Mazel tov on your new website, it is terrific!
I would like to respond to the article in your 5/21 issue regarding the new immigration bill (“JCRC, Reform rabbis decry Arizona immigration law”). I hope the negative comments came from people who actually read the bill, and I’m truly amazed that they don’t realize it is the same as the federal legislation that is not being acted on. It is also very questionable as to whether the proposed “up to 1,200 National Guard troops” will have sufficient authority to deal with any undocumented people they come in contact with.
I did agree with part of Maurice Goldman’s letter (“Polarizing immigration issue gets fair treatment in AJP”). We do need to have much better security on the border and also make changes to the current law. It is unfortunate that many people have to wait years to become legal citizens, but that is still the law until modified and it must be adhered to until changed. If you are an undocumented person, then you must return to your legal residence until documented. Legal Mexican Americans are suffering from losing jobs to undocumented persons who work for lower wages. His argument that the state should stay out of this complicated law makes no sense until the Federal law is changed. There is every indication that the changes we need must be dealt with now, and not in the unforeseeable future.
We trust our lives to our law enforcement officers, and therefore must trust them to obey the law, which prohibits profiling. Should an officer not follow the law, then he/she should be penalized.
A very similar law has been in place in Prince William County, Va., for three years with excellent results, and other Virginia counties have followed its lead.
The folks who plead that children shouldn’t be separated from their parents have a logical and ethical point. The law should be amended so that children who are born here to undocumented mothers should not become legal citizens, and should be returned to their legal residence with their mothers, therefore eliminating the separation problem.
I have heard from numerous friends throughout the country including Los Angeles, Seattle and New York who all support this bill and are horrified at the boycott threats from their cities, and hope these boycotts will be discontinued.
–Jan Fine, submitted via the web
