Yesterday, in a very belated correction of decades of discrimination, the House voted for a contingent repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, finally recognizing that the sexual orientation of American military troops is irrelevant to their ability to serve our country. Rep. Jeff Flake voted no. As we've seen earlier this week, often when only a handful of Republicans are in the minority, Flake will be with that outlier group. But yesterday he didn't have the courage and good sense of Ron Paul and the other four Republican House members who stood up for decency. As Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, and a sponsor of the companion Senate bill, noted:
The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy doesn’t serve the best interests of our military and doesn’t reflect the best values of our country. Bottom line: thousands of service members have been pushed out of the U.S. military not because they were inadequate or bad soldiers, sailors, Marines or airmen but because of their sexual orientation. And that’s not what America is all about.
Of course, out-of-step radical politician Jeff Flake has never understood what America is all about.
OK, well, who could be against House Resolution 403, which passed the House of Representatives a week ago by a vote of 405-2? It was simply "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that there should be established a National Teacher Day to honor and celebrate teachers in the United States." Teacher-hating Jeff Flake, that's who. . . along with some other congressional nutjob from Alaska. When he votes against helping veterans, the extreme anti-government radical weirdo Jeff Flake can say he doesn't want to spend any money on anything. But this resolution didn't cost anyone anything! The only reason this weirdo politician could have voted against it is a deep-seated hatred of teachers. Perhaps he developed this in his warped childhood. Congressman Jeff Flake gave no answer as to why he voted against this innocuous resolution. Perhaps in private he laughs and says, "Ha, I really shit on all teachers today!" Maybe he needs to stand in the corner. Or maybe he needs to be expelled from Congress.
He's baaack! And doing the 2010 politician's version of spitting at our returning troops. The veteran-hating Jeff Flake, the congressman from Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, in addition to being part of a miniscule minority of House members this week to vote against bipartisan bills passed overwhelmingly in favor of giving those who served in our armed forces quality medical care and in favor of training service animals to assist disabled soldiers - also was one of only 6 (six!) congressman to vote against the Chiropractic Care Available to All Veterans Act. Jeff Flake must hate chiropractors, too, unless he'd simply vote against any funding to help our veterans because of his repeatedly demonstrated contempt of America's military. Jeff Flake's head must be screwed on backwards. His priorities are so twisted, he's in urgent need of an attitude adjustment. Or maybe the voters in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District can't trust Jeff Flake to do what's right and we simply need to adjust him right out of office this November.
to carry out a pilot program for assessing the effectiveness of addressing post-deployment mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms through a therapeutic medium of assistance dog training and handling for veterans with disabilities.
You know, training service dogs is believed to currently be helping to address symptoms associated with post-deployment mental health conditions in our vets, and this bill would expand these pilot programs. Service dogs are already helping our vets with physical disabilities, of course. But did I forget to say that haughty veteran-hating, dog-despising Jeff Flake also has only contempt for people with disabilities? So this was a trifecta for the fanatical anti-family radical wacko who represents you, the voters of Arizona's Sixth Congressional District. Or maybe - if you're a normal person - he doesn't, and it's time for a change.
Today's New York Times has a lead story, set in Tucson, on how a lack of funding has resulted in "swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades," especially in states like Arizona:
Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care.
Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.
Ms. Wallace abhors the thought of going on cash assistance, a station she associates with lazy people who con the system. Yet this has become the only practical route toward child care.
So, on a recent afternoon, she waited in a crush of beleaguered people to submit the necessary paperwork. Her effort to avoid welfare through work has brought her to welfare’s door.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. “I fall back to — I can’t say ‘being a lowlife’ — but being like the typical person living off the government. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to use this as a backbone, so I can develop my own backbone.”
As the American social safety net absorbs its greatest challenge since the Great Depression, state budget cuts are weakening crucial components. Subsidized child care — financed by federal and state governments — is a conspicuous example.
“We’re really reneging on a commitment and a promise that we made to families,” said Patty Siegel, executive director of the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, an advocacy organization. “You can’t expect a family with young children to get on their feet and get jobs without child care.”
