My current event was about the new bill that Florida's State Representative William Snyder has proposed to congress. This bill is similar to Arizona's anti-immigration law, SB 1070 that was passed over the summer. The new law allowed police men to stop people if they have reasonable suspicion that they are an illegal immigrant. The federal government is trying to sue Arizona, because immigration is not a state issue and Arizona did not have the right to make such a law.
Controversy strikes between both the government and the people. Many argue that this law is racist and wrong. This law gives police to ask anyone on the spot if they have their papers (passport, visa, license, or some form of identification) and if they fail to show them the identification, they are arrested. The government does not approve of this law because it is their job to make immigration laws, not the states. Now other states are trying to replicate the law, and even trying to take it to the next level.
The main idea of this article was to expose Snyder’s new bill and the similarities to Arizona’s law. The bill is similar to Arizona’s law, but it goes even further in racial profiling. On the third page of Snyder’s bill it states that if an officer has, “reasonable suspicion” on a person then that person will be “presumed to be legally in the United States,” as long as he or she provides a Canadian passport or a passport from any other visa waiver country. These wavering countries include four Asian nations, but the other thirty-two are Western Europe (France to Germany).
Snyder’s bill has had only a few people notice the wavering countries that would be excluded from the police’s “reasonable suspicion.” It seems as though this bill in the process of being passed is more extreme than Arizona’s. Arizona’s law never said anything about targeting one specific group, and even though Snyder's bill does not, Snyder’s bill still acts in favor of the “wavering nations.” These wavering nations are also white majority. Since large number of Florida’s immigrants are Canadians.
It has raised suspicion that the bill will be even more racist than Arizona’s and it will be more relaxed when it comes to white immigrants. When Snyder was asked about this hidden element he said, “What we’re doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians. We have an enormous amount of…Canadians wintering here in Florida. That language is the comfort language.” This discriminates all the other races, and gives the white people an unfair advantage.
Clarifying Questions:
"What kind of papers will the policemen be asking for?"
The policemen will be asking for any form of identification such as a passport, visa, or license.
"How can they tell if a Canadian is here illegally?"
Snyder's bill will exclude Canadians as well as other European countries, they will be known as "wavering countries" and police will have to have more than reasonable suspicion to ask for their papers.
"How is the law in Arizona racist?"
The affects of the law are racist, and the reasonable suspicion that the police have on these potential illegal immigrants is morally based on stereotypes. To clarify with this bill, most white races are not going to be stopped and asked for their papers due to reasonable suspicion.
Probing Question:
How could this bill being passed affect Florida's tourist rates?
Title of Article: “A free pass in Florida if you’re white”
Source:http://socialistworker.org/print/blog/coulnt-make-it-up/2010/10/27/free-pass-if-you-are-white
This bill could affect Florida's tourist rates in a bad way. Since Florida is so close to Latin America, it is a hot spot for those types of people to come and get away from their homes to vacation for a short while. What this law does is that if people come to Florida from out of country and decide to stay longer than "a vacation," then they will get in trouble, where as without this law in place people could freely stay longer and see if they continue to like living in Florida. All the while, the state is making money off of the tourists spending money and if tourists can't stay for as long, the state would loose revenue
ReplyDeleteThis bill could affect tourist rates because if people are getting stopped by police they're going to get annoyed. Florida is a big vacation spot, so obviously tourists are going to look out of place because they come from all over. If police are suspicious then they're going to ask the person for their papers. Police also aren't going to keep a list of who they've asked so if someone looks "suspicious" then they're probably going to be asked by more than one police officer. Like Adam said, Florida is close to Latin America so people will travel to Florida because it's not too far and it's a place to get away. But if they look like immigrants, they will be questioned. Word is going to get out that this is happening and people are going to stop going to Florida for vacation because it's not worth the trouble.
ReplyDeleteThis bill could affect Florida's tourist rates in many ways; both good and bad. Tourists could possibly feel more secure knowing that a lot of illegal immigrants are out of that states, so they would travel to that state more often. On the other hand, this law could affect Florida's tourist rates in a bad way because people would think that this law is racist, and it discriminates against the tourists' own kind or something like that. This law could both prevent people from traveling to Florida, and it could bring more of them to the state.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam. Since Florida is a rather popular vacation place, this new law may divert tourism from primarily non-white countries. I understand the view point of Snyder concerning being "sensitive to Canadians" as he says. However, I also agree with the idea that therefore, the law is discriminatory. Many tourists will not be vacationing in a state with a discriminatory law against them. As Adam said before, Florida's proximity to Latin America makes it a prime vacation spot for many countries which do not have a white majority. Since it has been this way for so long, a sudden diverting of tourists from Latin America could seriously harm the tourism in Florida. And just as badly, leaving a vague "reason of suspicion" for police to follow may lead to accidental, if not purposeful, racial profiling. On a wider matter, people plainly don't want to be questioned out of random. This may make people uncomfortable because police spontaneously question you and ask for papers. This law, in many parts, appears to be a counter-incentive to vacationing in Florida. It will notably diminish the state's tourist rates.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam on this. It is no doubt that Florida is one of the biggest tourism states in America. This law would easily affect the tourist rates in Florida. Many people from all over the United States and the world travel to Florida. Why would anyone want to travel somewhere on their vacation, and be stopped by a police men for looking "suspicious"? I think that this law will bite the state of Florida right in the butt, and they will not only lose tourism from countries that have people who look "suspicious", but also they will lose a great sum of money in their state. Florida is the type of state that uses tourism as one of it's main sources for money. However this law may change that.
