By J.D. Long-García | April 23, 2010 | The Catholic Sun 

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer today signed what some have called the toughest immigration enforcement bill in the nation.

Senate Bill 1070, which the Legislature sent to Brewer April 19, would make it a crime to be in the United States illegally.

“We’re a nation of laws and those laws will be enforced,” Brewer said in a press conference immediately after the April 23 signing. “If every one has the right information, this can work.”

The bill would also require police to make a “reasonable attempt” to determine legal status during “any lawful contact.”

The governor said “a lot of misinformation” had been put out in the media. Many of those who rallied against the bill said it would lead to racial profiling.

“Racial profiling is illegal,” Brewer said, adding that there’s an exemption in the law that stipulates law enforcement need no ask legal residency status if it would impede a case.

“People are disappointed and frustrated with the federal government in regards to illegal immigration into the state,” she said. “We need to put a stop to it.”

Supporters, who gathered outside the Capitol hours before the signing, had similar sentiments.

“This is just another step,” according to Robert Kuhn, a Minuteman who attends St. Luke Parish. “The federal government won’t enforce the border, so states have to take it into their own hands.”

Volunteering on the border with the Minutemen, Kuhn said he’s seen drug and human smuggling. Undocumented immigrants are “dragging on our society,” he said. “They have no right to do it.”

While he applauded the bill, he said it wouldn’t “help a lot except when law enforcement pulls someone over.” The real problem, he said, was at the border.

Wayne Danley, who brought his family to the Capitol to protest the bill, also said the real issue was at the border.

“You want to seal the border, that’s fine,” he said. “But it’s a crime to put people through this. This law won’t stop anything. It’s just persecuting people.”

The issue is personal for Danley, whose two adopted daughters are Hispanic. He fears they’ll be subjected to racial profiling as a consequence of the bill.

“There’s a lot of things that come across the border: drugs coming in, guns going out,” he said. “People coming here to work seems like small change in comparison.”

Karen Saunders, who came to support the bill, disagreed. She said the bill would save lives, claiming “Americans are killed every day by illegals.”

“The federal government didn’t do anything because they were afraid of being called racists,” she said. “Well, I don’t care what color your eyes are and what color your hair is, go back to your country and come legally. This country is going down like the Titanic.”

A Rasmussen poll indicates that 70 percent of Arizonans support the bill.

“The federal government isn’t doing anything about the illegals,” according to Crash O’Donnell, “I’m glad the state is.”

Mooch Birge, who accompanied O’Donnell, admitted the law wasn’t perfect, but applauded the effort to make it harder to be in the state illegally.

“This will affect illegal aliens — not immigrants,” Birge said, adding that, by signing the bill, the governor had won his vote in the upcoming November election.

The protestors, estimated to be more than 2,000 by law enforcement officials, shouted chants of “Sí se puede,” or “Yes, it can be done,” as well as “Where’s Obama?” referring to campaign promises made by the president.

Salvador Reza, who heads up a human rights group called the Puente Movement, insisted that the bill would lead to racial profiling.

“Policeman cannot use race solely to ask for immigration papers, that’s what it says,” Reza explained. “But there’s still a concept of a person’s race.”

Race should not factor into it at all, he said.

“That’s a license for profiling,” he said. “Say you’re jaywalking and you’re brown. We’ll, they’ll ask you for papers. Same thing if you have a broken tail light.”

Reza applauded the many young people who turned out for the protest, many of whom would have otherwise been in school.

“I haven’t seen this since the 1960s,” he said. “These guys are the sons and daughters of the working people.”

Maria Meza of Trevor Brown High School was among the more than 2,000 protestors. She said many students are undocumented or have undocumented parents.

“We don’t want to leave. We want to stay here and have a better life,” Meza said, explaining that some families were talking about going to another state, “one friendlier to Latinos.”

Brewer, along with signing the bill, issued an executive order that established law enforcement training for immigration laws. Among other things, the training would protect “the civil rights of all persons.”

A person’s “race, color or national origin alone cannot be grounds for reasonable suspicion to believe any law has been violated,” according to the order.

“We can move forward if people remain calm and understand what’s in the bill and understand how it’s going to effect them,” Brewer said after the signing.

Earlier this week, the Arizona Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s three dioceses, urged Brewer to veto the “problematic, anti-immigrant bill.”

“While finding meaningful solutions to immigration issues is a worthwhile endeavor, SB 1070 raises many serious concerns and could have a potentially negative impact on our great state,” the conference said in an April 19 statement.

The bill is “not a legitimate solution to solving serious crimes at the border, or anywhere else, and actually may inadvertently reduce public safety,” it reads.

Connie Anderson, with Valley Interfaith Project, said it was important to let people know the law doesn’t take effect for 90 days.

“People are going to need to hear a message of solidarity from our Church,” she said. “A lot of people are saying they’re going to leave. Others say they’re afraid to go to Mass.”

While realistic about the impact of the law, Anderson hoped it would spur federal action on immigration reform.

County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, after applauding the young protestors for following the example of Caesar Chavez, announced to the signing to those gathered.

“There are wins and there are times when you have to keep fighting,” she said. “I’m very sad to tell you, the governor signed this bill.”

While some a handful sent up angry shouts, most of those in the crowd sighed.

“We will fight this in the courts,” Wilcox said. “This is only the first step in a major battle.”

The vast majority of the thousands gathered dispersed soon after the announcement.

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