Children, Play Nice

Arizona governor Jan Brewer is meeting face to face with President Obama on Thursday to discuss Arizona's controversial new immigration law. The law states that any person being investigated for a crime or possible legal infraction must produce proof of citizenship if asked for it. An officer may ask for proof of citizenship if they have "reasonable suspicion" that they are not a legal immigrant.

 

Many people feel that this law promotes racial profiling, that a person can be pulled over for a burnt out headlight and then have to all of the sudden prove that they are American because they look Hispanic. They feel that this is not fair and it violates the rights of American citizens: equality, privacy, persuit of happiness, etc. I believe that this is the side that Obama is leaning towards.

 

Supporters, however, feel that this is a good way to crack down on illegal immigrants. They say that an illegal immigrant doesn't have to be Hispanic and that "reasonable suspicion" has nothing to do with race. They say that illegal immigrants are endangering the rights of American citizens and this problem should be taken care of. This is the view point of Gov. Brewer.

 

Obama has called the new law in Arizona "misguided." Trying to help Gov. Brewer's immigration concerns, he announced his plan to send 1,200 U.S. troops to the American-Mexican border to try to keep illegal immigrants out of our country in the first place.

 

Gov. Brewer feels like Obama has not communicated with her about his plans for Arizona. Obama feels like Gov. Brewer has not communicated with him about her plans for the United States.

 

I think that the new Arizona law is wrong. In my opinion, it does promote racial profiling. How else would an officer have "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal immigrant but by the way he/she looks? And it is very hard to make sure that this type of racism does not occur. What about the legal American citizens that have to produce their proof of citizenship all of the time because they look Hispanic or Japanese or Middle-Eastern. American citizens come from all of those places. We cannot be harassing those people just because they happen to look like the sort of people that would be here illegally. It does violate U.S. citizens' rights.

 

I also think that Gov. Brewer and Obama really do need to sit down and really talk about their intensions. They need to work it out face to face instead of Gov. Brewer going behind Obama's back and making him wonder about what laws could affect his country. They need to compromise instead of Obama sending 1,200 U.S. troops over to the border where Arizona might have a huge problem with that. They need to play nice and stop fighting like little kids. I am glad they are meeting on Thursday because they need to act grown up about situations like these.

 
Article Source:
 
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/01/obama.arizona.governor/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29
 
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