Human Rights

SB 1070 and Immigration
In this Article I will argue that Arizona Law SB 1070 is a violation of International human rights, it discriminates against the basis of race and skin color. I will demonstrate this argument by discussing history of immigration, of SB 1070, SB1070 rules, and the impact on citizens and undocumented persons. This will demonstrate a very detailed Article on how SB 1070 works and the history on immigration leading up to this law SB 1070. But before SB 1070 was passed there were some laws that were very similar to it. For example Bill HB 2479 was passed in Pennsylvania May 5 2010 and was basically to discourage undocumented migrants from coming into the United States. Then there was prop 187 that was passed in California, which made it illegal for undocumented migrants to use health care, education system, and other state social services. It is also thought that SB 1070 only targets Mexican immigrants but it also targets immigrants from Central America even though those Central American immigrants only make up 10% of United States immigrants. SB1070 targets mostly Mexican American Latinos based on the color of their skin. This law has caused harassment for hundreds of Thousands of Mexican Latinos, from a simple traffic stop or other minor offenses Officers have detained approximately 380,000 Mexican Americans and have deported 387,000 immigrants here in the United States without proof of valid citizenship.
Global Immigration to the United States Global immigration has been around for hundreds of years and dates all the way back to the 1800’s. The early Japanese immigrants came to California as early as 1869, and by the mid 1800’s Japanese migrants were working in the sugarcane fields of Hawaii as well as farms in California. There were around 24,326 Japanese immigrants who migrated to the United States according to the United States census in 1900("Life in Japanese," 2003). There weren’t a lot of Japanese migrants coming to the United States in the 1900 compared to the astonishing number of the increase in population of 47,831, which made the total number of Japanese migrants from 24,326 in 1900 to 72,157 in 1910, with more than 1,596 Japanese migrants living in Wyoming. Although the Japanese migrated to the United States successfully, on February 19, 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order “ Establishing the War Relocation Authority in the Executive office of the President and defining its functions and duties” (Roosevelt, 1942, 1). This was the order also known as Order 9066, which led to ten internment camps being created, along with more than 110,000 Japanese migrants being placed into to these dreadful camps on forty-eight hours notice. Then there was Irish Migrants that came from Ireland to the United States in three different waves. The first two waves was sometime after 1717 and the first wave came from Ireland due to missionary effort of the early medieval Christian church and the fight of the Roman Catholic nobility. The final wave of Irish immigrants came in 1847 due to the Potato famine that occurred in Ireland. Thousands of children and adults were starving because of the devastation of the potato crops and had to get out of Ireland because there was nothing to eat. Most families depended off of the potato crops and had nothing else to eat and no other choice but to migrate to the United States, the home of the free. They chose to migrate to the United States because in Ireland the Irish did not have any rights and had very restricted privileges. Some of the jobs the Irish were looking for were work in the coalmines, railroads, and other industrial businesses that needed workers from 1840-1870. Approximately 1.6 million Chinese immigrants flocked to the United States in 1849 and 1882. The main reason Chinese immigrants arrived around this time in the United States is because of the Gold Rush that was going on in California. Most Chinese immigrants came to America as single men to work on their own as they prospected for gold on their own or labored for other miners and then eventually returned home.
Latin American Immigration Latin America is defined as six different countries such as Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of these immigrants have migrated to the United Sates from each of these countries, most coming to the United States for better work to support their families, along with a better life. The first waves of these immigrants were the Cubans. The Cubans started to pour into the United States because Fidel Castro deposed dictator Fulgencio Batista in the Cuban Revolution. When this happened, Cubans were very aggravated because they were used to Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his friendly relations with the United States government and the people. But then the dictator Fidel Castro took over with his Marxist regimen that befriended the United States government along with thousands of Cubans. Between 1959 and 1962, 215,000 the first wave of Cubans left Cuba and most were landowners and professionals who had lost their property from Fidel Castro’s socialist economy. The second wave of 340,000 Cubans left Cuba in 1965 because of so called freedom flights before the airlifts were discontinued in 1973. The final third wave took over the course of five months in 1980 when about 125,000 Cubans wanted to participate in the Mariel Boat Lift. Overall about 700,000 Cubans left and about 85% of them went to the United States. The Latin Americans from the Dominican Republic experienced three waves in the twentieth century. The first wave began in 1961 with the assassination of Rafael Trujillo. The CIA helped the Dominican Republic assassinate this dictator and the result of this made thousands of people migrate from this island to the United States. And then from 1966 to 1978 another wave of immigrants continued, fueled by high unemployment and political repression. But migrants from the first wave assisted subsequent arrivals. Then in the early 1980’s underemployment and the rise of value in the dollar caused the third wave of Dominicans to migrate from the island to the United States. El Salvador is the next place immigration has taken place in Latin America and a civil war of eleven years has caused a third of El Salvador’s population to migrate from their country in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The El Salvadoran migrants fell under two categories, which were refugees and displaced persons. Refugees were El Salvadorans who felt uncomfortable and endangered at home and displaced persons were people who had to leave their home but remained within the community in national boundaries. Only about one million refugees wanted to go to the United States while other chose to go to other bordering countries. Bracero Program
The Bracero program was instituted on August 4, 1942 by the United States and Mexico, which allowed thousands of Mexican living in poverty to abandon their communities and leave their families behind to head up north to work the brutal fields of the United States as Braceros. The main place that Braceros were recruited was in El Paso, Texas and also was the main gathering point for agricultural labor force. Having this program improved the United States dramatically because it really gave a boost to their North American agriculture. Then by the 1960’s there was an excess amount of agricultural immigrants. The mechanical cotton harvester was invented and this had a tremendous impact on the Bracero program because immigrants that would come to the United States for hard labor and their dreams were shut down because now instead of them doing the work they came out with a newer and efficient way and that was the mechanical cotton harvester. This program seemed to help out a lot of impoverished families because one could go to Mexico to make some money for their family and then return to their families when their permit expires. Braceros could only go back to Mexico only if there was an emergency while they were working and had to go back to their native land immediately. Bu there was a man that wanted to change everything for impoverished Latino Americans that are not as fortunate as some people and that was Cesar Chavez. This man tried to help out farmworkers and help them achieve better lives, and in 1975 the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was passed it looked like Cesar Chavez achieved his goal and finally had an impact on farmworkers.

