Questions over immigration reform were thrust into the forefront of national debate in April 2010 after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed Senate Bill 1070, which aimed to crack down on illegal immigration.
Since then, opponents of the bill around the nation have participated in rallies and protests, maintaining that the law will open floodgates for racism and societal turmoil. Florida State U’s Center for Participant Education (CPE) scheduled a protest against Florida’s gubernatorial candidates’ support of the law on July 31 at the Capitol building, but the protest was rescheduled due to inclement weather.
“We can’t let something like this pass in our state,” read CPE rally posters. “Not only is it blatantly discriminatory towards minorities, it’s unlawful according to the U.S. Constitution.”
SB 1070, as it is known politically, outlines new procedures and regulations for Arizona law enforcement to take when handling cases involving unauthorized residents.
The Department of Homeland Security lists that Arizona, California and Texas combined are currently home to an estimated 4.7 million of the 11 million unauthorized resident immigrants in the country.
“Although Arizona and Mexico border each other, I thought the bill was an extreme and misguided attempt to control Arizona’s illegal immigrant population,” CPE member Liz Vernon said. “I immediately saw that too much power was being put into the hands of local law enforcement, and that the potential for discrimination and racial profiling was too great.”
On July 28, hours before the new law was set to be enforced, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton granted a temporary injunction against some of the most controversial parts of the bill, including a provision that required police to question someone’s immigration status if they had reason to suspect the legality of a person’s residential status.
Bolton also blocked provisions that would force criminal penalties on any non-citizen in Arizona who failed to carry alien registration papers, or for any immigrant who failed to register with the Department of Homeland Security.
The recent changes in the bill, however, were not enough to stop demonstrations around the nation.
CPE has planned the protest to coincide with the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition’s Statewide Day of Action. In Florida, A.N.S.W.E.R. held protests in Miami, West Palm Beach and Orlando to stand with the people of Arizona and demonstrate their disapproval of the bill’s possible implementation in Florida—a state also known for its vast population of immigrants.
“When we first caught wind of SB 1070 being debated in the Arizona Legislative body, it was something that we paid attention to,” A.N.S.W.E.R Florida Coordinator Emmanuel Lopez said. “We kept a very close on eye on [the bill], knowing that if it was going to pass, it would be a great impulse for the people of that state and the people around the country to really begin to fight back.”
A January 2009 DHS report indicates that there are an estimated 720,000 unauthorized immigrant residents living in Florida, ranked third in the nation.
Still, many believe SB 1070 is not the proper way to deal with immigration reform in Arizona, Florida or anywhere else. Posters distributed by the CPE served as a call to arms of sorts, asking individuals to take immediate action, mobilizing those opposed to the possibility of introducing a similar law in Florida.
Lopez, an immigrant himself, recalls the moments after Brewer signed the bill in April as completely surreal and vastly disappointing.
“When she came on TV, it was a very surreal moment for myself, being an immigrant,” Lopez said. “I remember her going ahead and signing it and then everything that came out of her mouth afterward […] sounded like a lot of fascist statements, a lot of racist statements, and it sort of recalibrated the level of how racism in anti-immigrant bigotry is pushed forward and passed in the United States.”
Lopez stressed the importance of community mobilization, a trend he believes to be one of the only sources of hope immigrant communities have left in their fight against SB 1070 and other bills like it. A statement released by the National A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition indicates that the partial blockage of SB 1070 was just that—a partial victory, a sentiment both Vernon and Lopez agree with.
“Even though there was a partial victory, I think that the most important part about that injunction is that it was the result of the people’s struggle,” Lopez said. “If it wasn’t for the vast mobilizations of people in Arizona, people descending into Arizona from around the country, and really people all over the country, mobilizing in their own cities and states. The Obama Administration wouldn’t have taken the half measures that it did in order to get the partial victory that was won on July 28.”
According to Vernon, demonstrations against the bill should not stop, especially in states like Florida, where politicians publicly endorse the bill. Vernon believes that politicians nationwide who support the bill will not stop defending it and, therefore, individuals who oppose the law should not stop either.
“Before momentum behind such a bill builds here, those [who] are against it must stand up together to tell our lawmakers how we feel,” Vernon said.
That momentum is what Lopez fears the most. If political support of the bill grows, Lopez fears that facets of the general population who already have issues with immigrants will find a powerful ally in their sentiments.
“When you have politicians saying that they want to bring [a similar law] to Florida, it emboldens racists in the community to act violently against our [immigrant] communities,” Lopez said. “People who were violent and racist to begin with now have this law that they can look at and say, ‘We have state power, we need to come down on undocumented workers.’ I believe that, since SB1070 was enacted, we are seeing an increase in those sorts of hateful attacks from the public, from the police, from the politicians, from every sector of society that gains to win from divisions in race.”
Neither organization has any plans to discontinue their movements. Demonstrations and protests continue to be planned around the nation to help rid Arizona of SB1070 and to prevent its enactment in other states.
“We are not stopping,” said Lopez.” We are going to keep mobilizing in the same pattern until all of SB 1070 is repealed, burned and thrown into the ashes of history. Our organization is for full peace and equality for all people—that means full democratic rights for immigrant workers, for all workers, really, regardless of immigration status.”