As much as I wish it was not the only thing on my mind, the Arizona law is making me wonder if this hype is a whole lot of nothing. Obviously I think the potential problems are quite far reaching… but the more I think about it the harder of a time I have accepting racial aspect of it. To provide a petty example, my dad owned candy stores when I was growing up. One of them was by the World Trade Center. Several days after the terrorist attacks in 2001, my dad went down to check on his store- he did not even question bringing every possible form of identification with him. There were blockades but residents and business owners were allowed entry after a certain amount of time to their residence or place of business. When my dad showed the police officers his id, the officer said, “woahhh, that doesn’t look good” My dad laughed about it and said that he was too old to be a terrorist. He could laugh about it because he had all the necessary paperwork and had been, for a long time, a loyal American citizen.

That’s not to say that everyone who is here now would not like to become a citizen, it is just that now it is more difficult than ever to become one. The immigration system is a mess. It is so backed up and disorganized, I can’t understand why anyone would even want to come here. The administrative hassle and backlog seem insurmountable. Honestly, if you want to get out of where you are, for your own sake, just move to Canada.

Any additional burdens placed on the overburdened immigration system will be tremendously problematic. Any law that puts and extra burden on the immigration system should not be enacted until the immigration system is fixed.

IT’s way too easy to point the finger at the Department of Homeland security- What highly controversial security related function is not under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security? If we look at it, terrorism, immigration, emergency relief (FEMA) are all under the Department of Homeland Security. And the department is pretty young (was not created until 2001). I don’t know if this sounds crazy to anyone else, but for all intents and purposes it feels like Janet Napolitano might as well be the US’ whipping boy. Maybe anyone that takes that job is just a fool… In New York, DHS is taking the blame for cuts in our federal security funding. FEMA- not exactly the image of competence is under the guidance of DHS.

Within immigration alone, DHS handles border security, immigration enforcement, applications for asylum, applications for work visas, traveler entry forms and the US coastguard.