Soon
after the signing of the new Arizona immigration law, Senate Bill (SB)
1070, in April 2010, protests were reporting breaking out against the
legislation, which puts new enforcement measures in the hands of state
law-enforcement authorities against illegal immigration. According to
reports issued from the Capitol as Governor Jan Brewer was affixing her
signature to the Arizona immigration law, some 1500 demonstrators had
assembled, either in support or opposition, and did not hesitate to make
their views known as the merits of a piece of legislation which has
been both championed and denounced.
The
Arizona immigration law breakout of protests led, in some cases, to
arrests, as with the disorderly conducts charges pressed against nine
people, all college students. They had affixed themselves to the state’s
old Capitol building to symbolize the oppressive detentions which they
asserted would result from the passage of the Arizona immigration law.
The Arizona immigration law breakout of protests also included public
declarations of opposition from recognized community leaders, from both
within and without Arizona, and from such various areas as activists,
political officeholders, and religious leaders. The Arizona immigration
law breakout of protests was encouraged, for one, when Los Angeles
Cardinal Roger Mahoney compared the then-proposed, now-implemented
legislation to “Russian Communist” and “German Nazi” tactics, raising
the specter of a “police state” being created by SB 1070, an assertion
hotly disputed by the law’s supporters in the legislature and throughout
the state. Clarence Dupnik, Sheriff of Pima County, also criticized the
immigration law.
