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Border patrol agent in the Arizona desert. Photograph: George Steinmetz/Corbis
Your papers, please: border patrol agents in the Arizona desert. Photograph: Corbis
Your papers, please: border patrol agents in the Arizona desert. Photograph: Corbis

Arizona's anti-immigrant law: the inevitable result

This article is more than 13 years old
Arizona's anti-immigrant law is wide open to abuse – and a law-abiding US citizen is predictably the first to suffer from it

We can expect a deluge of stories such as this: only a matter of hours after Arizona's borderline-racist and almost certainly unconstitutional law targeting immigrants was signed by the state's governor, a US citizen is the first to experience life under the new law.

The man, a truck driver, was arrested and handcuffed in Phoenix after he was asked to produce identification.

Here's the coverage from Arizona television channel 3TV:

Abdon was told he did not have enough paperwork on him when he pulled into a weigh station to have his commercial truck checked. He provided his commercial driver's license and a social security number but ended up handcuffed.

An agent called his wife and she had to leave work to drive home and grab other documents like his birth certificate.

Jackie explains, "I have his social security card as well and mine. He's legit. It's the first time it's ever happened."

Both were born in the United States and say they are now both infuriated that keeping important documents safely at home is no longer an option.

Naturally, immigration officials said: "this has nothing to do with the proposed bill or racial profiling". And of course it doesn't, because the reality is likely to be much worse. Rather than merely ICE officers demanding ID from likely immigrants, once the law comes into force then any state officer can do the same of anyone, at any time. Here's the video from 3TV:

As even the right-leaning blog Little Green Footballs comments: "An honest American citizen is handcuffed and forced to show a birth certificate, in a harbinger of what to expect when Arizona's absurd immigration laws go into effect".

Various organisations are considering boycotts of Arizona, including a coalition of owner-operated truck drivers. And in another tack, sports journalist (and sometime Cif America contributor) Dave Zirin is urging a boycott of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. Zirin notes that:

Representative Raul Grijalva, who's from Arizona itself, has called for a national boycott against the state, saying, "Do not vacation and or retire there." He got so many hateful threats this week that he had to close his Arizona offices at noon on Friday.

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