Growing Split in Arizona Over Immigration
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
MESA, Ariz. — They stood a few miles from each other, but as far apart as heat and cold.
Clutching a copy of a Spanish-language article on the tough new law making it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona and requiring those suspected of being violators to show proof of legal status, Eric Ramirez, 29, still waited on a corner for work. He nervously kept watch for the police and wondered what his future held.
“We were already afraid, and I was thinking of leaving for California,” Mr. Ramirez said as he waited on the corner in a heavily Latino enclave already drained of people by the recession and the fear of police harassment. “We shop in their stores, we clean their yards, but they want us out and the police will be on us.”
In a nearby neighborhood, Ron White, 52, said he felt a sense of relief that something was finally being done about “the illegals” — whom he blames for ills like congregating on the streets, breaking into homes in his neighborhood, draining tax dollars and taking jobs from Americans.
“I sure hope it does have an effect,” Mr. White said of the new law as he packed his car with groceries. “I wouldn’t want to show proof of citizenship, but I also don’t feel it is racial profiling. You are going to look different if you are an alien, and cops know.”
Immigration has always polarized residents of Arizona, a major gateway for illegal immigrants. But the new law signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday has widened the chasm in a way few here can remember.
The law — barring expected legal challenges before it takes effect this summer — also gives the local police broad powers to check documentation “when practicable” of anyone they reasonably suspect is an illegal immigrant.
It has already shaken up politics in the state, and it sets the stage for a rematch on a national debate between the punitive and the practical solutions to the nation’s illegal immigration issue.
But the arguments are less abstract in Arizona, home to an estimated 450,000 illegal immigrants and to the busiest stretch of illegal crossings along the Mexican border.
While demonstrators massed at the Capitol, including a few thousand Sunday afternoon denouncing the law as unconstitutional and an open invitation for racial profiling, the undercurrents that gave rise to the bill pushed as strong as ever. CONTINUED
