Immigration Policies of Arizona, and the Social Issues Involved

IMMIGRATION POLICIES OF ARIZONA, AND THE SOCIAL ISSUES INVOLVED
Name:
Grade Course:
Tutor’s Name:
(19, November, 2010)
Immigration Policies of Arizona, and the Social Issues Involved
Abstract
Arizona records one of the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. For a long time there have been attempts to have regulations that would regulate the influx of the illegal immigrants into the state. In April 2010, the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the anti-immigrant bill that makes it illegal for an undocumented immigrant to be in the state. The bill popularly known as SB 1070 has been met with opposition as well as support by the public. Some have called it the strictest anti-immigrant regulation in the whole of the United States. The passing of the bill caused riots in several cities in the U.S. The critics have claimed that the bill may encourage racial discrimination. The supporters have claimed that it will help regulate the number of illegal immigrants. There is a pending lawsuit in the U.S. courts to prohibit the legalization of the bill.
Introduction
Arizona is one of the states in the US that has always experienced a high increase in the number of immigrants. Being at the border of Mexico, the state receives an influx of immigrants from Mexico and other Central American countries, who come to the U.S. in search for jobs. The Arizona residents had for a long time welcomed and tolerated the immigrants but in the last 20 years the attitudes and tolerance has been changing, thus the increase in calls to change the public policies and control the flow of the illegal immigrants. In April 2010, the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer signed into a bill one of the strictest but very controversial anti-immigrants bills (FAIR, 2010). This paper will discuss the immigration policies in Arizona focusing on the SB 1070 that was passed in April 2010 and the issues that arose after the passing of the bill.
Arizona SB 1070 is a legislative Act that is considered to be the most expansive and strictest Acts intended to curb illegal immigration. The SB 1070 was enacted on April 23 2010 after it was signed by the Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer. The law was found necessary from the fact that Arizona has had a very high number of immigrants, about half a million and most of them from Mexico (Stateline, 2005).
Arizona State borders Mexico and it therefore receives a high number of illegal Mexican immigrants who, according to the supporters of the anti-immigrants law, have greatly contributed to the increased crime rate in Arizona. After the traditional immigrants were closed by the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) 1994 Southwest Strategy the immigrants diverted the routes to pass through the desert area to get entry into Arizona and then to other cities in the U.S. (Armin & Reineke, 2010).
The SB 1070 bill is a law was to prevent “the unlawful entry and presence of illegal aliens and economic activity by illegal aliens in the United States”. The immigrants had strained the institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons in Arizona. For example one of the hospitals’ at the Mexican border had reported an increase in the emergency room care for the immigrants increase to $350,000 down from $30,000 within four years. In addition to this, in 2004 about $77 million was spent on the Arizona State prison system in cases that dealt with 4000 illegal immigrants, (Stateline, 2005). Though heavily criticized, the law has majority support both in Arizona and nationwide.
The need to curb the immigration rate in Arizona
The strategy to curb illegal immigrants had been an ongoing and longtime process. In 2004 and 2005 Arizona legislature sponsored 20 bills on the anti-immigration regulations. In 2007, the Arizona legislative had passed a regulation that prohibited anyone from employing illegal immigrants. Senator Russell Pearce who sponsored the SB 1070 bill had been consulting on a bill that would be tougher on the illegal immigrants in the state of Arizona for several years. This bill had been opposed by the then Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano. She was later replaced by Republican Secretary of State Senator Jan Brewer. This is the bill that was named “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (The Arizona Republic, 2010). According to him, the bill was only meant to put into practice the regulations that were already provided by the federal laws. The debate had gained momentum after the death of a rancher, Robert Krentz who had been killed at one of the infamous smuggling routes. The police had suspected that he had been killed by an illegal immigrant.
The anti-immigrant supporters had supported their arguments with claims that the immigrants were a threat to the state arguing that the illegal immigrants committed the highest number of violent crimes. The number of crimes was made higher by the drug gangs at the border of Mexico and Arizona and these drugs had found their way into Arizona. This claim was however disputed as the rate of crime in Arizona was lower than the average nationally whereas the number of illegal immigrants had been increasing (Morrison Institute of Public Policy, 2010).
The anti-immigrant supporters had also argued that the illegal immigrants were a drain to the state economy. Though the immigrants have contributed to the economy by providing labor services and increasing on consumer expenditure, their contributions have been offset by other factors. First, most of the illegal immigrants are uneducated low income earners which means they rely on Arizona’s public services. Secondly, those who earn extra money will send it back to their countries. Moreover, the immigrants cause the wages to decrease and this affects the U.S. citizens low income earners who have to compete for the same jobs with the immigrants. There were claims that the Arizona’s state prisons were filled by the illegal immigrants who occupy more than 15 percent of the Correction facilities in Arizona. Apart from filling the prison institutions, the anti-immigrant proponents said that the illegal immigrants increased Arizona’s public health expenditure as they could access the emergency rooms of the states public health institutions. The illegal immigrants took their children to public schools, thus affecting the cost of the education in Arizona.
These anti-immigrants proponents believed that for Arizona to rid off itself these illegal and undocumented immigrants, tougher rules were required. However there are disputes that these regulations will not reduce the immigrants from entering the country.
The provisions of the SB 1070
The Arizona SB 1070 has several provisions that are supposed to deal with regulations that deal with illegal or undocumented immigrants. The law states that it is a grave misconduct and crime for an alien to be found in Arizona without the proper documents that are required and recognized by the federal law. It allows the law enforcers to detain and arrest anyone whom they suspect to be an illegal alien.
An alien is anyone who is in the U.S illegally. The law also provides for laws to deal with the immigrants and those who shelter, transport or employ the illegal immigrants. In addition to this the law further requires that any alien who is 14 years and above, should register with the U.S. government if they have been in the country for more than 30 days. All aliens should carry the documents with them at all times and they should present them to the police and law enforcement officers whenever requested.
The recognized supporting documents are a valid Arizona documents and identifications such as a driving license, a nonoperating identification license, a tribal enrollment card or any other form of identification issued by the state or the federal government (Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), 2010). The law gives authority to la...