Show Me Your Papers

Alabama is the new Arizona. After a judge decided that the state’s anti-immigration law doesn’t contradict federal laws, authorities can now visit public schools to verify the status of children. Also, motorists can be detained if there is “reasonable suspicion,” and if the immigrant doesn’t have his or her papers on hand, it is considered a misdemeanor. Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama assured that he will apply the “strongest immigration law in the country.” Using immigrants as a piñata is back in season.

The Republican primaries have brought the debate to a boiling point. The future of 11 million undocumented immigrants is an issue that attracts votes. Or drives them away. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, a former favorite in the polls, took a dive for supporting a law that allows undocumented students to go to state universities with enrollment preferences. “We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society,” said Perry, a candidate that makes the few hairs I have left stand up. But here (perhaps by accident) he has a point.

It is clear. The U.S. must solve its immigration problem; but hunting people down is not the correct path: The Pew Research Center indicates that 3/5 of all undocumented immigrants have been in the country for over 10 years. There are more than six and a half million people that have been ingrained in the economic apparatus and could pay taxes. If they had papers. Hence, integral reform is needed to open a fair path. The solution is not to close doors and build walls, but instead to drive the human capital that we immigrants represent.

And while sentences are raised for immigration offenses (35 percent of serious cases handled by the courts are immigration related, and 90 percent of these involve Latinos) the White House and Congress look the other way. Obama promised reform in the first year of his term and didn’t deliver. Blaming Republicans as saboteurs has been his excuse, but in reality, after Obama suffered on other issues, the debate didn’t even come up.

Other states are following Alabama. The result will be a patchwork of local laws and perhaps a decision by the Supreme Court. And meanwhile the politicians continue to hit the piñata. Without solving the problem.