SB1070

SB1070 is a law that was ruled by a Supreme Court on a five – three vote and was signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010 and didn’t get put into affect until July 29, 2010. (“It requires state and local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of individuals it encounters and makes it a state crime for noncitizens to fail to carry proper immigration documentation.” (Bartlett 2010 1). SB 1070 is a concern these days because of all the negative views people get from the law passed by Jan Brewer and U.S. citizens feel like there will be a lot more unlawful arrests, racial profiling, and possibly crush families by deporting them based on skin color. This law SB 1070 is basically judging on skin color when the officer will determine if they are going to ask the detainee for their papers. Since this is a Law based in Arizona the boarder is the most common pathway migrants use to get into the United States. Millions of immigrants pass this boarder each year. Based on how this bill was passed, it targets and affects all darker colored skin people without legal documents in the United States. It not only affects the people being detained but can also ruin families and separate them forever. Most U.S. citizens say this is racial profiling and are very angered at this bill because even though a U.S. citizen might not be an “illegal” immigrant, they still maybe asked for legal documentation of the United States. If a police officer even suspects that someone does not belong here they may ask for their papers and if they cannot provide them they will be detained and arrested with the possibility of deportation. Arizona as the state is the only state with the law SB 1070 but other states such as Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have different variations of this law that is frowned upon by most people. Arizona Law Enforcement is the professional figure that strictly enforces this law but is frowned upon by some Police Departments in Arizona.
(DACA) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was passed on December 8, 2010 but was put on the shelf the very next day. But in June of 2012 the Obama administration announced that it would start accepting requests for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and would begin on August 15,2012. This law was passed because it is designed to suspend the immigration of young immigrants that came to the United States when they were age fifteen or younger. There are also a bunch of conditions that the immigrants have to abide by and must obey this bill that was passed. This Act has helped many Immigrants around the world to feel like a citizen and go to work like sixteen-year-old Nayeli Manzano she had a short simple statement she had to say which was "I feel I am a citizen, the only thing that is stopping me is a little piece of paper." (Manzano 2012 #1). Here this young woman is so proud to be granted (DACA) and now she can finely feel like an American citizen and go to work and make money for her family that suffers in poverty. This bill was the best thing that could have happened for an immigrant and probably brightened their days when they heard about (DACA).

International Standards of the Covenant
SB 1070 is in violation of the fourth amendment according to the ICCPR because they say it is “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”(Cohn 2011 pg.171). The officer would need to stop the suspicious person legally due to a minor traffic infraction or some type of criminal activity to ask for legal documentation for citizenship in the United States. The Officer cannot stop them on the basis of their skin even if they think the immigrant might be illegal. Also, I believe that that Article 6 of the covenant is in violation of human rights because it states, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life”(ICCPR 1966 #1). This simply states that every human being living in the United States has the right to live life to the fullest, and also be protected by law enforcement in an emergency. It also means that he should be able to make a standard living and his whole life shouldn’t be deprived because he cannot go get a job because no one will hire him because he is illegal. Every human that is living in the United States should have a right to standard living or not because we are all human whether illegal or not. When Prop 187 took affect it really impacted immigrants education, health care, and labor. This is one of the laws that were passed before SB1070 took place. The impact that SB 1070 has on undocumented immigrants is greatly very large. It simply puts them in constant fear of being deported each day and they cannot reach out for help if they need some type of emergency care. It is almost some type of torture to some extent because it is taking a toll on their psychological health because they are under great stress worrying if they are going to be asked for their papers. Then there is the Border patrol and there would be not much of an impact on Border patrol but it would defiantly increase more court appearances by the arresting officers. Another thing that would affect Law Enforcement would be that they would need to police officers would need to call federal agents on a regular basis to check the status of their citizenship. Legal Hispanics might also be affected due to their darker skin. They may be asked for their papers because they police officer may say that the Hispanic looks like they are here illegally just because they may live close by the boarder. What some people view as the law SB 1070 is a very much a bunch of mixed feeling on the new law that was passed because some U.S. citizens might say they do not want them here illegally and SB 1070 is great, or other people might find it an act of racial profiling, which what most people think and are offended by.
Conclusion
Throughout history one can see that immigration and the violation of human rights has been around for years and is not just modern day. Violation of Human Rights has been going on throughout the history of immigration, modern day law SB 1070, SB 1070 rules, and the impact of SB1070 on citizens. Most modern day discrimination in Arizona is on Latino and Hispanic persons because of their color of their skin. SB1070 is very close of violating this law and some solutions should be made to prevent this law from racial profiling. Some solutions that could be made that is short and sweet is simply get rid of this Law that was passed because it is just a controversial law and gets under peoples skin. Especially Hispanic or Latinos, it really singles them out because they are basically looking at the color of their skin. But getting rid of this Law would be beneficial to non-white folks because of the discrimination this law implies and how it violates human rights.