Tuesday, April 27, 2010

How the Racist Anti-Immigrant Law Will Destroy Arizona

Kos via AlterNet.

But if I were an Arizona government official, this is the clause from the law that would keep me up at night:
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In short, anybody can sue their local government if they believe that the municipality isn’t pursuing brown people aggressively enough.

I don’t think it’s crazy to predict that within one year, a substantial number of municipalities in the state of Arizona will be facing lawsuits by anti-immigration zealots. They’ll walk down the street, see a couple of brown youths hanging out on the street corner, and BAM! lawsuit filed.

That’s the reason that the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposed the law.

The police chiefs were ignored, and now citizen lawsuits will cost municipalities valuable time and non-existent money to defend themselves from such lawsuits, and police departments in those municipalities will have to waste valuable time and non-existent money to try and prove that yes, they have been xenophobic enough in harassing brown people.

Thus, Arizona law enforcement will have to balance the need to keep the peace, with the need to sufficiently go after brown people in a way that could provide a defense for the inevitable lawsuits to come. And if they can’t prove their xenophobic bona fides, it’ll cost their schools, law enforcement, and other valuable government services to the tune of $1-5,000 per day that they haven’t eliminated all undocumented workers from their jurisdiction.

For a party desperate to defund government and destroy its ability to serve people, Arizona Republicans may have finally figured out the best way to accomplish that.

You shit the bed, Arizona. Now you have to lie in it. Sweet Dreams.

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