Thread: Hundreds protest immigration law in Arizona

Hundreds protest immigration law in Arizona

By the CNN Wire Staff
April 25, 2010 5:39 p.m. EDT

Opponents of Arizona's new immigration enforcement law protest Sunday in Phoenix.

Phoenix, Arizona (CNN) -- Hundreds of people gathered outside Arizona's Capitol building on Sunday in a largely peaceful protest against the state's tough new immigration law.

Chanting "Yes we can," waving American flags and holding signs reading "We have rights" and "We are human," demonstrators kept up a festive spirit as they denounced the bill signed Friday by Gov. Jan Brewer.

The new law requires police to determine whether a person is in the United States legally. It also requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there is reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally.

Protesters worry that the law will foster racial profiling.

"What is 'reasonable suspicion?' " protester Jose Acosta asked Sunday. "Are we going to get pulled over just because of a broken taillight or because of the color of our skin? ... If so, is everybody going to be pulled over?"

Kearny Police Chief Joe Martinez called critics' concerns unfounded, saying the Arizona law enforcement community includes a large number of Hispanics.

"We've never had a policy of racial profiling," Martinez said Saturday night at a town hall meeting in Casa Grande. "In fact, quite the contrary, it's been outlawed."

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon appeared at the rally in support of the protest, calling the law unconstitutional and "just plain wrong."

"America is a country that is compassionate and that welcomes everyone," he said. "This is not what this country and this state was founded upon."

Gordon vowed to take the fight through the state's judicial system.

"We'll go to the state courts and we'll go to the federal courts and we'll go all the way to the Supreme Court," he told the cheering crowd. "I promise you."

Gordon told CNN on Saturday that he will bring up an item calling for legal action against the law at Tuesday's City Council session.

Others were also vowing this weekend to legally challenge the law.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, along with leaders from the National Action Network and the Hispanic Federation, announced Sunday that he will legally challenge the law.

The law "is an affront to the civil rights of all Americans and an attempt to legalize racial profiling," Sharpton said in a statement after the bill's signing Friday. "As one who helped to make racial profiling a national issue and who has in the last year visited Arizona several times to rally against these draconian immigration policies, I am calling for a coalition of civil rights organizations to work with those in Arizona to resist and overturn this state law."

The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a group that represents 30,000 Latino churches worldwide, also said Saturday it plans to file a lawsuit against the bill.

"In addition to this law being illegal, if this law goes into effect, we expect it to have a dramatic affect on the state with U.S. citizens, legal residents and others moving out of the state out of fear of being singled out," William Sanchez, an immigration attorney representing the coalition, said in a statement.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/25/ ... n.protest/

GOOD, set up the road blocks, trailers, lights and DOGS. lots of barking snarling dogs.

and dont detain out of state bound moving trucks,pick-ups, landscape trailers loaded up with couches pots and pans. ADIOS!!!!

The mayor is AGAINST sb1070!?!?!?
WHY???

This is nonsense. If Mexico is closest to the border chances are high that you will have mostly Mexican illegals so it is demographics and not profiling. You have white police officers pulling over an African American in Liberty City or Little Haiti in Miami where it is almost exclusively African American neighborhoods and you have African American police officer pull over hispanics in southwest Miami Dade County where in many areas it is predominently hispanic. That is called doing your job and has nothing to do with racial profiling. It is demographic and nothing else.

Who gives a flying (you know ) what Al Sharpton thinks? Who are all these out of state people who have the gall to find fault with a state that is taking it in the shorts continually due to illeagal immigration?

As for the Mayor of Phoenix, phooey on him, he'll be voted out next go around. Is he really in touch with the tens of thousands of retired people living in Phoenix? You know, the ones who can't defend themselves. Forget his name, his career will be a short one.

Phil Gordon is another idiot that shoots off his mouth without reading the bill, there are no civil rights violations in it, zip, nada, none. In fact the language of the bill expressly forbids any racial profiling or other infractions. People should read the summary "ASS PASSED"

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2...vernor.doc.htm

Originally Posted by draindog

and dont detain out of state bound moving trucks,pick-ups, landscape trailers loaded up with couches pots and pans. ADIOS!!!!

Only if they're going south...and if they're not turn em around and head em that way.

[quote="TheDoctor"]


The mayor is AGAINST sb1070!?!?!?
WHY???[/quote]



Because Phoenix Phil is pro-illegal from the tips of his nasty little hooves to the points on his sharp tiny teeth, that's why, and this little piece of legislation just poked a hole in his sanctuary policy............

I wonder who greases Phil's palm.