Arizona has had many problems with the constantly growing drug war conducted by the Mexican drug cartels along its borders, along with the illegal immigration influx, which led to the death of a rancher recently, supposedly by an illegal immigrant who escaped across the border.
It is understandable that the citizens of Arizona are alarmed about these matters, but that does not justify the new law about to be signed by Governor Jan Brewer, which allows racial profiling, the stopping of anyone by the police on pure whim, and the demand for proof of legal citizenship.
This is a denial of basic civil liberties, making everyone who looks at all Hispanic a marked person, who law enforcement has the right to question and intimidate just based upon appearance.
If this is not fought in the courts, it will spread across the country as a means to fight illegal immigration in an extremely discriminatory matter! How can Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl justify this in any shape or form? 🙁
Arizona is quickly, by this action, and the recent signed gun law that allows anyone to carry a hidden weapon without a permit, becoming a state that will carry a negative image that will match the horrible reputation that Mississippi and Alabama carried on the issue of civil rights in the 1960s! Is that what the good, fair minded citizens of Arizona want? 🙁