ReplyDeleteThis bill being passed will affect Florida's tourist rates in a bad way, because Florida is one of the biggest "hot-spots" or vacation spots that attract all sorts of people. And with all these people visiting, and a lot who may be from different countries, police may be on the search to spot out illegal's, and it will definitely get annoying as Jess said. Adam also made a good point because if the tourist rate starts to decline, the state of Florida will also lose money because they do depend on tourist for a lot of their income.
ReplyDeleteI think that this bill will effect Florida's tourist rates negatively. I think that it will become because many people will find out about this issue, and become very sensitive to it. If this happens, many people may not want to even take the chance to go out to Florida, in regards to the fear of being discriminated against. Adam made a good point when talking about latin america, because those people are more likely to be "suspicious" than white people
ReplyDeleteI think that Florida's tourism will mostly be negatively influenced by this law because of what Jess said about people not wanting to be bothered/annoyed by the police. Not only will people from other countries possibly want to refrain from going to Florida for this reason, but also United States citizens may choose a different destination as well due to the new law. Both legal visitors and legal citizens will be very annoyed if the police stop them, especially if it gets like Arizona was with racial profiling. This law would then have a negative impact on the Florida economy because tourists will go elsewhere and great sums of money will be lost.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I do think that there is a very slight chance that the law could be seen differently by the legal United States residents who want a family vacation in Florida. There is a chance that they will be happy to know that the illegals are being taken care of and their country is buckling down. But, I still believe that it is much more likely that they will instead be annoyed by the situation, especially if people start being accused of being "suspicious" and get asked for their papers when they are perfectly legal.
I think that these laws are very bad and shouldn't be made. I dont know how you can say someone is Canadian. They can look like anyone and to do it to people wjo have dark skin in racist. It is the governments job to do this not the states and they should't be doing it. They are unethical and just trying to make up for it by putting in another white race but it still doesn't make sense.Someone that is legal here is going to have there rights violated.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that this will have too much of an effect on tourism. There aren't that many Hispanic "tourists" that come to Florida, many of them already live in the area in adjoining states. I also think that there will be little to no enforcement of the Canadian part of the bill. I think that that particular piece of the bill was just thrown in there to avoid accusations of racism.
ReplyDeleteFlorida is well known for being a vacation spot, but if the bill is passed the number of visitors could easily drop. You said that immigrants of all kinds have to have their cards and papers with them at all times. But, while on vacation when going to the beach and whatnot people are not going to keep those papers with them. People go to Florida to relax, not to worry about whether they are going to be stopped and discriminated against.
ReplyDeleteBecause florida is so close to the southern boarded there are many tourists. These tourists will be the main target from the new law. If I was going to be asked for papers while on vacation that place would most likely be less appealing to me. Floridas tourists sites (and economy) will suffer.
ReplyDeleteI think that this would affect the tourist rates in Florida because this law projects the idea that if you're a particular race, you're not welcome in the state. Since the bill seems to focus mainly on people coming down from Canada, this can be thought of as racial profiling because it targets a particular group. Because so many Canadians come to Florida during the winter, that would probably make up a lot of the tourists coming to the state. With this new law in place, it's possible that if the bill became active, Canadians would feel that Florida would not be the place to go when winter comes around, and so avoid Florida during that season. If the majority of tourists stopped coming to Florida, it would hurt the economy and bring in less money than if Canadians continued coming. This bill would also make people feel that if they looked a certain way, the police would assume they were Canadian or from another country and demand to see identification papers. This just isn't right because it uses assumptions and personal opinions to judge who can come into the state and who cannot.
ReplyDeleteThis bill could affect flordia because when a lot of Canadians come to America on vacation, they ussual go to Disney Land or Universal studieos. If they were to come down and always have the pain of keeping their paper work on them they could just not bother comming and not have to deal with all the worry of keeping confidental information about them on them.
ReplyDeleteI do not recognize the author of this last post. Can anyone clue me in??
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