Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Fear and Loathing in Arizona
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath…” - Mark 2:27
Arizona’s new law about immigration has not created new problems or proposed “solutions” that haven’t been stated before. It is not generating new issues, only feeding old ones and ushering in a new environment in which fear rules over compassion and in which we confuse our safety with our comfort.
The main thrust of support for this immigration bill is, as far as I can tell, built on the idea that illegals bring crime and that something must be done about that. As Daniel Griswold points out on his blog, this may not be completely accurate:
“The crime rate in Arizona in 2008 was the lowest it has been in four decades. In the past decade, as the number of illegal immigrants in the state grew rapidly, the violent crime rate dropped by 23 percent, the property crime rate by 28 percent. (You can check out the DoJ figures here.)”
First off I would say that being an “immigrant nation”, which is what we have been, are and will be, is an inherently risky venture. Anytime there is free flow of anything (ideas, capital, human beings, etc.) you risk something. And I also think that Texas, New Mexico and Arizona share an undue burden as far as immigration support goes. But New Mexico, for some reason, seems not to share its neighbors’ concerns or policy decisions. New Mexico’s government officials, including Governor Bill Richardson, have largely spoken out against Arizona’s legislation. So this is not a universal opinion for border states.
But what troubles me more than the law itself is the manner in which people are being labeled and how that allows us to “other” them. What concerns me is the generic “illegal” label that gets applied with no acknowledgment of the complexity of this issue. And what troubles me even more is that such an issue is being raised over the status of “illegal” immigrants who are guilty of what is, for a single offense, a misdemeanor. Just for the record, depending on the jurisdiction, examples of other misdemeanors include: public intoxication, disorderly conduct, trespass, vandalism, reckless driving, and other similar crimes…hardly the kind of activity that motivates people to build miles of fencing or separate families for years or interrogate children.
So this leads me to think that perhaps something is going on behind the movement against “illegals” beyond just a sudden interest in law enforcement.
The truth is that I am not really worried about what the common reaction to this law will be. I happen to know and trust many law enforcement officers as just like all the rest of us – decent, fair-minded people who are not geared towards violence or wishing to inflict harm or pain on anyone, least of all the innocent. Still, they will have a duty and perhaps some tough decisions to make in the coming months.
What I am worried about are the very few who would engage in racial profiling because they believe in it, or xenophobic slants to their enforcement of the laws because they harbor their own racist ideologies. This law enables those people. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it best in a recent blog commentary on the Arizona law:
This has been partially addressed. In the latest version of the bill, amended recently, the language has been changed, supposedly to “remove fears about racial profiling”. The original law said that police can conduct an immigration status check during any “lawful contact,” if they have reasonable suspicion a person is an illegal immigrant. The amendment replaces “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest,” clarifying that police may not stop people without cause.
But here’s the catch. A police officer can pull anyone over for any reason; they just have to answer to “probable cause”, which is really verified by the police officer. I know what the law says, but I also know that “driving while black” is a very real situation and that “driving while brown” will be just as real. If we’re talking about the “few bad apples”, then the law gives them every window they need. They can say the person was speeding or jaywalking or they thought they saw them shoplifting and had to pull them aside. That is an elephant-sized loophole and it places the burden on the accused, not the accuser.
What this law really accomplishes is the spreading of the same fear that caused its inception in the first place. I understand that the federal law already requires immigrants to carry their papers with them at all times. I understand that the “probable cause” clause is in the law. What I also understand is that the wording of this law and the already unreasonably hostile environment towards immigrants (legal or not) creates an atmosphere in which legal people who happen to look “suspicious” will at least be hassled more often and where many will be subject to a new level of harassment over something that is a misdemeanor (on first offense).
Beyond the legal issues there is something else – a moral issue. The law and morality are not the same, never have been. In fact, it could be argued that our laws more accurately reflect our broken morality than any idealized one. And this law is no exception.
Until we begin to see human beings, especially in the case of illegal immigration, instead of people guilty by existence, we may be living legally but that doesn’t bode well for our principles. The borders we have drawn on the world God created are ours…God doesn’t see them. And the laws we choose to create are for us, not us for them. And, as I think the biblical record shows, these values around the care of the nomad or the stranger – at least from God’s perspective - are the exact opposite of what we are no professing.
This is the next wave of human and civil rights debate in this country. We want free trade, but closed borders. We want a global economy but a national identity. These things cannot work together – something has to give. Perhaps Arizona is the Selma of our time – the front lines of the next question in the ongoing debate – who is in, who is out? Who counts?
Arizona’s new law about immigration has not created new problems or proposed “solutions” that haven’t been stated before. It is not generating new issues, only feeding old ones and ushering in a new environment in which fear rules over compassion and in which we confuse our safety with our comfort.
