Arizona’s new immigration law is a poorly-considered disaster in the making for people of color, National Urban League president and CEO Marc H. Morial said today.
“It’s an enormous setback,” Morial said. “There is no indication this law will have any effect on the problem it was designed to fix. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of innocent, legal residents of Arizona are vulnerable to harassment, detention and imprisonment based on nothing more than the perception of their ethnicity.”
The National Urban League is working closely with Urban League of Greater Phoenix, under the leadership of George Dean, along with the Tucson Urban League and its CEO, Jonathan Peck, to respond to the law and protect Arizona’s communities of color from harassment.
“Most people who are in this country legally, including natural-born citizens, don’t carry with them anything to prove their legal status,” Morial said. “I doubt that most of the members of the Arizona legislature could prove their residency status if they were stopped on the street at any given moment. Would they be detained, possibly jailed, while their status is determined? Most likely it would depend upon the color of their skin.”
Morial said the law should be repealed or overturned at the first opportunity.
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