavior betrayed them as likely illegal immigrants,”  according to a 2007 New York Times editorial.

“This is not about  profiling. They’re worried about the laws being enforced,” Republican  Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored the bill, told the Associated Press.

No  matter the underlying cause, deciding whether or not to question  someone about their legality based on their “clothing, accents and  behavior” is still profiling.

That shouldn’t faze Arpaio,  though, as he already dresses his prisoners in pink underwear and houses  them in tents in the middle of the desert. His blatant disrespect for  human beings should be a clear sign that he doesn’t deserve to hold  power; but what do I know, he has been elected sheriff four consecutive  times.

Brewer, who signed the legislation Friday, “issued an  executive order that requires additional training for local officers on  how to implement the law without engaging in racial profiling or  discrimination,” according to an April 26 article by Emanuella Grinberg  of CNN.

Her idea of additional training is having her own state  officials, who are under her command, “develop a training course for  officers to learn what constitutes reasonable suspicion someone is in  the U.S. illegally,” according to an April 25 article by Jonathan Cooper  of the Associated Press.

So they’re going to school to learn how  to be racist on the sly. Brilliant! It’s like culinary school but it  involves profiling and is for klansmen — and it doesn't involve cooking.

It  seems the only fair way to implement this law is to conduct an  illegal-alien version of the census and question everyone in the state  of Arizona.

The group that’s being targeted has already been made  clear; there is no way to avoid racial profiling or discrimination.

Also,  it’s disturbing that these officials are doing everything in their  power to expel people from land that we initially took from them.

Hopefully  people rally together and stop this bill, if only for the sake of  freedom and all those other ideals that don't seem to matter anymore.