Dear Art & Chris,

This week the state legislature passed a particularly strong anti-immigration bill, one thought to be the most severe in the country. It would require police officers to ask for identification for anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. Not carrying identifying documents would be a misdemeanor. Should I sign this bill?
-Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona

Jan,

Go ahead and sign it. We’re pretty sick of Arizona being an influential state and from our calculations if you got rid of all the Mexicans you would have about the population of a small town in Montana. Then we wouldn’t have to put up with all the whiny retirees and whatever describes your other senator. We also look forward to all of your lawns being painfully overgrown. Furthermore, it’s Arizona, what are all you motherfuckers doing with lawns? Anything but dust and cow skulls in front of your houses should be illegal.


This law is going to do a lot more than tie up your police from doing important police work; it will also tie up your attorney general’s office defending this law from the litany of legal challenges. It requires police to demand documentation from anyone they suspect to be illegal so you’ve basically just codified racial profiling. Also, the requirement allows citizens to sue the state if they don’t think their local police are enforcing the law sufficiently. If some crazy old lady sees too many Mexicans at the supermarket, which is likely because we want to remind you this is the state of Arizone we’re talking about, she can sue the state. This might be a positive because your state is full of retirees who don’t have a lot to do with their time.

If you guys hate illegal immigrants so much maybe you should live in a state that doesn’t border Mexico. There are 46 states that don’t touch Mexico several of whom would probably be happy you guys. Don’t move to Illinois though, they have more Mexicans than you, we were shocked too. Come on people, this is land we took from Mexico in a war, it’s unreasonable to think there might not be some living there still. Or even some people who would want go back after all this time. It would be like Massachusetts deciding they didn’t want uptight English people there anymore. There aren’t any laws about that either.

This is not only laughable but it’s clearly a cheap grab votes in the conservative base. You’ve basically made it illegal for a person with dark skin to leave their wallet at home. You’re going to create a culture of fear in the poor areas of your state, more than exists already. This is foolish lawmaking and if you sign it you might get quick cheap points on talk radio but you’ll end up giving them all back as the judicial branches of this country hack away at the law over the next several years. If you want fewer immigrants build an economy that doesn’t require so much immigrant labor to function. We grant that that doesn’t looks as spiffy on a bumper sticker.