Well, there are a couple things that concern me.

First, what’s the goals of the law and is it designed to achieve these goals. From the bill, “The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.” To enforce any law through the philosophy of deterrence is a fundamental problem because it ignores the original motivation (in this case probably rooted in the Mexican economy). I’ve see this philosophy at work all over the U.S. and it a lot of effort for a little pay off (this is a whole discussion in itself). So, the initial design, independent of anything else, I think will be ineffective and overly expensive (should a a tax concern here).

Second, deals with the concern over jobs. This is a classic issue (and a legitimate one) that bubbles up every once in a while. If you looked at the processes of legalizing a bunch of the drugs we have illegal today (pot, opium, cocaine, at one point alcohol), you’d find at the heart a political battle over a group of more ‘natural’ citizens, and a group of minorities (usually immigrants, though not necessarily). Criminalizing the drug becomes a way of scapegoating things like poor economic policies that lead to a recession or loss of wages, or poor benefits, etc.). It’s hard not to see this bill as falling nicely in this history of law making and conflict since the conditions today are ripe for similar legal practices.

Third, has to do with who the bill is designed to address which I think we’d all agree are mexican illegal immigrants or undocumented workers, or whatever term you prefer. As opposed to say, eastern Europeans, who also constitute a large, though not nearly as visible illegal immigration group (look at your local strip club for this example), or people from Southeast Asia (e.g., vietnam, laos, etc.). And since we can’t notice whether someone is in the country legally or not upon simply seeing them, how one looks then invites suspicion and from a law enforcement perspective, a shift from innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent. (this happens all the time to young black men in the city).

Fourth, and to go along with the need to prove one’s innocence over guilt, involved the related issue of legal discourse. Here, loosely defined words like ‘reasonable suspicion’ are used to essentially justify almost any stop and search. In theory we’d likely say that that’d represent a violation of once civil liberties and perhaps due process, but those things only become significant issues if one has the power to fight against a municipality, county, or state, which is rare and not to be expected among a minority population.

I think we also have to really listen to the mostly brown people who are most fearful of this bill. There might be something to their concerns. You have to be a little cautious here because lots of times we’re dealing with a socially constructed ideology that doesn’t gel with the reality of the situation, but in this case we’re talking about people who already know what it’s like to have darker skin and live in Arizona. That knowledge isn’t based off of television depictions and all that, but a real, material reality and so I think needs to be considered as well.

Remember the Noam Chomsky link I put up a while ago comparing the social, economic, political climate of today with that of the years before the rise of Nazism. He had some important points in justifying people’s anger. Jobs are tough to get, real wages have not kept up with inflation, benefits are hard to get and more expensive, our political system has been purchased by dominant economic powers. This reality will be experienced and have consequences. Chomsky, and myself, are concerned with the way this reality manifests itself. Is it more an example of scapegoating to a group seen as different and therefore threatening, or is it focused on the real policies and practices that deep-down, create the frustration in the first place.

At the end of the day I think you have a law with problems related to effectiveness, practicality, and discrimination, and really won’t be all that effective at addressing the concern over jobs, crime or whatever. It’s reactionary nature; in code is really designed to address mexican immigration and will place law enforcement in a tough position to enforce this law while likely ignoring or downplaying other criminal violations; it’s loosely worded which will allow for its easy exploitation (something already inherent in the differential power relationship between law enforcement and citizen/everyday person) and added difficulty in resisting or protecting one’s rights; that will end up costing the tax payers lots of money in the court proceedings and other (often disguised and absent the conversation) legal services (jail, deportation, immigration detention centers, etc.); and looks a little to similar to other laws that when we look back on now were pretty clearly designed to control one segment of the population that was construed as a scapegoat for a host of social issues with causes located elsewhere.