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Maria Alvarez
CLAS 30
May 13, 2015
Senate Bill 1070
SB 1070 is a bill which was passed back in the year 2010, allowing police officers to stop
and question anyone who looks as a suspicious alien in the state of Arizona. Its rules were that
if an undocumented person were to be in this country for over 30 days, they were required to
register with the government and get documents. Also, they were required to carry these
documents at all times. Failure to do so would be a federal misdemeanor crime. The bill makes
it mandatory for police officers to check legal status of a person. “This is one of the main
differences of having SB 1070 versus not having it. Most people do not realize that police
already have the right to check on a person’s legal or illegal status” (Obama.net).
I think this is a very unfair way of trying to do things right. Arizona is being biased on
skin color by the things they have been doing. According to Amy Howe, a reporter on the
SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the U.S.) blog, “although Arizona prevailed last year at the Court in a
case involving a different effort to regulate immigration (in that case, by punishing businesses
that hire illegal immigrants), it did not fare as well this year.” This proves that the state of
Arizona has been doing this as a way of punishing illegal immigrants, but also making it big
news so people will lose hope and not even try to move to the U.S. in the first place.
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Understanding both sides of the argument to this bill is very important also. Apecsec is a
blog that talks about this bill. It is like a newspaper because this issue of the text has opinions on
both sides of the argument. It states pros and cons which will help understand both sides of the
argument. Most of the arguments I have found approve of the bill. It’s obvious there would be
more people on its side since it has more conservative ideas. Those people would rather have
more jobs available for those who are U.S. citizens instead of those who are not simply because
we can get taxed and those who don’t have papers can’t. The pros that this blog states are: illegal
immigrants need punishment, longer registration process, and illegal immigration needs control.
This bill is obviously made in order to decrease the number of immigrants living in Arizona
because there is such a high number of them. The cons to this bill are: no police guidelines, job
