Show Me Your Papers

Show Me Your Papers

"What does an illegal immigrant look like?" a polite reporter inquired of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer at her press conference to sign the new Arizona immigration legislation, not so lovingly dubbed the 'show me your papers' law by the media. "Do they look like me?" The governor responded vaguely, declaring she didn't know what an illegal immigrant looks like but " there are people in Arizona who assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like" and that some sort of profile would be formed.
The Arizona law essentially gives police the power to pull over any Arizonian who they feel appears to be an illegal immigrant and demand to see the proper immigration paperwork. Any US citizen unable to produce such paperwork may face jail time; any illegal immigrant will be deported. The arrest, according to the law, cannot be solely made based on a persons race, color, etc, but it may be a contributing factor, and other factors that can determine reasonable cause have not been determined. 
Because of the law's racially-based nature- for, no matter what Governor Brewer claims, most Americans see illegal immigrants as being almost entirely hispanic- it is highly likely that racial profiling will occur. Due to this probability, several elected officials, prominently including many from Arizona like the mayor of Tucson and a Arizonian in the US House of Representatives, have called for an economic boycott of Arizona, or, at least, the repeal of the law. Arizona, which has suffered from national boycott before, after deciding not to participate in Martin Luther King Day, to disastrous effects, may once again be facing the wrath of angry politicians and discontent people across America. 
Stopping illegal immigration on a one-by-one basis, even if you ignore the civil rights issue in this case, is hardly an effective way to lower illegal immigration. Arizona's boarder is the most popular for illegal crossing, so it is physically impossible for Arizona's police to stop every illegal immigrant from entering the state. 
Arizona is already starting to feel the ramifications. Mexico set a travel warning this week for all citizens visiting the US, specifically Arizona. Democratic Congressmen have begun to take up immigration reform; President Obama has spoken out against Arizona's new restrictions. San Francisco has discussed boycotting Arizona-based companies; conferences planned in Arizona have already been canceled. Tuscan's mayor has decided to take legal action against his own state's law. 
Everyone currently living in America who is not a Native American descends from immigrants. Whether your American roots are set back ten, twenty, sixty, or two-hundred years, you still have origins somewhere else, and your ancestors came for the same reason people do today: to get a better life. And if you were born in this country, you were born into the world's largest economy by no doing of your own. People illegally crossing America's borders were born into some of the world's smallest economies by no doing of their own. This doesn't mean that anyone should be able to become a US citizen, far from it. It just means that we cannot allow the far too recent mantras like one Italian immigrant's reflections of "I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, found out three things: First, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all: and third, I was expected to pave them," to be forgotten too quickly, and those currently living and working in our country should be able to become a member of it just as our grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-great-grandparents did.