Today, July 28, is when new immigration law, SB1070, takes effect

It's been some time since the new law came before Governor Janet Brewer and she signed it into law. Since then I have seen a number of changes in Arizona. First let me say that a judge right now is trying to decide what the outcome will be of the Federal Government's law suit against Arizona and SB1070. Surprisingly some parts of the law will be retained we have already learned. Some of it is expected to be deemed illegal.
The biggest change I have noticed is the fact that illegals no longer feel as welcome as they did before after crossing the border and coming here to a 'new life.' A number of illegals have packed up and left the state hoping to find more hospitable homes in some other state, but perhaps not realizing that attitudes there are beginning to harden, too, about accommodating people who are in our country illegally. I feel that a good deal of their pain has been caused by the federal government not acting when it was plain immigration laws were being violated by such a large number of people crossing the border constantly. It was as though every refugee in the world was running to the border states to cross while the US was still so hospitable to illegals.
Naturally any kind of crackdown was going to cause upset and pain to any people who had in years past been safe once they settled here with nobody seeming to notice their presence. That must have seemed like heaven to some of these poor people who had gambled on leaving difficult conditions and sometimes even dire poverty in their own country to come north. But these years of unchecked illegal crossings for many were bound to come to an end sooner or later. And now those still without any legal status are caught in the crunch. My perception is that a number did not even try to get green cards with which they will not be deported, but counted on favorable conditions remaining the same.
So in a sense that world has ended for illegals. Now is a time of turmoil, paranoia, and upset.
I blame the Presidents and congress for not acting so that so many would not be so affected. It is not a good thing to be good to people when you can't afford it. When eventually there was going to be a rebellion as there has been in Arizona.
I supported SB1070 because of having lived 20 years in a 90 percent Mexican area and seeing how violent those poor neighborhoods were trying to adjust to the constant influx of illegals. Not many of Hispanic origins were going to raise an outcry because their own ancestors may have settled here and been illegal for years. But when peaceful neighborhoods got increasingly more violent, constant gun fire, crimes going on that are naturally going to happen in an unsettled population, everyone was hurting. It was an eyeopener to me to deal with constant gunfire around my apartment complex, and this went on for years. I am very sure those neighborhoods have gotten even more violent.
A man told me that his sister and her husband who migrated from Mexico years ago and were able to buy their own little home are now surrounded with such violence they feel trapped. Nobody is going to buy their home. I inquired and discovered they lived in the same neighborhood where I lived. He said he moved downtown from another HUD complex close by where he hardly dared go out and walk around. He is so relieved to be living downtown he keeps saying how happy he is. Not hearing gunfire on a daily basis affects him the same way it did me.
I would be petrified one of my kids would get shot when they left the house. My son told me you did not get shot on the basketball court and before the year was out, somebody was shot and killed on a basketball court close by for purposes of robbery. I was so relieved when members of my family and I were finally able to leave those violent neighborhoods for good. I have to say that I found the gunfire in that neighborhood intolerable and I felt that it would never calm down until something was done about illegal immigration.
In more ways than one the numbers of illegals were keeping these neighborhoods in constant turmoil. So not only did they have homegrown violence but they had violent criminality from Mexico to contend with. I would say that for every peaceful illegal just wanting a job there is one who wanted to take advantage of the drug action, some way, any way, and all the drug trafficking to Mexico was infecting the young, everybody in the neighborhood. I would say that the first thing that needs to be done to tackle drug trafficking more effectively is control immigration.
I talked to a lot of people while living in my complex and heard many stories, some of which I have already recounted in my blog, so was able to see how vulnerable women for example would be constantly pulled into a relationship to help out an illegal. There was always interaction with Mexico. With so many no family would go untouched by illegal immigration.
The people could not do anything about it. The changes had to come from higher up, from government and law enforcement realizing just what illegal immigration was doing to the citizens. It was lowering the standards of living for everybody, and there was no control over Mexico. It just seemed to be an absurd thing for the US to be on the receiving end of so many people unable to find an acceptable life in Mexico. This was bound to end at some point, at a point when the US would start to resemble Mexico in trying to sustain a population made unstable by the constant flow of illegals. Think of it, and then you might be able to imagine just what that could and did do to neighborhoods.
Some have suggested perhaps Mexico needs to conquer the US and then the problem would be solved or the US Mexico? I do think congress has lacked members for years who really wanted to work on this knotty problem. They would evade it, put it off, turn a blind eye to it. The politicians are always afraid if they tackle a big problem it will make them unpopular somehow and they will not be re-elected. So they are always going to wait until after election to do anything. Nobody ever put a top priority on this problem, or at least not until now. So Arizona has been in a sense the villain, who may be punished by the US Federal government for doing it, to finally take drastic enough measures to make a dent.
Yes, illegals are scared. And they are just people who took a chance that so many before them have done and succeeded. I feel the sorriest for the kids, for it is hard to feel you are not wanted. But this happens when laws are passed, immigration is supposed to be achieved lawfully, and then the breaking of the law by an astronomical number of people is simply ignored. Congress members don't want to be reminded. Oh that, well we are going to have to address that someday.
But if you neglect dealing with a problem for years, you raise the hopes of many who have indeed been rewarded for coming into the country illegally. Cracking down hurts! What hurts children and families hurts us all.
It is very sad, but Mexico is at last beginning to act as though illegal immigration has finally gotten the attention of the American PEOPLE. And when enough of the citizens pay attention they are probably not going to just forget all about it this time. Until change is affected. Now people are seeing that their neighborhoods, their cities are going to be affected with more refugees than they can handle. And so I believe that pressure will continue to be put on the illegals crossing the border in as many ways as possible, to try to get the flow, the flood, down to a more reasonable trickle.
The US can't be the hope and dream of every poor Mexican. If they all had to go through the process of entering the country lawfully and striving for legal status, most of them would not do it. And with things like amnesty they have been rewarded for illegal entry. If you reward people for breaking the law, you sure aren't going to get respect for the law. Something wrong with that thinking. What is wrong with being born into a country and then working there to improve things. For what fate is it that causes us to be born in one country and not in another? It looks as though many Mexicans feel they were born in the wrong place and need to get up here to the right place.
I think that if you made up your mind this was your home since you were born there and you had to make the most of it, you might work harder to better the country like all the other people are doing, those who don't come north. You might control the size of your family better to fit the living you could make for them.
Mexicans who believe they will be able to live better if they come north as illegals are going to come if that proves to be so. That is human nature, so in a sense the American dream could be said to have robbed Mexico of some of her most enterprising people who left it because they saw it as easier to make a living up north.
Discouraging immigration is going to put Mexico in a bind. Putting any kind of dent in illegal drug trafficking is going to work hardship. So there will continue to be a great struggle for the people who have made up the illegals, both here and if restrained, in Mexico.