An Analysis of Immigration in Constitutional Law-Arizona SB 1070 Research Paper

An Analysis of Immigration in Constitutional Law-Arizona SB 1070 - Research Paper Example During its introduction to the Arizona Senate, this legislation aroused a lot of reactions, both support and rejection for its breadth and strictness in curbing illegal immigration. In fact, in recent historical times, the Arizona SB 1070 is perhaps the strictest of U.S immigration laws. Consequent to its strictness, the legislative Act did not only receive domestic reactions but also international attention and criticism. As a matter of fact, the Arizona SB 1070, like the other anti-illegal immigration laws faces a lot of challenges with regard to civil rights, constitutionality, legislatively, and enforceability. Id. Moreover, the law also faces serious social issue challenges. For instance, concerning civil liberties, the law has been opposed due to its condition that 14-year old aliens staying in the country for more than thirty days should register with the government and must possess their documents wherever they go. The legislation has also been criticized for promoting racial discrimination and profiling. As a result of these controversies, which resulted in different types of boycotts, the law was amended in the first week of its being signed into law. Id. This paper explores immigration in constitutional law in the United States, specifically focusing on the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (Arizona SB 1070). ... Beginning in the 1790 when the Congress passed the racially instigated Naturalization Act, which categorized citizens as whites, a lot has happened concerning citizenship and immigration in the country. Fortunately, these racial laws were rendered unconstitutional after the Civil War when the Naturalization Act was successfully challenged. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act, also known as the Nationality Act of 1952 was established as the basis of all immigration and citizenship laws in the U.S. Though the law initially restricted the number of immigrants of a given nationality moving into the U.S every year, this was later changed when the Congress passed a law giving preferences to skilled immigrants. More developments would come in the subsequent decades when immigration laws allowed certified refugees and others who flee to the U.S for one reason of the other to have immigrant status. Id. Nonetheless, controversies have remained part of U.S immigration laws, as attested by the Immi grant Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Immigration Act of 1990. Those pitted against one another in these controversies are federal and state governments, socioeconomic and political classes, and civil right activists. For instance, civil right groups opposed the California's Proposition 187 of 1994, which proposed to deny illegal immigrants schooling and medical care, which seemed to have targeted immigrants of Mexican and Latin American descent. Id. Civil right groups asserted that while the government failed to improve poor working conditions that only Latin American and Mexican laborers could work on, it insisted on denying these immigrants their rights such as education and health while they worked