Arizona's Controversial
New Immigration Law

By Alan Shapiro

To the Teacher

A tough new Arizona anti-illegal immigration law has sparked a national controversy. The first student reading below offers some background on events in Arizona that helped to fuel the anger leading to state action and the major provisions of the new law. The second reading includes multiple points of view about the legislation and the results of a new poll on immigration policies. A third reading examines the predicament facing one undocumented immigrant.

Discussion questions a pair-share dialogue, questions for further inquiry, a writing assignment, and activities follow.

This is a sensitive subject, especially for students from immigrant families. Consider this lesson carefully if any of your students might be undocumented immigrants. You may want to adapt the lesson to ensure that students don't feel exposed or threatened by the discussion.

Background materials on immigration issues available in the high school section of www.teachablemoment.org include "Presidential Election 2008: Our Broken Immigration System," "The Immigration Debate & a DBQ," and "Should Undocumented Immigrants Have 'a Shot at the American Dream"? See also "Thinking Is Questioning" in connection with inquiry suggestions and "Teaching Social Responsibility" for additional citizenship project possibilities.

Student Reading 1:
An Arizona immigration law

The Minutemen's fight against British troops at Lexington and Concord sparked a revolution that led to the creation of the United States. In fact, during more than 100 years of colonial history before the "shot heard 'round the world," Minutemen were on short notice to appear for battle when needed and became symbols of patriotism.

The new Minutemen

Anger over growing numbers of undocumented immigrants, including some drug traffickers, crossing from Mexico into the U.S. drove some Americans to form a new kind of "Minuteman" corps. Five years ago some citizens angry about illegal immigration created a national group they called the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps "to see the borders and coastal boundaries of the United States secured against the unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military." (www.minutemanhq.com)

Local Minuteman groups formed around the country, the most active in Arizona. Members have detained some 1,000 people since 2005. But their behavior was sometimes unacceptable, according the Border Action Network, a human rights group. It reported that detainees "were shot at, kicked, dragged, and, in other ways, physically and verbally abused." (www.borderaction.org) The worst came just last year.

Shawna Forde and two other members of Minutemen American Defense, a small, militant group "are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca (Arizona) a year ago, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter." (www.huffingtonpost.com, 6/13/09)

"'Their motive was financial,' according to Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. "He said the murdered husband had been involved in narcotics, and the invaders probably thought there would be a lot of money in the house to finance Minuteman American Defense."

"This is not what Minutemen do," said Minuteman member Chuck Stonex…."Minutemen observe, document and report. This is nothing more than a cold-hearted criminal act…." Forde and the others are awaiting trial.

Recently, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps went out of business. "The national was getting absorbed into the political fights with candidates and lobbying while the local groups continue to attract fringe extremists that are attracted to the paramilitary culture and hate groups," according to Jennifer Allen, Executive Director of Border Action.

But anger and fear over undocumented immigration kept rising, fueled by incidents like the murder of rancher Robert Krentz in March 2010. Fox News reported: "Robert Krentz was known among fellow ranchers as a good Samaritan who often helped injured illegal immigrants trying to cross the boiling desert border into Arizona. But the 58-year-old was gunned down while tending to his ranch Saturday morning, and police suspect an illegal immigrant was to blame." (www.foxnews.com 3/3010)

Newsweek reporter Eve Conant wrote: "During a month's reporting with police and other law-enforcement agents in Arizona last year, I met many scared people. One man who lived next to a 'drop house' for Mexican workers slept with two guns under his bed, his children not allowed to play in the backyard. The sound of gunshots was not uncommon. 'Four years ago this neighborhood was poodles and old ladies,' he said, too frightened to give his name. 'Now it's absolutely insane.' That morning, authorities had raided the drop house. When the neighbor told me how his kids had been evacuated behind riot shields, he began to cry. Others, too, were unhappy: the undocumented workers taken from the house were exhausted, sweaty, and dead quiet as they sat on a curb with their hands cuffed, waiting to be taken away." (Newsweek, 5/10/10)

(A growing crime problem in Mexico, exacerbated by deepening poverty there, has at times spread over the border. However, there is evidence that overall, communities with many immigrants often see crime rates drop.)

A New Law

Public pressure led Arizona's legislature to pass the toughest immigration law in the country, SB1070, also know as the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act." Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the strict new immigration legislation into law on April 23, 2010. The law:

• gives police the power, "when practicable," to detain anyone they reasonably suspect to be an illegal immigrant and to check that person's status with federal officials, which means, in effect, that every person must have I.D. proving legal resident status or citizenship.
  
  
• makes it a crime for an immigrant not to carry identity documents. Arizona is the first state to make such a requirement.
  
  
• makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to solicit work.
  
  
• makes it a crime to knowingly transport or house undocumented immigrants.
  
  
• allows citizens to sue local governments they believe are not enforcing state or federal
  immigration laws.