The main thrust of support for this immigration bill is, as far as I can tell, built on the idea that illegals bring crime and that something must be done about that. As Daniel Griswold points out on his blog, this may not be completely accurate:
“The crime rate in Arizona in 2008 was the lowest it has been in four decades. In the past decade, as the number of illegal immigrants in the state grew rapidly, the violent crime rate dropped by 23 percent, the property crime rate by 28 percent. (You can check out the DoJ figures here.)”
First off I would say that being an “immigrant nation”, which is what we have been, are and will be, is an inherently risky venture. Anytime there is free flow of anything (ideas, capital, human beings, etc.) you risk something. And I also think that Texas, New Mexico and Arizona share an undue burden as far as immigration support goes. But New Mexico, for some reason, seems not to share its neighbors’ concerns or policy decisions. New Mexico’s government officials, including Governor Bill Richardson, have largely spoken out against Arizona’s legislation. So this is not a universal opinion for border states.
But what troubles me more than the law itself is the manner in which people are being labeled and how that allows us to “other” them. What concerns me is the generic “illegal” label that gets applied with no acknowledgment of the complexity of this issue. And what troubles me even more is that such an issue is being raised over the status of “illegal” immigrants who are guilty of what is, for a single offense, a misdemeanor. Just for the record, depending on the jurisdiction, examples of other misdemeanors include: public intoxication, disorderly conduct, trespass, vandalism, reckless driving, and other similar crimes…hardly the kind of activity that motivates people to build miles of fencing or separate families for years or interrogate children.
So this leads me to think that perhaps something is going on behind the movement against “illegals” beyond just a sudden interest in law enforcement.
The truth is that I am not really worried about what the common reaction to this law will be. I happen to know and trust many law enforcement officers as just like all the rest of us – decent, fair-minded people who are not geared towards violence or wishing to inflict harm or pain on anyone, least of all the innocent. Still, they will have a duty and perhaps some tough decisions to make in the coming months.
What I am worried about are the very few who would engage in racial profiling because they believe in it, or xenophobic slants to their enforcement of the laws because they harbor their own racist ideologies. This law enables those people. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it best in a recent blog commentary on the Arizona law:
“Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane. They start here. They start with generalizing unwanted characteristics across an entire segment of a population. They start with trying to solve a problem by asserting superior force over a population. They start with stripping people of rights and dignity - such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty - that you yourself enjoy. Not because it is right, but because you can. And because somehow, you think this is going to solve a problem.
However, when you strip a man or a woman of their basic human rights, you strip them of their dignity in the eyes of their family and their community, and even in their own eyes. An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being. He or she feels degraded and feels they are of less worth than others of a different color skin. These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict.
Such "solutions" solve nothing. As already pointed out, even by people on the police force, Arizona's new laws will split the communities, make it less likely that people in the immigrant communities will work with the police. They will create conditions favorable to the very criminals these laws are trying to disarm.”
This has been partially addressed. In the latest version of the bill, amended recently, the language has been changed, supposedly to “remove fears about racial profiling”. The original law said that police can conduct an immigration status check during any “lawful contact,” if they have reasonable suspicion a person is an illegal immigrant. The amendment replaces “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest,” clarifying that police may not stop people without cause.
But here’s the catch. A police officer can pull anyone over for any reason; they just have to answer to “probable cause”, which is really verified by the police officer. I know what the law says, but I also know that “driving while black” is a very real situation and that “driving while brown” will be just as real. If we’re talking about the “few bad apples”, then the law gives them every window they need. They can say the person was speeding or jaywalking or they thought they saw them shoplifting and had to pull them aside. That is an elephant-sized loophole and it places the burden on the accused, not the accuser.
What this law really accomplishes is the spreading of the same fear that caused its inception in the first place. I understand that the federal law already requires immigrants to carry their papers with them at all times. I understand that the “probable cause” clause is in the law. What I also understand is that the wording of this law and the already unreasonably hostile environment towards immigrants (legal or not) creates an atmosphere in which legal people who happen to look “suspicious” will at least be hassled more often and where many will be subject to a new level of harassment over something that is a misdemeanor (on first offense).
Beyond the legal issues there is something else – a moral issue. The law and morality are not the same, never have been. In fact, it could be argued that our laws more accurately reflect our broken morality than any idealized one. And this law is no exception.
Until we begin to see human beings, especially in the case of illegal immigration, instead of people guilty by existence, we may be living legally but that doesn’t bode well for our principles. The borders we have drawn on the world God created are ours…God doesn’t see them. And the laws we choose to create are for us, not us for them. And, as I think the biblical record shows, these values around the care of the nomad or the stranger – at least from God’s perspective - are the exact opposite of what we are no professing.
This is the next wave of human and civil rights debate in this country. We want free trade, but closed borders. We want a global economy but a national identity. These things cannot work together – something has to give. Perhaps Arizona is the Selma of our time – the front lines of the next question in the ongoing debate – who is in, who is out? Who counts?
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