Arizona's Immigration law

If anyone has heard of this law, I want your opinion! Because when I first heard about this law I thought my friend was joking, saying if your skin is brown you can legally be pulled over and you have to prove your legal. Isn't that racial profiling?! So yeah I know a lot of ppl were protesting it, so I didn't think it would pass. I live in AZ so I get some ppl who agree with it and few who don't. So I wanna know what other ppl think about it who are from other states.

The immigration issue is a huge concern in Arizona right now. The areas of dessert that are being used for human trafficking or for the illegal entrance to the U.S. are paved in trash, feces, hundreds of thousands of backpacks, clothes, plastics and worse. If a flood was to take place this litter would be flushed into water reservoirs that are used for drinking. I have seen many pictures of these illegal highways in Arizona and it is defiling the Arizona dessert and landscape. On a much larger scale the impact that illegal residents have on our tax system and economy is staggering. Earning wages and not having to pay taxes and yet still having access to our ER's, emergency medical systems and government assistance is appalling. I am single, with no dependents and I am in a higher tax bracket, so I am paying for these types of services that other people who are not contributing even a dime are utilizing, it is terrible. I don't know that this racial profiling BS is the answer, but the government has to start somewhere.

BTW I am from CA.

yeah its bad here, though it is actually working--the law, which i'm not sure if i should be happy or sad about it--I'm caught between two worlds. I know one illegal immigrant family who are leaving to mexico, they never used government financial aid or anything like that, the dad was a really good at fixing cars(mechanic?) and always had ppl in the neighborhood offer him money to fix their car's, a nice family. My mother is helping them move--But then there is another illegal immigrant family living below my mother's apartment who will often cook drugs and always sent their kids away when the dad does do it, and totally pisses me off since my baby sister breathes in those fumes, and they have no intension of leave anytime soon either. It should be reversed, I swear.

I know what you mean, I had a friend who I had went to high school and college with, during our college Public speaking class she gave one of the most moving speeches I have ever heard. (Half of the class was in tears). She is a second generation illegal immigrant, her mother and father came here to america back in the late 70's to escape a violent environment and find work to make a better life for their families, she was barely a year old at the time. She grew up here in America, attended public school and college under a fake name, worked two jobs while attending school using a false Social Security number so that she could gain a higher education that will be worthless because she is not who she says she is. She is constantly worried that her alias will be found out and she and her family will be deported and possibly separated. All this work she has put forth to better herself and an education she has gained in the long run will be under a name that doesnt even belong to her. It is heart breaking.

Well, I beleive you may have misunderstood the law just a bit. The law isn't that if someone has brown skin yo ucan be pulled over. The law is that while on their normal duties, if a police officer comes accross an individual that they beleive may possibly be an illegal immigrant, they can legally ask them to show proof of citizenship. It's not racial profiling because almost all legal citizens are required to as well. The only acception is children, who wouldn't have such identification on them. In most cases, a legal citizen is required to have some sort of identification on them should they have an encounter with the police. Onto the point though. Much of southern Arizona is being decimated by the drug trafficing occuring on the border. The illegals come in, sell drugs, commit crimes and go un-punished. As you've mentioned, yes there are those who come there legally and aren't commiting crimes or causing any trouble, but unfortunatley, for every one of them, there are 25 that do. By entering the country illegally, they have broken laws, if any legal citizen has broken the law, they are punished for it, so why should an illegal be allowed to circumvent that?

Well, I'm from California and my personal opinion is two things. 1. They're a state that should have the right to run as any other state does no matter what the rest of the country may THINK about them, it's their choice an as long as they're staying within our country's rules, they should be able to do what they want. 2. The immigrants are breaking the law and should therefore be treated as anyone who breaks the law in this country and punished. If that means they should go back to their own country, then so be it.

I think there's a few key points on this topic that should be heard. A child born in the US, regardless if their parents are US citizens or not, is currently, under *federal* regulations, a US citizen. At the age of 18 or 21 (I forget which, but it's one of those), that person can by extension, apply for US citizenship for his / her parents. Both of these are at the federal level, and no state can deny them as long as the law stands as is. Although I do feel sorry for the people who may have illegally entered the US and are working diligently; not causing trouble, the fact that there are people here who are purposefully abusing the system are and have been for some time making it worse for them all.

If you were an immigrant from overseas, applied for US citizenship, paid the fees (these aren't nominal either) and completed all the paperwork to become a US citizen, what would you think? These legal immigrants and legal US Citizens are paying taxes for *everyone* that uses public services, including education. Illegal immigrants may get lower than minimum wage pay, but they don't pay taxes, yet drain the public services all the same. Even if they're doing good work and have good deeds, if they have to go to the hospital for some emergency, they're taking away from everyone who's paying into the system. I don't like forcibly kicking people out of their homes, especially if they're contributing to a community in a meaningful way, but I can't condone support for the people who are abusing the system at the same time. Unless someone can come up with a better way to determine who stays and who doesn't, and solve the public services part of this, *and* can bring this to a congress who will hear them, it looks like this is what we're stuck with.

I used to be more hardline on illegal immigration, at least from Mexico. Then I actually went to Mexico. It is worse in many ways than Iraq is. The only places which don't seem to be falling apart or strafed with bullets are the foreign businesses and extremely successful Mexican ones, and even these are guarded by private security forces. Iraq actually looks better than some parts of Mexico and most likely has more social order as well. After seeing exactly what sort of a hellhole the vast majority of Mexico is, I can't rightfully ask them to go back to that. That being said, I don't think we need to go Gestapo on them and send them back. That's also impractical; there are too many of them here. What we should do is give them a chance to -work- towards becoming a citizen, such as learning English, understanding our laws, paying taxes, sending their kids to school and immersing themselves in our culture, of course, it should take longer for them to obtain it, since they didn't wait like the legal immigrants did, but at least they won't get send back to Hellico. At the same time, we should strenghten our boarders so that our public services don't get too overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants, so that we can eventually legalize people already here, but severely slow down or even stop illegals from coming into our country, but perhaps ease the requirements for obtaining legal citizenship when applying from abroad so that we don't have so many people getting here illegally.