Web: Illegal Immigration

Write the words "illegal immigrant" on the chalkboard. Ask students to write in their notebooks the first five words or groups of words that come into their minds when they see or hear these words. Ask them to keep this paper in their notebooks for review later.

For discussion

1. What questions do students have about the reading? How might they be answered?

2. What do you know about why so many people cross the border between Mexico and the U.S. illegally?

3. Explain the name of the new Arizona immigration law.

4. Imagine yourself a police officer charged with carrying out its first provision. How would you decide when "to reasonably suspect" that an individual was an undocumented immigrant?

5. What would be a satisfactory "identity document"? Suppose an officer stopped you and asked for such a document. What, if anything, could you produce?

6. Do you think that anyone who hires a worker should first check to make sure they are in the country legally? Why or why not?

7. Do you support the Arizona law? Why or why not?

8. What reasons do you suppose there were for the organization of Minuteman groups in Arizona and elsewhere in the country?

9. What questions, if any, remain on your mind after discussion of the reading? How might you answer them?

Student Reading 2:
Reaction to the Arizona law

"Fueled by Anger Over Arizona Law, Immigration Advocates Rally for Change" was the headline of a New York Times story (5/2/10). It reported that demonstrations against the Arizona law took place across the country on May 1. As many as 50,000 people joined one in Los Angeles and, like those elsewhere, called on Congress to pass new immigration legislation "to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants…. Critics across the country said the [Arizona] law would lead to racial profiling and spread fear in immigrant communities."

A day earlier, and in response to the immediate outcry from immigrant groups and others about what they viewed as a harsh, even racist law, Arizona legislators and Brewer approved changes in it. Among them:

• Police officers can't stop a person in order to question their immigration status. However, they can ask such questions if they have stopped the person to enforce another law.
  
  
• Regulations against using race or ethnicity as the reason for questioning by police were
  strengthened.

Competing views of Arizona law

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said "Decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation." When she signed the bill into law, she said, "This legislation mirrors federal laws regarding immigration enforcement. Despite erroneous and misleading statements suggesting otherwise, the new state misdemeanor crime of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document is adopted verbatim from the same offense found in federal statute."

President Obama said it was the state that was "misguided" and would "undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." At a naturalization ceremony, he called for federal reform of immigration laws. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid called that essential. "The system is broken," he said.

But in recent years, Congress has failed to pass a reform bill, despite widespread agreement that something needs to be done about the presence in the country of 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants who have no path to citizenship.

"Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration," Kris Kobach, University of Missouri law professor, wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It's no surprise that Arizona's police associations favored the bill, along with 70 per cent of Arizonans." As for the president's call for "comprehensive immigration reform," Kobach concluded, "we already have plenty of federal immigration laws on the books, and the typical illegal alien is guilty of breaking many of them. What we need is for the executive branch to enforce the laws we already have." ("Why Arizona Drew a Line," New York Times, 4/29/10)

Senator John McCain, (R, AZ) said, "If you don't like the...legislation that the legislature passed and the governor signed in Arizona, then carry out the federal responsibilities, which are to secure the border." (www.atlantic.com, 4/26)

Mexican President Felipe Calderón condemned Arizona for a move that he said, "opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination, and abuse in law enforcement." His government warned its citizens of the "adverse political atmosphere for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors,…who could be bothered or questioned without motive at any time." (www.csmonitor.com, 4/24/10)

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony likened the crackdown on undocumented immigrants to "German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques" that forced people to turn each other in to authorities. "The Arizona legislature just passed the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law," he wrote on his blog. "The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense." (www.losangelestimes.com, 4/20/10)

A number of other states, including Oklahoma, Ohio, and Maryland, are considering legislation similar to Arizona's. However, the Tucson and Flagstaff city councils voted to sue their state over the new law's enforcement costs and negative effects likely on state tourism.

Such negative effects appeared within days. The Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association said the state has already experienced "23 canceled meetings with an economic impact of $6 million to $10 million in lost business" because of opposition to the new bill. (www.albuquerque.bizjournals.com, 5/7/10) The National Council of La Raza and other Latino groups, unions, African-American and Jewish organizations have called for a business boycott of Arizona. Supporters will not buy Arizona products or run conferences in the state.

A new poll on immigration policies

An "overwhelming majority of Americans think the country's immigration policies need to be seriously overhauled," according to a New York Times/CBS poll conducted April 28-May 2, 2010. The poll found 78 percent of Americans agree that the U.S. should be doing more along its border to keep out undocumented immigrants.

"That unity, however, fractures on the question of what to do with illegal immigrants who are already here and the role of states in enforcing immigration law, normally a federal responsibility," the Times reported. Some 57 percent agreed that the federal government should make laws about undocumented immigration. But 51 percent called the Arizona law "about right" while 36 percent did not like the law. Nine percent said it didn't go far enough. Half of those polled thought it "very" likely that the new Arizona law would lead to racial and ethnic profiling. (New York Times, 5/4/10)

For discussion

1. What questions do students have about the reading? How might they be answered?

2. How would you define "racial or ethnic profiling"?

3. Explain each of the two additional provisions to the Arizona law. Why do you think they were added?

4. What do you understand the reasons to be behind the widespread protests against the Arizona law? Which, if any, do you agree with and why? Which do you disagree with and why?

