The law new law in Arizona is perhaps racist, but it is definitely made with the individual in mind. This law is presented as a solution to a problem. The problem is illegal immigration. Why are people illegally immigrating? There is simply more opportunity here. Why is there more opportunity here? That is seriously complicated, but the fact that there is opportunity here is a good thing. The fact that institutions and individuals give opportunity to illegal immigrants is the problem.
Enabling law enforcement to get individuals is of same vein as any police state. Yes there is a problem. The illegal immigrants are taking jobs and worse. However the law in Arizona is equivalent to aiming police at people who use drugs, but refusing to take action on, or even take into account the people who manufacture the drugs. The reason people will cross a desert, risk life and limb to illegally come to the U.S.A. is because there is less opportunity where they come from than there is here.
Never mind that legalization of marijuana would eliminate fortunes of contraband money supplying gangsters on the boarder, the problem this law addresses is illegal immigration. To solve a problem, one must not simply react against people, one must understand the people's instigation in the first place. Opportunity draws immigrants to the U.S.A., illegal and otherwise.
The manufacturers of the problem are not the people who came here. They are the people who hire them. The problem is the individuals and institutions who hire illegal immigrants. The law in Arizona would not be so obviously a step towards a police state with required national identification if it addressed the problem and not individuals caught up in it. If the law was meant as anything other than a way to restrict, intimidate and increase police powers, it would be aimed at those manufacturing the problem.
Who is providing illegal immigrants with opportunity? They are the ones who should be shut down and imprisoned. People claim to be tired of illegal immigrants lining up for construction jobs, but no one is blaming the people who provide them with work. No one is complaining about the facilitation of low cost labor. No one is going after the farms and factories that hire people who are here illegally.
Politically speaking, when there is a problem, there is a reaction. When there is a reaction there is a proposed solution, a solution that has either been an existent contingency or a newly developed idea. Politically speaking, these contingency plans and newly developed ideas either have no foresight whatsoever or tremendous foresight in bringing about often unsaid plans. In this case an increase of police powers over individuals.
If they really wanted to solve the problem they could simply aim their resources at the problem, not individuals caught up in it. The problem is institutions and individuals who provide opportunity to illegal immigrants. If this contingency solution is not to increase police powers then what for? Why does the law concern individuals who are here illegally and not the individuals and institutions who profit from their arrival.
Those that hire illegal immigrants take advantage of them through cheap labor, they take advantage of Uncle Sam as they don't have to pay taxes, and they take advantage of citizens as they drive down wages and provide opportunity to those who will work for less than fair pay, because they are here illegally.
The first question law enforcement is trained to ask is qui bono? For whose advantage? People need to ask that question to. For whose advantage? Who is benefitting from illegal immigrants in the U.S.A.? Who is benefitting from this new law? A short list of some good ol' boy corporations who were caught hiring illegal immigrants is below. Qui bono? Corporations.
Krispy Kreme
American Apparel
Pilgrim's Pride
Del Monte
Smithfield Foods
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