Regarding recent letters about national IDs and the new Arizona law, I take exception to the comment: “If you cannot prove who you are, you need to be detained.”
I disagree. The onus shouldn’t be on someone to prove their innocence. This law essentially makes people responsible for proving their innocence everywhere they go, whatever they’re doing. That’s something that’s supposed to be assumed of us.
There was another letter insisting that English proficiency should be required.
Don’t delude yourself. This won’t alleviate anything, particularly for people who already struggle with English proficiency. What it will do is make people who won’t be impacted by it at all feel better about themselves because things were made more difficult for other people for absolutely no reason.
Forgive me, but I just don’t understand how allowing Spanish on our ATM machines, or providing forms in multiple languages, is somehow threatening to the American way of life. Someone please explain this to me. Have we really become that xenophobic and insular?
Migration, leaving where you are from in order to find a better life for your kids, is a pretty basic human impulse and it’s been a constant through human history. I admire people who risk much to improve their lot in life. I find it honorable. I like to think that I would have the courage to do the same if it ever became necessary.
And while I do agree that a way must be found to normalize the status of our current immigrant population, creating an “us against them” conflict by further criminalizing them is not the way. It will only end up hurting us all.
Crystal Knight
Everett
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