American citizenship, Arizona & SB 1070

Arizona now becomes the U.S. cultural experiment for police state practices.  While due process attempts to self-manage are scorned by the Obama Administration, it does not mean Washington will deliver a better standard by moral comparison.

In a cruel twist of irony, Arizona opted out of Real ID by way of SB 1070



A BTC Exclusive

Today is a very treacherous time for the identified person in America. The identified person navigates a world which seems to take advantage of our preoccupation with basic survival. It takes an impossibly sharp individual or someone who has a uniquely comprehensive vantage point to catch all of the lines being tossed over the American giant by a ubiquitous 1%. The little cowards of Lilliput on Wall Street have somehow put bits in the mouths of the Congressional oxen and the rest is political theater. They coerce and dangle this carrot and that carrot: Immigration or Climate reform, now or later. As if it depends completely on them to do anything at all.

We look at Arizona as a bad example. For many painful years Arizona tried its best, waiting on Godot, for federal lawmakers to deal with Immigration. Meanwhile, death and deprivations prevailed in the name of business as usual. Criminal migration translated daily to modern indentured servitude, human slavery and black market trafficking. Arizonans lost patience with federal can-kicking. They were overburdened with the pains of economic and cultural imbalances. The answers were elusive over whether or not to seal the border with the National Guard currently deployed to Iraq. Washington, and it’s two-team football politics, could not be trusted any longer to address desperate, everyday needs of Arizona’s citizens and its migrants. Arizona took matters into their own hands.

Arizona has seemingly opted out of recognizing citizens rights over their new immigration law. The unfortunate truth is the practice of questioning citizenship, screening travellers and those in businesses has been in practice for years in ICE's LEAR program. SB 1070 is simply redundant to many local law enforcement agencies. The Arizona Sheriffs Association opposed SB 1070 because local complaintants may file lawsuits against local police departments with claims federal immigration laws are not being enforced. Protections were factored in the bill late for vindictive and frivolous lawsuits.

Laws like SB 1070 alter the role of the federal immigration enforcement officer on the ground. The range of their job description is swiftly changing due to programs like Secure Communities and E-Verify. These multiplying laws, policies and programs sustain a chorus of practices to randomly demand citizenship and identity for anyone police may approach in the line of duty.

A strange irony is that an amendment to reject national ID policies was written into SB 1070 before its passage through the Arizona Senate.

The calculations of this desperate State failed reason as they reached for a bill creating a dragnet for all citizens. Regardless of the desperation felt, no State has the right to overreach the basic rights of the American citizen. SB 1070 is a miserable excuse for economic and social justice to the residents and citizens of Arizona. It is now prime for the misfortune of American travellers to be ensnared in this dragnet. There was a moderate path. There was a Constitutional path. It was just not the path the State of Arizona chose for those present within its borders.

Arizona now becomes the U.S. cultural experiment for police state practices.  While due process attempts to self-manage are scorned by the Obama Administration, it does not mean Washington will deliver a better standard by moral comparison. The football field length differences between saying and doing in Washington strike fear into those who want careful attention paid to a horrifically complicated issue. Immigration taken up now is risky business. If Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) becomes a botched political science experiment it could blow apart the nation. There are recognizable merits to the proposed CIR legislation. The mandate for a biometric ID card as a condition to work in America is not one of those merits.

Real ID/PASS ID regulations were beaten back by 25 States, including Arizona, who refused a national identity mandate. It is clear the 111th Congress is not hearing America: no national ID. Whether it’s Arizona or Washington, an arbitrary ask for citizenship papers still violates the 4th Amendment and abuses identity.


IMMIGRATION, POPULATION AND ENUMERATION


Working Americans are taxed to finance government shops and operations.  Reasonably enough, we should become acquainted with the constituency who wants to mandate a National ID card for use at every transaction in civil society.  Not just one card, but several national ID card programs. What is their compelling argument to justify a "stop and frisk" for every American? Why should we annul our 4th Amendment rights as Americans for this minority? First, we get the words of our government’s corporate sponsors.

In a militarized society, identity may be a life and death matter. However, there is no such justification in peace-time for national identity. Unfortunately, the exceptionalism of the Bush-Cheney years continues to push National Security as Homeland Security. If a legislation like the federal budget or a bill thick with security technology mandates doesn’t pass for appropriations, public-private contractors lose their place in Washington’s entitlement line. In order for the purchase orders to continue rolling out, there must be an imminent threat to the security of the Continental U.S. Next, no bid contractor-cronies, like Xe and the Chertoff Firm, fulfill orders to provide one-sided service to the American taxpayers. Somehow purging “border-invaders” from our midst was found convenient enough for special interests to sell a more safe and secure nation to Conservative America and to justify an appropriations push in D.C.

A few lobbies supplanting anti-immigrant policy closely associated with the Conservative Right are the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Numbers U.S.A and FAIR. All three organizations are treated as one of the gang during CPAC conventions. What most Conservatives don’t know is that all three have also been funded, in part or entirely, by global green depopulists (malthusians), John Tanton and the Pioneer Fund. These funders are directly linked to the White Supremacy movement and modern eugenics. The same constituency calls for depopulation of two-thirds of the world’s humanity. Groups like Californians for Population Stabilization claim immigrants are responsible for overpopulating North America. They advocate very tough criminal penalties for being present in America without legal immigration status, exemplified by Arizona’s SB 1070. The United Nation’s Agenda 21 is another example of globalized work groups attempting to legislate who migrates and reproduces in the North American continent in context of ecological conservation.



The very same propeller heads [CIS, FAIR and Numbers U.S.A.] lobby every variety of National ID: TWIC, E-Verify, Real ID/PASS ID, and the proposed biometric worker card mandate in CIR. Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer seem to refuse the prospect of decoupling immigration reform from a National ID card. If we look at recent world history, the national ID card was a very effective tool for population control in fascist Europe during war time and civil unrest. ID cards and arbitrary demand for “papers” start the criminalization of the identified person based on systemic categorization. Enumerated categorization of races and ethnicities are an effective tactic in singling out individuals for genocide. The 2010 Census seems like a much different prospect in light of who is trying to systemically “thin the herds” of North America’s human populaces.


WARDS OF THE STATE

Washington’s current direction for national identity is at odds with civil libertarians holding ground over their 4th Amendment. National identification, such as the social security number, is abused daily for commercial purposes. So much so, the individual becomes confused, careless and sometimes even defeated in evaluating which information is actually private. Maintaining privacy and personal boundaries is a constant battle for the identified American.

Examples of persons currently at the mercy of government agencies to manage their citizenship articles are wards of the state: foster care recipients, residents of State hospitals, prisoners, and some military personnel. A fully functional adult who is required to ask the State whether or not they can buy groceries, go to the doctor, operate a vehicle or open a bank account temporarily experiences what it might be like to be a ward of the State. In this situation, complicity is a currency for resources required to survive. Mandates for State recognized identity create a loophole some will abuse by failing to recognize an individual's basic humanity.  In an increasingly dystopian society, inadequately identified human beings become disposable assets to the State. That’s a pretty hefty penalty for those labeled incorrectly.

The most basic of human rights are access to food, clean water, clothing, shelter and a way to earn a living or means to procure these things in order to survive. Ratcheting up the bar, American citizens  wake up every day with the right to be secure in their personal effects, their papers and their property. We are protected by the 4th Amendment.

The State of Arizona enacts SB 1070 law in August. The policy for citizens will be the same then as it has been for years. Police question travellers at Arizona checkpoints and ask “Sir/Ma’am, are you a citizen?”

If the answer is “Yes” that’s where Arizona stops and American rights start.