State needs more options

May 17, 2010 • Carrie Lin  
Filed under Opinion, Uncategorized

Lately, both local and national news has been filled with the controversy regarding the new immigration bill in Arizona. As a state bordering Mexico, Arizona is frequented by several immigrants, legal and otherwise. The state government has decided that they have had enough of the negative influence noncitizens are having on the state. Senate bill 1070 states that government officials and the state police are in charge of making sure that people who do not have the right paperwork on them will be considered illegal immigrants and are breaking the law. Without any prior suspicions, the police can search your documents verifying that you are, in fact, a citizen. Supporters of this bill believe that by enforcing a strict policy, the country will be a safer place.

                However, Senate bill 1070 is also known among critics to be unconstitutional. By simply being capable of randomly checking documents of people who just look illegal, state officials are invading the public’s privacy. Those opposing the bill say it is stimulating “racial profiling” and is wholly wrong for the government in a free country to be able to do this.

                Illegal immigration has always been a prominent issue in our state, and several steps have been acted upon to help with the safety of the country. Nevertheless, some of these acts have not been powerful enough to drastically reduce the amount of illegal aliens in the state and have been causing issues.  While this may be an issue, the lengths to which this bill is going to is extraordinarily drastic and seems unnecessary. Certainly there are more efficient and respectful options the state can look into to minimize the negative results of illegal immigrants.

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