This past Friday, Arizona's governor signed a law that would require all immigrants to carry documents that would prove their legal status in the United States of America. Police in Arizona may also stop anyone that reasonably and suspiciously looks illegal.
The law has already started to go under fire and criticized by law officials and common people of the United States. Many will agree that this sets the United States government a few steps behind in their work for immigration stability.
Baseball is a sport dominated by talent from foreign countries. The Arizona Diamondbacks host a team filled with Hispanic talent, headlined by Miguel Montero, Tony Abreu, Rodrigo Lopez, Juan Gutierrez, and others. Now what happens to these Hispanic ball players?
Lets say, Miguel Montero hits a walk-off home run broadcast across the world. He's Arizona's hero for the night. The team decides to celebrate and hit a bar afterwards. Montero is not in his baseball uniform and is stopped by police and asked for papers.
What has this country come to where Latinos and other notable immigrants are racially profiled in order to track down illegal immigrants? Montero was just on television as a baseball player and hero, the next second he is stopped for ID and papers! That was just an example of how out of hand this law could get.
It seems like every foreign athlete that has Arizona on their schedule will have to pack up more than just his uniform and equipment, but also throw in the legal documents stating their fine to stay in the United States.
The Phoenix Suns have Robin Lopez on their team. Sure, he was born in the United States and his family is American, but he looks Hispanic. If he's discriminated and is asked for papers, don't you think it would be insulting? Lopez was born in Hollywood, California and is being mistaken for an illegal immigrant. The same goes for common legal people that will be stopped in Arizona. There will be an insult behind the discrimination.
You may say that all sports stars are familiar to people, but it is not the public that will be stopping the "suspiciously looking illegal immigrant." The police force has been bestowed with that task and who knows what that police officer may or may not know about sports.
Sports stars have families too. Some like Jose Contreras in the past, bring their families to the United States. Contreras' family arrived at U.S. shores in 2004 and were dreaming of a better life. What would happen if this law gets out of hand and expands to other states? Contreras probably has his family nearby in the United States, what if Philadelphia puts this law into effect. Contreras' family might be sent back to Cuba. Imagine that. Families are going to be torn apart by this law.
What this law is doing is creating fear. People currently fear going to Arizona and asked for papers and not having anything to show. You may not believe you look like an illegal immigrant, but a policeman there might. So you don't know whether or not to carry such papers.
America has established a profile for what an illegal immigrant looks like. The only problem is that in order to know what this illegal looks like you have to discriminate and make sometimes false accusations.
What does this illegal immigrant look like? Does it look like Miguel Montero? What about Robin Lopez? We do not know. But apparently the lawmakers in Arizona know what this illegal immigrant looks like.
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