Addressing Comments on My Immigration Reform Blog

By Adonal Foyle

In the May 7 edition of the Orlando Sentinel, I wrote a blog about Arizona's newly-signed immigration law, from which I received a collection of comments for both sides of the argument.

I am glad that so many people feel so strongly about this issue. Many of you have shared your passion about this hot-button topic on my blog. After reading all of your comments, I thought it was only fitting to try and address some of them through another blog entry.

For those of you who have not read the actual law, I have attached it here (please note that it is straight from the state of Arizona's legislative website, so there is no bias one side or another). It is the simple fact sheet for SB 1070.

According to Provision 1 under Enforcement the law "requires a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person doing any legitimate contact made by an official or agency in the state or a county, city, town or political subdivision (political subdivision) if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S."

The fundamental issue I have with this is how do you define "reasonable suspicion?" That can be subjective to that law enforcement officer. The next issue that must be dealt with is how you define an illegal alien? Is it someone who is of any color other than white? Is it someone who is out in public without any shoes on? If law enforcement is going to use "reasonable suspicion" to see if a person is an illegal immigrant, it could mean anything. When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was asked what an illegal immigrant looked like, she couldn't even answer the question. (See for yourself »). If Governor Brewer cannot define what an illegal immigrant looks like, what makes us think your average police officer can define one? Furthermore, the public can penalize police officers if they believe those officers are not doing enough to enforce this law.

I understand that Arizona is a state that borders Mexico, but there is also a small percentage of illegal immigrants in this country who are from as far away as Europe. So unless there is some language that says law enforcement will only target people with brown skin, this piece of legislation doesn't make any sense.

There are also some police officers who do not agree with this law and have gone as far as suing the state of Arizona. So clearly this law is not supported by everyone in Arizona.

It is also not true that illegal immigrants are not contributing to our national economy. For one, illegal immigrants are working in jobs that help generate revenue for its community. Second, contrary to what some people believe, illegal immigrants do pay taxes. According to a USA Today article, illegal immigrants pay taxes that "amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes. ... One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year. Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers."

During my research, I also stumbled upon another startling statistic. According to a Gallup Poll, Americans' want for restricted immigration increased by 20 percentage points after the 9/11 attacks. I'm curious how people felt about this law prior to September 11, 2001.

- Adonal