5. Why are federal immigration laws widely regarded as dysfunctional?

6. What questions, if any, remain on your mind after discussion of the reading? How might you answer them?

Student Reading 3:
The story of one of the 10-12 million illegal immigrants

After 9/11, he enlisted in the armed forces even though he wasn't a citizen. He served a tour in Iraq and wanted to do another, but could not shake the fear he felt that his wife and infant daughter in New York would be deported.

He is Lt. Kenneth Tenebro, now stationed at Fort Dix, NJ. Like his wife Wilma, he was born and brought up in the Philippines. Unlike her, he was never in the U.S. illegally. He became a naturalized citizen in 2003. They met five years ago while she was on vacation in the US, and fell in love. She did not go home, and overstayed her visa. They married and had a daughter.

In 2008, the New York Times reported, U.S..Citizenship and Immigration Services…gave Wilma Tenebro approval to become a legal permanent resident, as the spouse of an American citizen. "But because of the particular visa she overstayed--known as a crewman's visa" (she had worked on a cruise ship before she met Kenneth) "she is required to finish the paperwork for her green card in the Philippines." A green card is an ID card affirming the permanent resident status of a foreigner in the U.S. But, reported the Times, "Even though Mrs. Tenebro has qualified for a green card, if she leaves the United States to get it, she will automatically trigger the legal bar that will block her from returning for 10 years."

Lt. Tenebro, 35, decided to tell his story to a reporter "after lawyers advised Mrs. Tenebro that she had little hope of being approved to remain here as a legal resident without a change in immigration law. He risks drawing the attention of his commanders and the immigration authorities to his wife's illegal status."

Immigration lawyers and government officials say there are "many thousands of people in the military" with spouses or close relatives who are undocumented. "Many of these service members have fought to gain legal status for their family members--only to hit a legal dead end created in 1996 when Congress last made major revisions to the immigration law."

Wilma Tenebro cannot work legally. Lt. Tenebro said, "We just have our bags packed all the time in case immigration will coming knocking on the door. We talk about what school to pick and what apartment to get. But it's in the Philippines." (Julia Preston, "Immigration Status of a Soldier's Wife Leaves Family Afraid," New York Times, 5/8/10)

Pair-share dialogue

Once again, write the words "illegal immigrant" on the chalkboard. Ask students again to write the first five words or groups of words that come into their minds but without looking at what they wrote earlier.

When they have finished, ask students to take out the earlier paper to compare with what they have just written. Ask them to meditate on whatever differences they note between what they wrote earlier and what they have just written.

Now have students pair up in two's facing each other. In turn, each is to speak for one to two minutes on differences they have noted and how they explain them. When they are in the role of listener, their goal is to focus their complete attention on the speaker and listen in interested silence. After the pair-share, invite students to share their own thoughts and/or paraphrase their partner's thoughts as a way to launch a brief discussion.

Finally, bring all students together for sharing of what they think they have learned and why.

For inquiry

It is easy to make snap judgments about immigration issues, and there is a long history in the U.S. of just such judgments about them. Some are discussed in Reading 3 of "Presidential Election 2008: Our Broken Immigration System."

The two readings here are likely to raise student questions useful for further inquiry. Have students examine them carefully. Is each one clear? If not, how might it be made clear? Answerable? How?

Sample questions:

• What actions has the government taken in recent years to secure the border between Mexico and the U.S.?
• How effective have these actions been? What evidence supports your conclusions?
• What, if anything, should be done about the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and why?
• What is known about the kinds of workundocumented immigrants do?
• What, if anything, is the government doing about employers who hire undocumented immigrants? How effective is law enforcement?
• What effects do undocumented immigrants have on the American economy?
• What congressional proposals are there to make it possible for undocumentedimmigrants to gain legal status and eventually become American citizens?
• Why haven't any of these proposals become law?

For writing and small group discussion

Assignment: Write a 300-word paper in which you discuss clearly and concisely three major provisions that should be part of any new immigration policy.

Small group discussion: Organize the class into groups of three or four students to read their papers. After each reading, provide a few minutes for clarifying questions and brief discussion. Have students then select what they regard as the best paper in the group for reading to and discussion by the entire class.

For action

Is there a consensus in the class about major provisions for a new immigration policy? If so, have a volunteer committee draft a paper to be considered, then possibly amended. If not, ask students to prepare separate draft papers reflecting the class' different views. Send a final version of the papers to the students' representatives and senators as well as to President Obama.

This lesson was written for TeachableMoment.Org, a project of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We welcome your comments. Please email author Alan Shapiro at: lnshapiro07@gmail.com.

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