Arizona Republic: Immigration bill holds high price

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic editorial opinion today is on point. Immigration bill holds high price:

Arizona faces sticker shock and buyer's remorse if Gov. Jan Brewer signs the immigration bill on her desk.

The bill is not an answer to a long-standing failure of the feds to fix the border.

It will not stop illegal immigration. To do that, the federal government needs to pass immigration reform that imposes order at the border, creates a legal flow of needed workers and helps bring the nation's undocumented workforce out of the shadows.

This bill does none of that.

If the governor signs it, this bill will cost the state in many ways.

The price tag:

• Mounting divisiveness in a state that should be pulling together out of its economic hole.

• Negative national media that includes biting satire and jaw-dropping characterizations of Arizona as land of backward people and oddball notions.

• Economic boycotts, including one called for by our own U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, who says conventions, businesses and tourists should punish his state for "discriminatory policies."

• Lost economic-development opportunities, which will include companies that find Arizona's new apartheid image to be incompatible with their mission, as well as lost opportunities to increase commercial ties with Mexico – something other states are actively pursuing.

• Lost revenue as legal Mexican tourists, who spent $2.7 billion in Arizona in a recent year, decide to shop elsewhere.

• Unknown legal costs to defend the bill in court.

• Unknown costs to local law enforcement, which will face lawsuits for racial profiling if they make immigration control their top priority, as the bill mandates, and lawsuits from bill supporters if police show too little enthusiasm for their new duties.

This bill won't stop illegal immigration. But it sure will add to the crushing costs of illegal immigration Arizona already carries disproportionately for the nation.

Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who was just appointed to fill the position he previously held for 16 years, says Arizona needs a bill to address the problems illegal immigration creates in our state. Just not this bill.

He calls on the governor to veto SB 1070 and work with the Legislature to find common ground on a better approach. This bill, he says, "is tearing apart" our community.

Yes. It is. And that very unproductive division of our community into "us vs. them" will only get worse if the bill becomes law.

That's another cost Gov. Brewer can avert by vetoing this bill.