Thaindian News

May 7, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Many American cities have registered themselves in the catalog of the boycotters of Arizona’s contentious immigration law. The law is seen as a harsh blow to civil liberties. It facilitates the police to ascertain a person’s immigration standing in consequence of a suspicion about the suspect’s legal status. The law is under attack from the critics.

Arizona policymakers have endeavored to appease their foes by executing certain minor alterations in the law. Arizona lawmakers last week altered the language of the bill to necessitate the inspection only of those individuals, who the police have already stopped, detained or incarcerated for other reasons. However, that has hardly made a difference.

Boston; Oakland, Calif.; West Hollywood, Calif.; New York; and San Diego have passed boycotts and decrees censuring Arizona. They have guaranteed to cut contracts with the state. San Francisco and St. Paul, Minn., as well as Denver’s school system, have already barred employees’ journeys to Arizona utilizing public funds.

But the query that arises is whether these moves are destined to coerce the state into repealing the litigious law or whether they are just a toothless gesture. Matthew Kerbel, professor of political science at Villanova University, uttered that there is a genuine risk of an economic damage due to these boycotts. He mentioned the boycott of 1993, when Arizona lost 130 conventions and the Super Bowl, for refusing to observe Martin Luther King Day. The monetary damage was worth $350 million. This had a detrimental impact on the Arizonian economy.

Cases where the cities have filed a suit against their states are uncommon and constitutionally thorny as the cities obtain their powers from the states in which they are positioned. They are bound to abide by the state laws unless those laws infringe the American or the state constitution.