Here in Tucson — a city of roughly 500,000 people, sprawling across a parched valley dotted by cactus — Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old single mother, once had subsidized child care. That enabled her to work at Target, where she earned about $8 an hour. She paid $1.50 a day for her 3-year-old daughter, Wren, to stay at a child care center. The state picked up the rest.
She was aiming to resume college and then find a higher-paying job. But in December, she missed by a day the deadline to extend her subsidy. When she went to the state Department of Economic Security to submit new paperwork, she learned that all new applicants were landing on a waiting list.
Ms. Smith sought help from Wren’s father to look after their daughter. But he had his own job delivering pizza, limiting his availability.
“Some days, I’d just have to call in sick,” she said.
By March, she had missed so many days that Target put her on a leave of absence, telling her to come back after securing stable child care, she said.
Without the state program, she sees no viable options.
She, too, is contemplating going on welfare.
“It’s a blow to my own self-image and self-worth as a person who can take care of myself,” she says. “I’m totally able, physically and intellectually, to continue working. But I can’t work without child care, and I can’t afford child care without work" . . .
At least nine states, including Illinois and Indiana, used increased federal aid through the stimulus package to begin offering child care support to parents looking for work. Thus they expanded the case loads of such programs or lengthened the duration of the benefits, according to data compiled by the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group in Washington.
But at least nine other states, including Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina, have cut access to subsidized child care programs or the amounts they pay. . .
In Arizona last year, stimulus funds prevented budget cuts that would have eliminated care for 15,000 eligible children. But as the budget crisis has ground on, the state has added names of eligible children to the wait list, a term that social service agencies deride as a euphemism.
“It’s really a turn-away list,” says Bruce Liggett, executive director of the Arizona Child Care Association, a Phoenix-based advocacy group. “The program has been shut down.”
For Mr. Liggett, this amounts to a bitter turn. In the mid-1990s, he was a deputy director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, where he helped put in place the new welfare-to-work program.
“We’ve seen devastating cuts,” he says. “For those families working to stay off welfare, we’re denying help. Welfare reform in Arizona is certainly a broken promise."
Family-hating Rep. Jeff Flake has never lifted a finger for Arizona's working families and never will; it's against his fanatical laissez-faire anti-government principles.
He must be replaced with someone who will make sure proper funding for child care subsidies is restored so that Arizona's moms and dads can get back to work and support their families.
Richard Grayson, Green Party candidate for Congress in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, today admitted that he, like Connecticut Democratic Senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal, may have misspoken regarding his Vietnam veteran status.
"I was not, technically, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war," Grayson said. "I regret that anyone got that impression by my inartfully-worded statements when speaking to veterans' groups. I didn't mean to mislead voters by saying, 'During the Vietnam War, I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.'"
"It was just a joke," Grayson said.
Grayson also said that he believed that his actual service to the nation at the time, as a draft-dodging, war-protesting hippie, was the functional equivalent of being the U.S.'s highest-ranking military officer.
The Arizona Secretary of State has again started tracking how many registered Green Party members there are in Arizona. The Secretary of State last posted any data for registered Greens in November 2009. Because the party failed to poll 5% for President in November 2008, and because it failed to get its registration up to two-thirds of 1% by November 2009, it lost its qualified status and was removed from the voter registration form in almost all counties. Also the state stopped tallying Greens, although the people who were registered Green continued in that status.
Now that the party is back on the ballot, the Secretary of State has started tallying Greens again. Surprisingly, the party now has more registrants (both on a raw number basis and on a percentage basis) than it did the last time it was on the form. The new registration data shows 4,345 members, which is .142% of the state total.
By contrast, the last data from before the party was removed from the voter registration form showed 4,261 members, which was .137%. Generally when a party is removed from the voter registration form, its numbers decline.
Andy's comment corrects this a bit:
. . . unless Arizona changed their voter registration forms after 2009, Arizona voter registrations do not have voter registration check boxes on them. Instead, Arizona voter registration forms just have an empty box where people who are registrating can fill in the name of the political party banner which they want to be registered under. The Democrats and Republicans do not even have check boxes.
