The Arizona sieg heil Law: Round up the Usual Suspects

by: Libby Shaw

Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 22:57:39 PM CDT

In other words, everyone in Arizona is presumed illegal unless proven otherwise.

While police demands of documents are common on subways, highways and in public places in some countries, including France, Arizona is the first state to demand that immigrants meet federal requirements to carry identity documents legitimizing their presence on American soil.

This must be the new Republican southern strategy. Some thirty something years later this very same cookie cutter racist methodology with an added xenophobic twist can be called the Republican southwestern strategy.

Folks whose skin tone is not the same as white bread and mayonnaise and those who speak English with a so-called foreign accent should beware.  

The Arizona sieg heil law is a travesty to American democratic principles.  

I assume the Arizona sieg heil law also includes everyone who travels to Arizona whether one's purpose is for business, academic, family visits or tourism.  

In other words, if I visit Arizona and forget to bring my passport or birth certificate I could be potentially jailed and later deported back to Texas.

But how many days do I have to spend in jail before I am deported back to Texas?

What about my husband who happens to be a naturalized American who speaks English with an accent?  I guess hubby will have to spend a few more days jail than I will before being deported back to Texas.

So, will the state of Arizona pay for our prison and deportation costs? Or will they stick the bill on hubby and me?

I will be the first to admit that there is a desperate need for immigration reform. I will also admit that the federal government deserves to be pilloried for its failure to address the elephant in the room called our southern border.

As we know, there are huge issues of violence on the Tex Mex border.  We know about the drug cartel wars and the murders. We know that young women in Juarez, a short distance south of El Paso, have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

Savagely tortured and murdered in 2001, Esmeralda is among nearly 500 teenagers and young women - factory workers, shop clerks, prostitutes - who have been murdered here since 1993. Hundreds more have simply vanished.

For years, Mexican authorities have promised an end to the slaughter and the disappearances. Movies have been filmed about the butchery, books and countless articles written, protest marches marched. Under intense public pressure, police investigations were launched, task forces formed, suspects arrested.

It's all been nearly for naught.

We also know that Texas officials have shrugged off federal attempts to send national guard troops to Texas border towns.

President Obama is mulling a request to put troops on the Texas border to stop violence in Mexico from spilling over. But officials in Texas border cities say the mayhem hasn't spread and that bringing in the military puts law-abiding citizens in jeopardy.

From Texas' southern tip to the westernmost city of El Paso, municipal officials said their communities have not been infected by the epidemic of drug-related murders plaguing Mexico. Officials in Texas' largest border cities - El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville - said their cities are among the safest in the state, with some reporting decreases in violent crime.

"The sky is not falling," said McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez, who disagrees with Gov. Rick Perry's decision to ask for troops. "What's happening right now is we've got rhetoric that's driving the policy."

Politicians and residents in the border states of  Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas have no cause to rail, vent and bellyache about an invasion of "illegal aliens" upon their states while all fail to require employers to do due diligence in hiring properly documented labor.

Let's face it.  All of the border states have thrived grandly on cheap labor.

Politicians in all border states should be held accountable for protecting the employer fat cats that profit grandly from their underpaid, non benefits eligible undocumented workers. Some commit despicable acts such as hiring and abusing undocumented workers, especially women.

"International human rights law requires the United States to apply its workplace protections equally and without discrimination based on immigration status. We bring this petition to cast a global spotlight on the U.S. government's poor human rights record in protecting undocumented workers from discrimination and to demand accountability from states and the federal government, all of whom are obligated to protect and defend human rights," said Chandra Bhatnagar, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program.

The individuals named in today's petition have each tried to assert their workplace rights but were unsuccessful. They are:

   * Jesus L., a Michigan poultry worker who suffered severe injuries, requiring spinal reconstruction surgery, after falling from the top of a chicken house onto a concrete floor. The insurance company for Jesus' employer refused to provide workers' compensation to cover time off work because he was undocumented.
   * Yolanda L.R., a widow whose husband was killed on a construction site in New York because of his employer's criminal negligence. Yolanda's compensation for her husband's wrongful death compensation will be affected by his immigration status.
   * Francisco Berumen Lizalde, a painter in Kansas who was prosecuted and deported, likely as a consequence of filing a workers' compensation claim after he fell from scaffolding and fractured his hand.
   * Leopoldo Z., a Pennsylvania farm worker who underwent three surgeries and continues to suffer nerve damage and chronic pain as a result of a workplace accident. Leopoldo's employer suspended his medical benefits when it became clear he would not be able to promptly return to work.
   * Melissa L., a woman who had to leave her job in New Jersey when workplace sexual harassment became intolerable. She filed a claim against her employer, but because of her immigration status, she was forced to settle her case for less than she was entitled.

"By not protecting undocumented workers, the government is sending the message to employers that they can abuse and harass immigrant women, and that our lives are not as valued as other workers," said Melissa L. "No woman should be allowed to be exploited against her will, no matter what her citizenship status is."

When the federal government fails to address the immigration issue and when border state politicians serve as go to pimps for employers who use and abuse undocumented workers,  the outcome is an Arizona sieg heil law.

Right wing Republicans, racists and xenophobes might like to remember that all of their ancestors fled here for a purpose. All desperately wanted to escape religious persecution, poverty, starvation, violence, mayhem and chaos. Some fled because of Hitler's Nazi extermination purge of others.

Maybe the enablers of cheap labor, the racists and xenophobes in Arizona will get a wake up call when they are busted for forgetting their passports when leaving the house to take their kids to school.