Arizonans have a right to be angry that the federal government hasn’t done enough to close off illegal immigration and fix the current system to allow for a reasonable path to citizenship for foreign workers. But ask yourself: what’s the price of expressing that anger this way?
For a moment, let’s set aside the normal talking shouting points — though there’s plenty of reason to believe crime really isn’t the issue. This is self-defeating, just bad economics, and the fundamental problem is the current system for entering the country legally is itself criminally byzantine.
Instead, just consider the simple logic involved. Arizona’s governor justified a bill requiring law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of persons in America by arguing that the federal government had failed to take appropriate action.
While there’s no question that the feds have failed — and there’s no doubt it’s reasonable to be angry at those who may have “jumped the line” — that’s not what really matters.
Though debate over Arizona’s new law seems to naturally center on the issue of foreign nationals, at its core the law violates fundamental American principles and the basic rights of US citizens. After all, those who are questioned for being “suspiciously” present in Arizona (and that number will be dwindling) will frequently turn out to be lawful citizens or legally present persons who have been detained for no crime at all.
In short, Arizona is undermining the civil liberties of its own citizens because the federal government hasn’t gotten its act together. That simply fails our great nation. We don’t lose our humanity or our human rights because bureaucrats didn’t do their job (in most parts, we call that any day that ends in “y.”)
Without diminishing the very real and reasonable anger citizens feel when their borders are violated and crimes are committed, consider that we’ve gone down this road before — it’s taken the often-unreasonable Jon Stewart to make the reasonable point that we required slaves to carry “freedom papers” and that’s a point of lasting embarrassment. Conservatives ought to be bashful about ceding the moral high ground to Jon Stewart.
We ought not diminish the American dream because times get tough. Ask yourself how history would have been different if Gandhi had grown tired of his peaceful political movement. Or if Martin Luther King, Jr. had taken up the gun to “share” his Dream. It may have made for good short-term politics, but the world would have been the poorer – and the same choice faces us today.