Arizona’s Immigration Law: Why demand papers when you can demand arm badges?

Today, Gov. Janice Brewer (R-AZ) signed an immigration bill which requires law enforcement to demand immigration papers from anyone who they have a “reasonable suspicion” is in the country illegally. Asking someone to carry around papers is cruel and unusual. How are people expected to not forget or misplace them? A much more humane and efficient policy would be requiring people to wear arm bands stating their immigration status. There could be different symbols for different statuses. For example, a star could symbolize U.S. born, a triangle could symbolize naturalized citizen. Of course this is no guarantee either, as arm labels can fall off or get lost too. So if need be, we can consider some kind of permanent branding. Perhaps a numbers system that indicates a person’s origins?

Tags: Arizona, Governor, Janice Brewer, law-enforcement, United States

Born and raised on the mean streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comedian, blogger, filmmaker and history teacher based in New York. Katie co-founded the political comedy collect ...read more