CINCO DE MAYO.....AND THE NEW ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW..........

Today, May 5th, or "Cinco de Mayo", is a great day of celebration for the Mexican people, including our very own Mexican-American citizens. This year it comes just days after Arizona has passed and the Governor signed a controversial legislative bill that not only seriously cracks down on illegal immigration into Arizona from Mexico, but sets off another cycle of racial profiling, as Arizona police will be empowered by the new law to suspect and question legal Mexican-American citizens, as though they were illegal immigrants. Protests, boycotts, and resounding criticism has risen to the fore from the White House to City Hall, down to neighborhoods an workplaces throughout much of our country. Sacramento Mayor Kevi Johnson, himself a former NBA Phoenix Suns basketball player, came out against the new law last Wednesday and then after a telephone conversation with Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, reversed his position on the very same day, in a display of blatant political flipflopping. Sacramento Bee opinion columnist, Marcos Breton in his well written column today, discussed this whole issue with superb insight. His writing about former Judge Raul Ramirez's outspoken and negative response to the Arizona Immigration Act 2010, was particularly well included. Judge Ramirez during his years on the bench, was no soft soap lenient judge when it came to illegal immigration, thus he has very credible credentials from which to speak. Good Law should be necessary and provide a fair, equitable, just, and unbiased, resolution to a serious problem. It should not feed or enact as legal and permissable - racist, prejudicial, discriminatory, and immoral, attitudes or political posturing. The Arizona state and the federal courts, and most likely the United States Supreme Court, will ultimately decide the the fate of this new illegal immigration act. Illegal immigration is a serious problen needing to be effectively and equitably in all states that border Mexico and its underbelly Central and South America. The necessary laws, enforcement, and immigration reform that fairly serves the berst interests of all must be arrived at in a partnership with the United States and Mexico. How assiduously is the Mexican Government pursuing border control and illegal immigration given the current political, economic, and social unrest, problems they are contending with ? Until we begin honestly and ethically dealing with the problem of illegal immigration it will continue to fester. Arizona's latest attempts does not solve the problem, but rather enflames it and the negative, shortsighted, and xenophobic, inclinations of a sad percentage of our fellow citizens 40-50 years after our country seemed to arrest if not eradicate racial divisions and prejudicial attitudes against any color, country, culture, or creed. We can only continue to pray and work for the unity and progress of all peoples and the inherent human dignity they possess as God's creatures.....HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO IN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM AND FAIRNESS,
Fr. Troy David Powers