At WorldHum, Adam Karlin has an articulate and perceptive take on Arizona and immigration from the traveler's point of view. An excerpt:
Twenty-four million Mexicans legally cross into Arizona every year to spend money. Many are now thinking twice about doing so, which is going to be a hell of a blow to Arizona’s tourism revenue—1 in 10 travelers here is Mexican. One of the most touristed states in the nation now faces one of the biggest tourism boycotts of any individual state.
And the law may discourage more than the simple act of movement. All those boycotts speak to something else: a blow to the blended identity that makes Arizona so interesting. Besides her considerable natural beauty, Arizona’s attraction lies in the way she merges Sonora, Mexico and the American Southwest like she blends purple and red and orange and pink and indigo into impossibly beautiful sunsets. If SB 1070 widens divisions between Arizona’s Anglos and Latinos, it will be harming a big source of the state’s appeal.
La Frontera encompasses two overlapping universes and the creative tension of a human Venn diagram. Take Ajo, Arizona, 40 miles from Sonyata, Mexico. Amid its low-slung homes with air-con boxes busting out the side and the bulb-y round cupolas of the smooth white Catholic mission is a Moorish-Mediterranean-Mexican thread you could tug on and follow to the red dirt towns of nearby Sonora. Those polished white-tile presidios come from across the ocean to the scrubbed out sunshine and low-slung, red roofs of Andalucia, themselves just a hop north of the olive groves (which resemble palo verde copses) and breezy riads of Morocco. Which is speckled with its bulb-y white cupola-ed mosques and trilling ouds which, hey, sound quite-near-almost-proximate to the flamenco guitar that just came out of the local radio station back in Ajo.
The mix is heady and fascinating, and the tragic thing is people of all political stripes here recognize that. I talked with ranchers who supported the law who were hardly bigots. They had fed and given water to immigrants crossing on foot. Many had raised their children to be bilingual. But they feared for their safety. Like a lot of potentially bad legislation, SB 1070 was founded in fear, a panic that followed the murder of rancher Robert Krentz near the border. “Really, it’s not the workers we’re worried about,” one rancher said. “It’s the drug guys.” I had the sense he really meant it, and that if it weren’t for the violence that recently accompanied the Mexican drug trade, the law wouldn’t have popped on his radar.
Or would it have? With bans on ethnic studies classes and teachers with strong accents (are Mississippi teachers included?), however genuine and nice those ranchers were, it’s hard not to feel as though the legislators of Arizona are giving the finger to anyone who doesn’t fit into the muzak sprawl that is the not-seamy-but-boring underbelly of Arizona. The tract housing that spills over Paradise Valley; the obscene golf courses fuzzed green by an increasingly scarce water table; the architects behind the faux-dobe shopping malls that, but for their pseudo-Southwest façade, could be from Houston or Seattle or Dayton or anywhere.
I can’t analyze the legislation as an immigration or security expert, but I can see it from the vantage point of the traveler. And speaking as a traveler, I’m worried that the general mindset of Arizona’s leaders, as exemplified by the above laws, favors bland homogeneity over diversity.
Everywhere I go in Arizona, I see the beauty that occurs when the best of two cultures happily interbreed. If this law increases community tensions between brown and white, it will ultimately work against the gourmet food stalls where Anglo artists paint clever variants on Day of the Dead demigods while serving jazzed up versions of green chile; the radio stations that juke between norteño music and Cowpunk sets; burlesque shows that balance Victorian corsets with chola-inspired graffiti; the sense of opportunity that draws the best and brightest and hardest-working from other countries (thanks, Mexico) and weaves them into our national tapestry.
Que lástima. Beware this law, Arizona. I don’t support a tourism boycott—it’s too simple a punishment for people with complex motivations—but will whatever safety is gained by the law (if any safety is gained) be worth losing all of the above? Because there’s a lot more at risk than tourism dollars and tacos.
We'd like to offer our support to the brave young people sitting in at Senator John McCain's Tucson's office -- Tania Unzueta, Lizbeth Mateo, Yahaira Carrillo, Mohammad Abdollahi. Raúl Alcaraz -- four of whom were arrested yesterday and three of whom face deportation because they are undocumented.
