The Following appeared on the Daily Beast and on Lou Dobbs.com:
Must Read
Show Your Papers? So What!
May-05-2010
Another voice of reason weighs in on the new Arizona law. Travel writer Paul Theroux writes in the Daily Beast that asking for proper identification is commonplace in most countries. So why not here?
Sometimes it takes a travel writer with experience outside the United States to put this all in perspective for us. Theroux begins his column:
"These people who are protesting being asked for identification by Arizona cops-have they been anywhere lately, like out of the country? Like Mexico, or Canada, or India, or Italy, or Tanzania, or Singapore, or Britain-places where people in uniforms have routinely demanded my papers? Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen is offended ("as a Latin American") by the Arizona law and recently claimed that all illegal immigrants are 'workaholics.' Has he been back to the land of his birth lately, Venezuela, and expected not to be asked for his papers? Ozzie, tell the police in Ocumare del Tuy, 'I'm a Latin American,' and see if that will end the interrogation. And spare a thought for the policeman two days ago who was gunned down in the desert by a workaholic drug dealer.
"The request for papers is not just a line in Casablanca. I have been hearing the question my whole traveling life. I had an Alien Registration Card in Britain and got occasional visits from the police at my home, to make sure I was behaving myself. Seventeen years in Britain as an alien: papers. Six years in Africa: 'Where are your papers, bwana?' Three years in Singapore: another alien identity card and immense red tape in that fussy, litigious bureaucracy.
"As for the U.S., it is annoying, but understandable, especially in a country with 12 million illegal immigrants using the public services. 'Who are you?' is a routine question: The necessity to identify yourself to authority is something that happens every day. You present a credit card at the supermarket and they want to see your license to make sure you're not a grafter. All over the place, renting a car, at the bank: 'I'll need to see two forms of ID.'"
Later, he continues: "As for this Arizona law (which is understandable until the federal government takes a stand), I am delighted to be reassured that there will be no racial profiling. The illegals in Arizona are not just Hispanics. Those of you who have read Dark Star Safari, my book about traveling through Africa, might remember how, in the Sudan, I met a Sudanese man (on vacation in Khartoum from New York) who explained very carefully how he had entered the United States illegally, the best way: Go to Mexico, pay someone some money, and then hide in a fish truck or a vegetable van and hop the border. Sudanese, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Brazilians. Illegal aliens come from all over the world to converge on the Arizona, California, and New Mexico borders. The Hispanics are right to be a little indignant, but just a little. It is much easier to sneak into the U.S. than to apply for a residence permit."
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