Robert Creamer: The Arizona of 2010 is the Alabama of 1963: "Those of us who are old enough will never forget the images of fire hoses being turned on children marching for their civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama - or the police nightsticks of Bloody Sunday at the Raymond Pettus Bridge in Selma.
Those images stirred a nation to act against racial segregation in the 1960's. The draconian anti-immigrant bill that was signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is likely to do the same when it comes to the crisis of our broken immigration system.
The Arizona of 2010 is the Alabama of 1963.
For those who have not read a paper or turned on the TV in the last several days, the new Arizona law requires that all police officers with a reasonable suspicion that an individual might not be in our country legally, must demand to see that person's papers.
It also requires that each person who has immigrated carry those papers at all times or be in violation of the law themselves.
It even creates a private right of action that allows anyone, from an ordinary citizen to the Minutemen, to file suit against individual law enforcement officers who they believe are refusing to enforce the new act. "... (continued)
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This Arizona law is blatantly unconstitutional. It is unconstitutionally vague, it violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment and is unenforceable due to the impossibly of determining who might not be a citizen in this multicultural country , It eventually will be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. This was passed by right wing politicians appealing to anti-immigrant and racist elements in Arizona, a state with a substantial Mexican population.
John H. Armwood
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