Brewer claims that she's not encouraging racial profiling, but reality as it is, it's not likely that an illegal immigrant from Norway or Poland would be stopped for questioning!
So, most likely it will be a hunt for Mexican illegal aliens.
Sure, many Arizona residents can tell who which Latino person is an immigrant or a local, just like many in Hawaii can tell which Asian person is an immigrant or local. But even most of us can guess wrong!
Many conservatives (many who ironically protest government oppression when it comes to taxes, guns, or incidents involving European-American religious cults) scoff at the notion that government power (in this case, local cops or immigration officials) could be abused!
Of course government power can be abused! Government is force! Government oppression isn't just some bureaucrat with a bad attitude, it is also an arrogant law enforcement officer with big size, big ego and multiple weapons! A government bureaucrat with a bad attitude is annoying, but a law enforcement officer carrying weapons have the ability to kill! Yet, many Tea Party conservatives are only concerned about the government bureaucrat with a bad attitude!
So, yes, it could easily lead to law enforcement officers using their authority to bully anyone who is Latino or looks Latino!
That's right, even "looking Mexican" can get you profiled! Many Filipinos & Polynesians from Hawaii have mentioned they have been mistaken as "Mexican" when they visit the continental US!
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Some say that racial profiling reduces crime!
BULL-NONSENSE!
Proof? Look at Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was a lot of police scandals involving European-American officers harassing African-Americans and Latinos. Young teens, who weren't involved in gangs, whose only sin was staying out too late and making noise were treated as if they committed violence and were logged in the police department's gang database!
Driving certain cars could get you stereotyped as a drug dealer! Even if they found no drugs or weapons, YOUR TIME IS WASTED!
So don't give me this, "if you did nothing wrong, you got nothing to hide" or "if you get your ID, you shouldn't worry about being deported" stuff! HELLO, stopping people for "looking illegal" or "driving Impalas" or "wearing baggy khaki pants", even if they're not doing anything wrong WASTE PEOPLE'S TIME! Even worse when the officer has an arrogant attitude that implies "don't ask me questions or you'll be the next Rodney King"
Did crime go down in LA during that time? HELL NO!
Why was that?
Think about it, when you were a kid, if a school official was mean to you, would you talk to that person about your problem? OF COURSE NOT, because chances are, that person wouldn't care or would just laugh at you!
If a police officer stopped you even though you did nothing wrong, would you talk to that same officer if you were a victim of a crime?
And yet people act surprised when many people wouldn't talk to police about crimes they were victims of, or crimes they have witnessed!
So who in LA benefited from police using racial profiling? The Gangs!
The gangs know they can get away with stuff if their victims are reluctant to talk to the police! They know their victims won't talk to police if their victims already had bad experience with cops who treated them as bad guys from being young, black or brown!
Sure, gang members may not like being stopped by cops, but they are happy when others of their race get stopped by cops for driving a nice car, or wearing hip-hop fashion! Because now their victims will be reluctant to talk to police!
So guess who's going to benefit from the new Arizona law allowing police to stop & question anyone who looks "illegal"? THE GANG MEMBERS WILL BENEFIT MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE!
This was why LA was so dangerous in the late 1980s and 1990s! Gang members could get away with anything, because their victims fear the cops too!
And this was why in 1992, after 4 European-American cops beat an African-American drunk driving suspect Rodney King, there was a large-scale riot in Los Angeles!
That riot was a wake-up call for Los Angeles. The city government became more vigilant about who is in their police force, and how they interact with the public!
While the LAPD isn't perfect, its public relations has improved! There hasn't been much scandals from that department lately. Less profiling, less brutality! And crime in LA has declined!
Even with all the hype of South Central LA's population going from mostly African-American to mostly Latin American, and all the hype surrounding the gang violence between both ethnic groups, still the overall crime rate there has decreased! That's because people there are now less reluctant to talk to police about crimes they experienced or witnessed.
So, do the people of Arizona want a large-scale riot to eventually pop-up in Phoenix? Because the people of California learned the hard way what can happen if too much police officers abuse their authority and treat anyone who is young & non-white as a suspect!
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John McCain calls himself a "maverick" and was once willing to speak up for Mexican immigrants! He even supported a law that would make it easier for illegal aliens to eventually become US citizens. However, that got backlash from the far-right and JD Hayworth is challenging McCain on this issue. So this "maverick" has turned "chicken" and supported this stupid law!
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Anti-immigration fascists love to exploit crimes committed by Mexican immigrants.
The most recent one was the murder of a farmer who lived near the Arizona-Mexico border. Illegal Mexican immigrants have been suspected in this case!
But do illegal aliens really make us unsafe?
http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/22/how-immigration-crackdowns-bac
The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.
Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona.
Babeu's claim about police killings came as news to me. When I called his office to get a list of victims, I learned there has been only one since the beginning of 2008—deeply regrettable, but not exactly a trend.
Truth is, illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans. Most come here to work, and in their desire to stay, they are generally afraid to do anything that might draw the attention of armed people wearing badges.
El Paso, Texas, is next door to the exceptionally violent Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and easily accessible to illegal entry. Yet it is one of the safest cities in the United States.
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I also wrote about that issue back in October 2009, blog post titled "More Immigrants, Less Crime"
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html#5969634862924242439
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While anti-immigrant fascists like Pat Buchanan, Glenn Beck, and Michelle Maglalang Malkin love to emphasize immigrant criminals violating the non-immigrant, they are silent about the murder of Brisenia Flores.
Brisenia Flores was a 9-year old girl of Mexican ancestry who was brutally murdered by white supremacists in Arizona. Her father, Raul Flores, was also killed in that attack!
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2010/04/27/the-crime-conservatives-dont-want-you-to-know-about/
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/06/15/nativist-leader-arrested-for-double-murder/
The leader of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), a nativist extremist group that conducts vigilante patrols on the Arizona-Mexico border, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder Friday for her alleged role in the May 30 slayings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Pima County, Ariz.
Also arrested were MAD Operations Director Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush, 34, the alleged triggerman in the murders, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, a local member of MAD. Along with the two murder counts, Forde and her two associates were charged with one count of first-degree burglary and one count of aggravated assault.
According to investigators, Forde and at least two armed men broke into a trailer occupied by Arivaca, Ariz., resident Raul Flores, his wife, and their daughter Brisenia. Bush allegedly shot and killed Raul Flores and Brisenia before Flores’ wife, who was also shot in the incident, returned fire, wounding Gaxiola. It’s unclear whether the alleged killers found any money or drugs.
How many more people will end up like Brisenia Flores? How much longer will this be ignored?---(skipped paragraphs)(skipped paragraphs)
