The passage of some provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration bill —SB 1070—in late July has sparked many people to actively demonstrate their feelings. Those opposed to the bill argue that under this law people will be detained owing simply to their ethnicity and skin color. It affects all Latin Americans in general but Mexicans and Central Americans in particular.

Those in favor of the bill such as its author Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican from Mesa, maintain that the law is necessary because the state of Arizona has a right to defend itself from the “invasion” of illegal immigrants crossing its borders, which, according to them, the Federal Government is doing nothing to stop.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who supports the bill, was quoted in the New York Times as stating that the law “…provides an indispensable tool for the police in a border state…”

For SB 1070 opponents, El Tecolote included, the content of this bill is clearly racist as it provokes racial profiling against the Latin American community of Arizona. It would convert legal residents into police targets, similar to those residents who are here without documentation. It does not target the thousands of European, Canadian and other white immigrants whose legal status quietly changes when their visas expire.

We are concerned that this seriously flawed and anti-civil rights regulation will set a precedent for other states with substantial or growing Latin American populations. Do we want local police to behave like Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who contemptuously carried out existing immigration laws with indiscriminate raids before any criminal investigations took place? Arizona is already responsible for 25 percent of national deportations under the notorious Arpaio. The good news is that the Department of Justice has just filed a lawsuit against Arpaio for refusing to cooperate with their investigations into civil rights violations against Latin Americans.

Within this contentious panorama appears the figure of United States Federal Judge Susan Bolton whose verdict temporarily blocked key parts of SB1070 from moving forward. These include prohibiting state and local authority from initiating verification of migrant status based solely on the suspicion of illegal status, as well as arresting without a judicial order, with the argument that these arrests could result in unlawful deportations. At the moment, the state of Arizona cannot detain persons that have been arrested for other crimes while they are checking immigration status. The state of Arizona cannot use the provision of the law to convert the illegal status of an immigrant into a crime. In her verdict, Judge Bolton established that these provisions could result in the arrest and round-ups of Americans, legal residents and foreign tourists. Bolton’s verdict also put a hold the SB1070 provision that would have made it illegal for immigrants to solicit work in public places—a clear attack on day laborers.

However, beyond the heated debate surrounding SB 1070, there lies a much deeper and more serious reality: the human suffering of those who are being deported, many of whom anguish over the separation from their children. El Tecolote wants to know what happens to the children born here when their parents are deported? Who then becomes responsible for them? Will it be the Arizona foster care system, which is already struggling to address the needs of 10,000 children?

As a newspaper that has always faithfully served the interests of the Latin American community for the last 40 years, El Tecolote wishes to express our solidarity with our Latin American brothers and sisters of Arizona who are suffering the frightening backlash this racist legislation and also with all immigrants who are in similar situations around the world.

For hundreds of years immigrants have provided the backbreaking labor that has built and strengthened many global industries. In the U.S., immigrant labor built the mega agribusiness and helped to stabilize untold numbers of local restaurants.

Let’s face it, the economy is bankrupt and many people are out of work and suffering. But to scapegoat Latin American immigrants as the cause of the problem and create SB1070 and similar measures is not the answer, it will only beget more problems.

El Tecolote says, let’s target the real problem: the corporations who have closed down their unionized shops in the U.S., devastating entire cities, and moved to developing countries where they are free of labor protection and environmental laws. President Obama needs to be known as the leader who held corporate power accountable instead of the top dog of deportations.

For us no person is “illegal” and we call for a just immigration policy that protects the rights of all immigrants and acknowledges their tremendous contributions to building this country.