The students support the DREAM Act, a bill that would offer legalization for illegal immigrant students who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. We support the DREAM Act, and if elected to Congress, we will sign on as a co-sponsor and vote for it. As a college teacher in Arizona, Florida and New York since 1975, we've taught students from more than one hundred countries -- currently we're teaching students from Mexico, Mali, Myanmar and Montenegro, and that's just the M's! -- and of course their immigration status is none of our concern except that we want to make sure all have the right to continue their education without any problems.
Since this is not some bullshit highly-political attack-dog campaign, we'd like to commend the incumbent Republican representative in AZ-06, Congressman Jeff Flake, who met with Arizona Dream Act Coalition last year and promised to vote for the bill. We've got a lot of problems with Jeff Flake's votes and positions, but he's correct - and like the brave students, pretty courageous since he's the member of a state political party whose raison d'etre seems to be immigrant-bashing - to support the DREAM Act. It's the right thing to do.
* * *
Today's New York Times has an article on the first national news page, "A Generation Gap Over Immigration," which highlights the same age divide on the immigration issue that we see on gay rights:
In the wake of the new Arizona law allowing the police to detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally, young people are largely displaying vehement opposition — leading protests on Monday at Senator John McCain’s offices in Tucson, and at the game here between the Florida Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Meanwhile, baby boomers, despite a youth of “live and let live,” are siding with older Americans and supporting the Arizona law.
This emerging divide has appeared in a handful of surveys taken since the measure was signed into law, including a New York Times/CBS News poll this month that found that Americans 45 and older were more likely than the young to say the Arizona law was “about right” (as opposed to “going too far” or “not far enough”). Boomers were also more likely to say that “no newcomers” should be allowed to enter the country while more young people favored a “welcome all” approach. . .
The generation gap is especially pronounced in formerly fast-growing states like Arizona and Florida, where retirees and new immigrants have flocked — one group for sun, the other for work.
In a new report based on census figures titled “The State of Metropolitan America,” Mr. Frey found that Arizona has the largest “cultural generation gap,” as he calls it, between older Americans who are largely white (83 percent in Arizona’s case) and children under 18 who are increasingly members of minorities (57 percent in Arizona’s case).
An accompanying chart shows the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metro area ranking #1 in the gap between children who are white and of residents over 65 who are white. The Tucson metro area is tied for #2.
In Phoenix, only 44% of kids are white; in Tucson, only 39% of kids are white. But in Phoenix, a whopping 85% of seniors are white; in Tucson, 79% of seniors are white.
The great news for Arizona: All of these bigoted baby boomers and xenophobic geezers will be dead sooner than later! ¡Adios, Russell Pearce!
Yeah, but as Jon Stewart said, it's a dry ignorance. As someone who has taught undergraduates, law students, high school students and others, mostly in higher education, for over 35 years, I'd be outraged at Arizona's latest attempt to legislate ignorance, censorship and bigotry, but what can one expect of a state whose government, and apparently whose residents who support such measures, are so utterly clueless? I'm running for Congress in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District as a candidate in the Green Party primary on August 24 for a number of reasons, but one is to provide some sanity and a progressive alternative for sensible voters in November.
Local school and college officials Wednesday blasted the passage of a new Arizona law that bans ethnic studies in public schools, calling it an attack on freedom of speech and minorities. HB 2281 bans schools in the state from offering classes designed for students of a specific ethnic group or that promote ethnic solidarity.
The bill was signed into law Tuesday by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer just three weeks after she approved a controversial anti-illegal immigration law that has prompted nationwide protests, including the Los Angeles City Council's decision Wednesday to boycott Arizona businesses. Proponents of the school law said it will ensure that students are treated to value each other as individuals and prevent courses from promoting resentment. Opponents though said it only continues a trend of anti-Latino sentiment in Arizona.
"This law is understandable given the lynch mob mentality in Arizona," said Rodolfo Acuña, a California State University Northridge professor emeritus of Chicano studies. Acuña is commonly referred to as one of the fathers of the Chicano studies movement in the United States, which grew out of Southern California state colleges.
