Arizona-Racial Profiling is Wrong!

My mother can’t understand why the Arizona bill has me so riled up. She says that “it is no big deal; illegal immigrants shouldn’t be in this country anyway, living off of our government and benefiting from our country without trying to become a citizen.” I just can’t understand why she doesn’t see my point. Illegal immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to roam this country, no, but innocent citizens in this country should not be racially profiled for the sake of catching illegal immigrants. Can you imagine walking down the street and being randomly questioned because of the way you look? Or because someone overheard you speak and you just so happen to have an accent? Ok, now a lot of people will say “But Tashiana, people are racially profiled all the time; black people for being violent criminals and Muslims for being terrorists- what makes it any different?” I will tell you what makes it different, there hasn’t been a law making it legal. Now it is legal at least to racially profile Hispanics in Arizona. Where next? Granted, Arizona is a very republican state but republican states can influence other republican states and have a domino affect and boom…maybe one day the law will be here in New York being debated.
I think this bill is disgraceful and it is unconstitutional. Even if there are people who are not citizens in this country then that means our military and border patrol is faulty. We need to either hire better border patrol or have a stronger military or do something else different in order to keep the unwanted and unwelcomed out. Racially profiling Hispanics on the street is not the answer. I mean there are undocumented residents here in the United States for different reasons: some people are here on work visas and when they expire they stay because they have made a life here and so they stay and try to lay low in order to live a comfortable life for themselves and their families. Also some people are uneducated about ways to become legalized in this country. It seems like an excuse but it is a reason nonetheless. If I wasn’t told by my academic advisor that my teacher needed to sign my Add/Drop form in order to drop a class, I would have never know and the same goes for illegal immigrants—even if most of them do know the procedures, there is still a good number who do not because of lack of education and fear of being deported if they try to become residents. Also most illegal immigrants make just enough money to support themselves and their families…who has money for a lawyer in order to be legalized?
But this is not supposed to be a rant about why illegal immigrants shouldn’t be deported because if the person is doing illegal acts such as selling drugs or plotting acts of terrorism against the government then they should definitely be deported and punished. What I am saying is why are American citizens being subjected to this just to be able to “protect our country.” I can guarantee you there are a hundred different ways to spend the resources than finding random Hispanic people on the street and asking them for their citizenship papers. But maybe I’m the radical one…maybe I’m the one who doesn’t understand…that stereotyping, even if we all do it in one way or another, is wrong!