PEREZ: Bad idea turns even worse

Yareni De Anda
10/16/09
2:53pm

This Article is about the 287 g immigration enforcement program that gives local cops the authority to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants who are criminals. The author, Miguel Perez, says that the one thing we never expected is for this policy to “be used as an excuse to justify racial profiling”. We never expected our local police to go crazy with the power they were given and to take advantage of this policy that in turn affects to more than just all undocumented immigrants but also affects “ any American who looks, behaves or sounds like a foreigner”. The article mentions sheriff of Arizona’s county Maricopa, Arpaio, and the wrong use he has given to this policy. Even though Airpaio has been deprived of his authority (to an extent) because of his “obsessive and abusive implementation of the program” he “still boasts about how one single Arizona county has conducted 25 percent of the arrests made nationally under 287(g” as if it was something to be proud about. The author just questions how this guy was able to get along with his behavior for so long without the federal government interfering. Based on all the evidence that shows the program’s violations and flaws, many civil rights activists and organizations went to the Obama administration to ask for this program to be terminated. The author also reminds us that when Obama was running for president he promise the Latino population that he would change the immigration situation (immigration reform). In the last part of his article he also mentions that the DHS appears to trying to save this policy by just making adjustments to it.

I completely agree with the point the author is trying to make, the implementation of this policy was a bad idea from the beginning and now that we all see what officials have turn it into we should be more critical of it. We should question whether racial profiling is the way that this country should go or if there is a fair and more rational way of addressing this issue. We should question whose responsibility it should be to make sure the policies are appropriately implemented so that this does not happen again.
In this article the author focuses more on racial profiling but I believe it is important to keep in mind that the original goal of this policy was not to get rid of mothers of US citizens and migrant workers that were causing no harm to society but to get rid of undocumented criminals.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/perez/article_ef720e7d-96f1-5bff-b910-cdb0beff9728.html