The one where it sticks in my craw

When you live and work in a foreign country whether long time or short, after a while, the paranoia eases, and you stop carrying your passport everywhere you go.  Given enough time further and you eventually stop worrying about having your "green card" on you all the time as well.  Yes, it is a law that foreigners must carry their official ID at all times, but in the 13 years I have lived in Korea, the only people that have ever asked for it are the banks when I'm wiring money to the States and the immigration people when I'm coming and going from the country.  I just came back from a jog in the park, and it occurred to me that I hadn't had any ID on me at all that whole time.  My first thought was, "What if I had had a heart attack and nobody knew who I am?" Then I thought about what if I was a brownskin in Arizona.  Here in Korea, the police would probably just take me home where I can produce my ID, and everyone's happy.  Would the cops give a brownskin me the same benefit of the doubt in Arizona and escort me home where I could prove that I am legal?  My guess is I'd have to sit humiliated in a precinct hall, get fingerprinted and charged with the crime of having no ID on my person while jogging.  A crime for not carrying ID-- who would have ever thought such a thing could happen in the United States?

The new Arizona law is not going to stop the flow of slaves and criminals into the State.  It might catch someone here and there, but if the cops don't catch "enough", when will the organized raids start on factories and farms to catch the illegals who are working and contributing to the Arizona economy?  Illegals who are doing jobs that you and I would never do are not the problem.  The law makes no distinction between a hard-working illegal and the others, the slavers, the smugglers, the common criminals.   The law that Governor Brewer signed will not make any resident in Arizona safer or his job more secure.   Security can only come when the international border is attended to by the only body in the land that has the authority to do something, the United States Congress.  Enter the hypocrite Republicans who rant and rave about "reform" in front of the TV cameras and yet vote in Congress against measures toward that very reform.  Maybe there is a bright side to Governor Brewers decidedly illegal behavior, and that is those cockroach Republicans are seen scurrying around now that the light of public attention is upon them.