With the Senate Bill 1070 passed on April 23, 2010 by Jan Brewer, its (Republican) governor, the whole country has been divided on the subject of racial profiling, the violation of civil rights as we know it and rightly so, as this law moves away from the beliefs on which the nation of the United States came into being.
As demeaning as this law can turn out to be, especially for Mexicans and Hispanics as a whole, who can and will be checked for personal identification to prove that he or she is a citizen on the basis of mere suspicion, one can’t help but be reminded of the gradual erosion of rights that each citizen in the United States has had to trade away for ‘safety’ over the last few years.
Mexico, on the other hand, is also divided in its opinion as well. The politicians in Congress consider this law as fascistic and racist, while for the common man, this has turned out to be a reason to celebrate in watching the ones who ‘left the Motherland’ under the threat of constant scrutiny, although unnecessarily in some cases.
Even though Arizona and Mexico engage in serious trade, this law has come across as one “that assumes that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without reason”. And that is where the Mexican government has drawn the line.
While activists on this side of the border want the Mexican government to respond with stringent actions of their own, it still remains to be seen whether this law can exist in a time when freedom means more than ever.
