Arizona's Immigration Law

The issues of modern society remain within an endlessly shifting continuum laced by components of culture and moral behavior. Having such a complex relationship, many issues can only be guided, not solved, by laws and the legal system. Arizona’s immigration law directly reflects a complex relationship and links culture and moral behaviors with government and the legal system.
Signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, the Law, in a way, attacks immigrant workers and their culture by increasing their perceived stereotype. In many ways, the Law has immense consequences on both the American and immigrant cultures. By requiring police to stop people of “reasonable suspicion” for being an undocumented immigrant, it leaves room for much discretion and subjectivity in a system of law that is very objective. It doesn’t necessarily enforce a productive law, but rather, enforces the common perceptions of an illegal immigrant. Should the law be able to rely on the generalized ideas of appearance and association to define a criminal?
Perhaps the inevitable territory of our nation’s democratic legal system cannot avoid stereotyping, but it is certain that it has caused much turmoil in our nation’s workforce. Having ideas suggesting a new passport system to prevent undocumented workers, the bill would reflect the nation’s exercise of power, as well as, its fears of corruption by acting as a monitoring system. The bill requires punitive measures that would promote self-incrimination which completely violates the 5th Amendment. These measures would provoke the dignity of both American and immigrant cultures; with the almost impossible chance to work for legal residency, an immigrant’s image essentially becomes tarnished. The idea of a “guest worker” program would, once again, exploit a hierarchical power because workers would have almost no rights while working at their employer’s mercy.
In my opinion, this “guest worker” program parallels with similar ideas of slave labor; I take a humanist approach. We should not be first realizing an issue based on the public and media’s extreme protests. Whether a US citizen or not, if an employer uses an immigrant’s labor, they should act humanely, with a sense of dignity and pride that represents America, rather than completely exercising their authority and controlling an immigrant’s identity. Yes laws are needed, but I think issues arrive when they begin to provoke a sense of humanity. Should we be defining our own nation by incriminating immigrants through the perceived values of society? It is clear the legal system cannot completely solve Arizona’s (and the entire nation’s) many issues because the dynamics of moral behaviors are deeply rooted to our culture. It should not take the controlling of an individual’s self-value to promote our nation’s identity.

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