Supporters of the ban, including Arizona schools chief Tom Horne, have specifically mentioned Acuña's book "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos," as one of the texts they want to see eliminated from classroom use because it promotes resentment. Horne was not available for comment Wednesday. "If anyone reads my books they would realize that ... this is not a question of being against white people but rather of documenting truth. ... This is history...this is learning," Acuña said. While the text of the bill does not specifically ask for the elimination of books, local college officials said they know the ban will cut students' access to important and relevant texts like Acuña's.
"This law stifles free speech, it stifles critical information and the expression of a community that has experienced discrimination of all sorts," said David Rodriguez, professor of Chicano studies at CSUN. All Arizona school districts are expected to comply with the new ban or see up to 10 percent of their state funds withheld. Currently Tucson Unified has a nationally recognized Chicano studies program that is unique because it is offered to students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Los Angeles Unified officials said they also offer several ethnic studies courses, primarily at the high school level. LAUSD spokeswoman Lydia Ramos said ethnic studies classes, like specialty math or science classes, are promoted at the district because they enrich basic curriculum and allow students to pursue specific areas of interest.
"Our instruction needs to be rigorous, responsive and culturally relevant," Ramos said.
Rudy Acuña also has an articulate letter in the Tucson Citizen which says in part:
Unlike many of the present day squatters in Arizona, I have deep feelings for Arizona. My mother's family, the Elíases lived there for centuries.
I am 75 years young and have lived through the McCarthy era and read about similar thought control crusades which history has exposed as idiotic. In the 1920s the words to the pledge of alliance were changed from "my flag" to the "flag of the United States" so aliens would not cross their fingers and salute a foreign flag. The present proposal ranks along side these kinds of idiocies. If Pearce has his way, Arizona schools would ban courses "denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization" and would teaching practices that "overtly encourage dissent" from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious tolerance. Rep. Pearce, who is not the sharpest knife in the box, then would bar public schools, community colleges and universities from allowing organizations to operate on campus if it is "based in whole or in part on race-based criteria." Among the books designated for burning is my book Occupied America: A History of Chicanos which has received the Gustavus Myers Award for an Outstanding Book on Race Relations in North America.
I am personally offended by Pearce's labeling my book as seditious. Unlike Pearce, I served in the armed forces and did not claim deferments. . . For Pearce's information, history is probative. It builds. That is why the content of U.S. history courses change from elementary through high school. . .The Big Lie strategy of Pearce and company is effective because most people become paralyzed in the face of the Big Lie. During World War II, most Americans turned a deaf ear to the herding of over 100,000 Japanese Americans into concentration camps. As a Mexican American, I am proud of 16-year old Ralph Lazo from Belmont High in Los Angeles who said that this is not right and declared himself of Japanese decent and went to Manzanar with his friends. That is in Occupied America.
Mexican Americans should realize that these attacks are today directed at them because Pearce looks at them as weak. . . His attacks are race-specific and based on the Big Lie. And history will unfortunately judge Arizonans.
I have lived in Tucson for almost 40 years; I worked for Tucson Unified School District for many of them. Ethnic Studies classes are open to all students, and are designed to teach the truth about Arizona history. And believe me, we need it. Despite this state having a large number of Latinos (and being Mexico for hundreds of years prior to becoming a state less than 100 years ago) our schools were segregated along racial lines until the 1970's. Yes, that's the 1970's. State curricula in social studies and history were woefully lacking in information about minority issues so that students never were taught about things like the Bisbee Deportation of 1917 or Operation Wetback in the 1950's. The Anglo influence in this state has been both good and bad, but unfortunately, lots of bad, at least for the non-Anglos. Mexican Americans have had to battle disdain, dislike and dismissal by white folks (of which I am one) since white men arrived and decided that what they brought with them was theirs and what they found here was theirs as well. The need for a fair and balanced approach to teaching Arizona history in the context of our multi-racial past is crucial to the development of a strong sense of self, an accurate understanding of our strengths (and weaknesses), and our belief in ourselves as Americans. There are many decent people in this state, but unfortunately, due to uber-gerrymandering, it has been very hard to elect many of them into state office. Redistricting is to occur next year, but here's an idea: Instead of boycotting us, how about people of all "kinds" (not just the haters) moving here and helping us change the face of the electorate......it appears that only then will we be able to act like "real" Americans, inclusive, tolerant and compassionate.
