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The act, signed into law by Arizona governor Jan Brewer, allows police officers to stop anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant and check their resident status. Those found to be in the country illegally will be charged with a misdemeanor. Those who harbor, transport, or hire illegal immigrants also face punishment under the law.
Polls have shown that the bill has the support of many Americans. According to a Gallup Poll taken after the bill was passed, 51 percent of Americans with knowledge of SB 1070 support the measure, while 39 percent opposed it. Another survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports found that 60 percent of Americans would be in favor of such a law for their state, while 31 percent opposed such a measure.
However, there has been vocal opposition to the bill. Protestors have opposed the law on the grounds that it promotes racial profiling and have called for an economic boycott of the state. The Los Angeles City Council is among a growing number of local governments who have decided to cut ties with Arizona. President Barack Obama, Texas Governor Rick Perry, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have spoken out against the bill.
The debate has divided many in the African American community. Some black leaders and civic organizations have been in the forefront in opposing the law. The Rev. Al Sharpton has led protests in Arizona’s capital of Phoenix. The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the oldest African-American Greek-letter organization, moved their yearly convention from Phoenix to Las Vegas, in the process encouraging a boycott against the state.
“We will not only speak with our voices and our feet, we will speak with our economic clout; and we will not spend our money in Arizona and urge other organizations and people who believe in equality under the law, to do the same,” said Herman Mason, the organization’s president.
NAACP Chairman Roslyn M. Brock believes S.B. 1070 will violate the civil rights of many Arizona residents.
“As an association that has fought for more than 100 years to ensure that basic rights and freedoms would be equally extended to all, it is disheartening to see the State of Arizona enact a law that tramples on the civil rights of Hispanic persons, and one that cannot be enforced without resorting to racial and ethnic profiling. We intend to use the full weight of our 2200 branches and units to ensure that this law is repealed and does not happen in other states across this nation.”
However, some blacks who support S.B. 1070 believe it is wrong to compare the struggle against the law to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
“When black leaders take the legacy of our suffering people and equate it to illegal immigration, that’s absolutely immoral,” said activist Ted Hayes, who has been active in counter protests in Arizona against Sharpton. “And we call them sellouts. They will pay for this one day because the black community is going to recoil at this. This is wrong.”
Black leaders are similarly split on the issue of illegal immigration and safety. San Francisco District Attorney and state Attorney General candidate Kamala Harris is among a group of law enforcement officials, including Los Angeles Police Chief Charles Beck and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, who believe S.B. 1070 will make it harder for law enforcement to solve crimes and apprehend criminals.
“Protecting public safety was supposedly a main justification for Arizona's law. As a career prosecutor for nearly two decades, I can tell you that transforming our local police officers into immigration agents will seriously harm our crime-fighting efforts,” Harris said in an article written for the Huffington Post. We have the nation's largest population of immigrants, with nearly 10 million California residents born abroad. If they don't report crimes, for fear of being interrogated about their immigration status, crimes will go unsolved and criminals will walk free among us.”
Black supporters of the bill believe it actually protects black people. Terrance Lang, who has also been active in counter protests in Arizona, believes illegal immigration has greatly harmed the black community.
“Go into the black community. Our neighborhoods have been overrun. Are schools have been overcrowded. Our hospitals have been overcrowded. Many of them have closed. Unemployment in the black community is the highest in the country. There’s violence in the jails. There’s racial violence visited upon blacks mainly by illegal immigrants and the descendants of illegal immigrants. You have to have your head in the sand if you don’t see that illegal immigration is having a major negative impact on the black community.”
Article courtesy of L.A. Focus. For more stories, visit L.A. Focus online.
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