There’s no other way to say it. Arizona is continuing it’s years long trend of being one of the most horrifically violent anti-humanitarian states in the country.

From the NYT’s:

The Arizona Legislature gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a proposal that would allow the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges simply for being in the state.

…

The House bill must be reconciled with a version passed by the Senate, something that may be done within the next week or two. Both include measures to outlaw the hiring of day laborers off the street; prohibit anyone from knowingly transporting an illegal immigrant, even a relative, anywhere in the state; and compel local police to check the status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally.

Oh, yeah, because there’s that tricky little issue that nativists hate so much: being undocumented is pretty near the same thing as not renewing your drivers license. It is a crime of bureaucracy, of paper work. So, just like you can’t get arrested for going out to eat or walking to the corner store or getting an apartment while having an expired drivers license–you *technically* can’t be arrested for not having proper documentation. Which is why so many work places get raided: the way the US government has chosen to work around this unpleasant fact of life is by making it illegal to work without proper documentation (and I say “technically” because we’ve all seen people arrested for all sorts of petty issues–all of which stem back to police figuring out that proper documentation is missing. Case in point: the number of people who have been charged with “social security fraud” recently or the number of people arrested after calling the police for help as victims of crimes.) (and please, I am in no way a legal scholar or expert–and I recognize every state is different, so if I am wrong about any of this, please let me know in comments!!)

So this bill would address the fact that it’s technically (on paper) still legal for those without proper documentation to exist in the state without proper documentation. It is a scary proposition–as it means that people who have committed no crime can have their status checked, simply because they look like they might be “illegal.”

If anything could possibly be worse than that–this bill would not just give local police the *right* to racial profile–but would *require* it of them. Which means that a whole slew of entirely legal natural born citizens of the US will now be subjected to legal government stops and searches. The only reason I can fathom that far right Libertarians and Conservatives would even consider supporting such an incredibly terrifying government intervention on Civil Liberties would be that it is white Libertarians and Conservatives who are supporting the bill, and thus feel no danger in the idea of being subjected to required investigation by the government–for no other reason than a “suspicion.” Because who is “suspect” in situations like this? The blond white woman jogging down the street? The white man driving to work?

I anticipate this bill passing. With a Republican governor that has expressed support for the bill–how could it not? That doesn’t mean that we can’t at least try to mount an opposition. If you are from Arizona and know groups organizing against it or just know good organizations that are doing good work on any immigration issues, let us know in comments!

Source: Feministe