At Change.org, Prerna Lal has a great post today, "For Mother's Day,10 Reasons to Oppose Arizona SB 1070," written after a fact-finding mission to hear testimonies of the experiences of women in Arizona in the wake of SB 1070. Here's our excerpt of her 10 reasons:
10. These acts rip families apart.
“I never knew this could happen,” said Catherine, age 9 and a U.S. citizen. Both of her parents were arrested in a workplace raid. Over 100,000 parents of United States citizens like Catherine were deported in the past 10 years. Few think about the implication of that staggering statistic on children who are forced to live without their families, on parents who are separated from their children. 9. These acts rob women of the right to support their loved ones.
“We come here to work and all the time we were just trying to survive,” said Sandra, Catherine’s mother. “But we have to live closed in fear.” Even those who have been on the job for a long time face increased incidents of workplace harassment. Benita, a public worker for 23 years, told us, “They give me more things to do because of my color; they’re always telling me to do something about my accent.” 8. These acts force women to live with physical and sexual violence.
Sylvia told us the undocumented parents she works with would not report a sexual assault for fear of being deported. One woman put it this way: “If the law goes through, I don’t think any woman will ever call the police again. It will be chaos. It will be terrible.” This is in direct contradiction with federal immigration benefits such as the U visa, which allows undocumented victims of violence in the United States to come forward and get legalization based on their cooperation with law enforcement. 7. These acts subject women to humiliation and violence from enforcement agents.
Alejandra suffered a broken jaw when she was detained and then was denied medical care, despite her repeated cries for medical attention, and suffers ongoing problems as a result. We learned that Laura and many others were refused the most basic sanitary supplies.
6. These acts scar children and force some to parent their younger siblings.
We heard from children who watched in horror as a parent was arrested, or came home to an empty house to get a call from immigration. We learned of children who draw pictures of living in a house in a cage. “It’s not like a wound that just heals,” Esperanza told us. “They’re damaging our soul. The scars will be there forever.” 5. These acts rob students of access to education.
We met a brilliant DREAM Act eligible student accepted to a graduate program at Harvard and promised financial aid by a group of supporters here, who are now afraid that due to SB 1070, they could be jailed for providing this help. Other teenagers have dropped out of school in order to earn income lost with a parent’s detention while some do not see the point of high school if they cannot see a pathway to higher education. 4. These acts instill terror of those who should be protectors.
Mary Rose Garrido Wilcox from the Board of Supervisors told us she had to ask Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office not to send representatives to the annual baseball outing for students. “The kids are so afraid of those brown shirts,” she said, “they won’t come if the sheriffs are there.” Besides law enforcement, some have expressed that the legislation might even deter people from seeking the help of clergy. 3. These acts create fear of doing the most basic activities simply because of the color of one’s skin.
Carrie said she often gives people rides to the doctor or the store. “Since SB 1070 was signed,” she told us, “a lot of people haven’t been coming out, even to get free food. They’re afraid to leave their homes.” 2. These acts increase crime and wrong-doing.
One of the most insidious side effects of SB 1070 is that it breeds a culture of impunity for those who exploit and abuse immigrants by discouraging immigrants from reporting crimes to local law enforcement. SB 1070 gives a free pass to actual criminals to attack undocumented immigrants and those who could be perceived as undocumented, thus increasing crime. 1. These acts are unconstitutional and provide no solution to broken immigration system.
The system is undoubtedly broken when it takes more than 20 years for families to unite, when adult children are not considered immediate relatives of their own parents and siblings, when most people in detention and removal proceedings have no criminal records. SB 1070 is a misguided and unconstitutional step in the wrong direction of framing immigrants as criminals. Additionally, it does nothing to "secure the borders" of Arizona and impedes on federal powers to enforce immigration laws.
We must oppose SB 1070 from not just the immigrant rights and feminist perspective, but because it is essentially about human rights and what kind of country we want to reside in — one based on hatred of those who seem different from us or one based in a celebration of diversity. The answer is crystal-clear. Litigation may not resolve this issue in due time, but an Executive Order from Obama to nullify laws like SB 1070 and rescind 287 (g) programs, which allow local police to act like immigration officials, is something that can be done immediately.
