Arizona And Illegal Immigration

I am required to carry my passport/papers with me when travelling/working overseas. If I am in another country illegally I would expect to get detained/arrested and deported. You know, because I have broke the law in that country.

If I want to become a citizen of another country, I will respect and follow the law of that country in attempting to obtain citizenship. I will understand that there may be many different paths, but I will choose one of the legal ones. And if for some reason I choose an illegal one, I will have to pay the consequences if I get caught.

The Federal government of this country has dragged its feet on immigration reform. The status quo is bad, especially for many of the southern border states. The new Arizona law may be extreme but it fills a vacuum left open by the Federal government.

As far as racial profiling goes, you are never going to be able to avoid it completely and it is arguably useful in some situations (ie - catching a criminal based on a eye witness description, or for medical purposes etc...). The overwhelming majority of the citizens of Arizona believe they have an illegal immigration problem, so there is obviously something going on there. I think it is pretty obvious based on demographics and geography that nearly all of the "illegal" immigrants are of a certain race.

The new law does not allow racial profiling to be the "sole" cause for investigating if someone is here "illegally". But of course Hispanics will be singled out due to the demographics. Any concerns about racial profiling of US Citizens of hispanic ancestory should be cooled by the fact that racial profiling probably already exists and there is no evidence to show that the new immigration bill will make things worse. If you have done nothing wrong and are a legal resident, you should have nothing to worry about, other than having to show your drivers license or social security card or some kind of legal proof of citizenship. I carry around my drivers license at all times and would carry around any other form of documentation if it were made public what it needs to be.

The Arizona immigration bill is probably not the correct answer to the "illegal" immigration problem, but given the vacuum in leadership on this issue from the Federal Government, it is a good placeholder until something fair and reasonable is put into place. Personally, I would favor requiring all non resident immigrants (or what is currently known as illegals) to apply for a temporary work permit. They would need to be sponsored by a company that needed to hire them. And after their work permit expired, they would be eligible for one extension and after that would be required to return back to their country of origin for a specific period of time. This policy would be put in place for all low paying jobs as not to interfere with the current H1-Visa program. After five years of crime free working, you can then apply to become a US citizen and go to the back of the line.

America is a great country and it was founded by immigrants, most whom came here legally. Many people world wide, especially those from poor and or third world countries would give almost anything to live here. But obviously we cannot afford to let everyone who wants to work and live here do so. Our standard of living could not support such a thing and the very country that stands so proud and tall now would falter and come crashing down to her knees. This is why our immigration policies need to be tough and we must protect our borders. I would love to save the world and buy a pony for every little boy and girl in the world, but it just is not realistic. Other countries, including Mexico have extremely tough immigration laws and their authorities are extremely harsh on those attempting to immigrate illegally from Central American into Mexico. Why can't we protect our borders with reasonably tough practices?