"Attacks on Arizona" or Arizona Attacks?

In holding with my own post, I decided to respond to a post concerning illegal immigration and the immigrant-reform laws currently in Arizona, titled “Attacks on Arizona,” by Andrea Cleave. My biggest problem with this argument is that it seems to be rooted quite heavily in biased, right-leaning commentary that too often uses divisive “scare tactics” to instill fear in an individual, thus creating a sense of security with their (the right’s) proposed intentions. This tactic is I’m sure bounced between both sides of the political arena, but I’ve seen its most abundant use by the right within these immigration debates. To explore this pronounced fallacy in your argument, I propose a few facts. You write, “There has always been a law banning aliens, it just was not watched closely, but now that illegal immigration is getting out of hand and Arizona is finally acting, people are behaving as if it is something new.” Now I must ask you, what proof have you seen of Illegal Immigration getting out of hand? One prominent argument held in this debate is that illegal immigration is getting out of hand and rampant violence surrounding their increase in “illegals” are both reasons for the Arizona laws, and legislation of the like, to be passed (on its necessity). These claims simply aren’t true, and it’s available for anyone willing to look to see for themselves.

Let’s look at the numbers: the number of murders in Arizona have went down from 404 in 2007 to 322 in 2009 (and even lower now), the number of aggravated assault is down from 16,889 incidents to 15,430, and Larceny-Theft is down from 166,531 to 151,755 incidents- so what violence is there that is so declaratively running rampant? The list of crimes goes on and on, but the numbers are all down from the previous year, holding true for the year previous the one before. In looking at the comparative count of detainees of Arizona’s border patrol, this being the best aggregate measurement of the number of (captured) illegal immigrants, the number of detainees is also down from the year before. From this arises the issue of those that aren’t caught, afterall that is the nature of illegal immigration. To this I respond, the only other thing we could look at to measure the number of estimated “illegals” in this country is the number detained within the state border of Arizona, apart from the number captured at the border. This, like all the other numbers explored thus far, is down from the year before. So what are the political pundits and personalities looking at? Only God knows, but I found that after watching political commentary from both the right and the left, respectively, I’d do my own research. And, not surprisingly, I found (quite easily I might add) the figures above, by literally typing “Arizona’s crime statistics” and “Arizona’s illegal immigrant stats” into Google. The information, also worth mentioning, is via a report made by the state of Arizona Department of Security (here is the link to this report).

My biggest problem with the laws are the ethics (or lack thereof) that encircle their existence. It is not ethically or morally acceptable to go around racial profiling individuals on the sole basis of them “looking like an illegal immigrant” and not being to provide adequate identification. I invite you to journey to a place you very well may have never seen with open eyes, the discrimi-NATION of the United States. Now, I am by no means a person who throws the race card at every mal-natured occurrence or everything that doesn’t go in accordance with my ethnic and cultural fabric, but I do speak from what I have seen and expierenced, as this is the truth that builds my ideology. I was once stopped while driving through an upscale residential area called Cypresswood, in Houston (with a very low crime-rate, might I add) and was stopped, frisked, and placed in the back of a police car for, and I quote, “driving slowly through the neighborhood in a black SUV, in a black hoody, so late at night.” He said (and again I quote), "you look suspicious." I also might add that it is winter time (hence the hoody), and the speed limit is 15mph through the neighborhood (hence my driving slow). Once I wasn’t able to provide a Driver’s license, because I’d forgotten my wallet at home, I was placed in the back of the police car and given 3 tickets, with a verbal threat of jail-time. It wasn’t until I revealed that I was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and only visiting for Winter Break that he expedited the process and treated me with the respect I was vehemently denied only moments earlier. Now think of the people that will be detained on the grounds of looking like an immigrant and then further hassled by the inability to immediately produce identification. On top of this, we must think of those that will inherently abuse the provisions of this law, putting power in the hands of law enforcement that far supersede their capacity to execute them.