BY: Azeez Farooqi, Saira Ali, and Viga Hsu

Racial Profiling in the United States is a major issue, which has been going on for nearly 2OO years in our country. In the old times, during the 18OOs and 19OOs, the major race that was discriminated against in our country was the Asian American immigrants. The reason why we believe that these immigrants were discriminated upon is because the citizens that were previously living in the US didn’t like people coming over. But, ask yourself this question, weren’t the people living in the US immigrants themselves? Even today racial profiling against immigrants hasn’t ended. The Arizona Immigration Act, which has been passed recently, is a great example of how us Americans still don’t believe that immigrants today still have as equal rights as us!

In the 185Os to the 187Os, the Chinese Immigrants started to arrive in the US. Many of the Americans already living in the US for a long period of time had an instant dislike in them. They abused, harassed, and sometimes even beat them. The government didn’t help either. In fact, the government was unfair to the Chinese Americans by making the Chinese workers pay a police tax of $2.5O every month. Chinese immigrants formed a community known as, “The Chinese Six Companies” which fought against unfair treatment and worked very hard to prove to Americans that discrimination was unfair! In 1882, about 10% of California’s population became Chinese, and they formed their own Chinese neighborhoods known as, “Chinatowns.” In 1917, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which prevented Chinese immigrants from entering the US from all over the world! Do you think the United States was fair to the Chinese ?

In late April of 2010, the governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer signed a bill to illegal immigration. The main goal of this law is to prosecute, search, and deport any illegal immigrants. This law can make many innocent people be sent back to their country. For example, if you are driving in  your car, the police can pull you over anytime and ask for your documentations. If you don’t have your documents, you can be sent to jail! This law is being racist against immigrants of all kinds and is one of the strictest measurements against immigrants. This law now is going on in Arizona, but it is not long for the law to spread to different U.S. states and expand all across the country! This law will not affect Americans who have been living in this country for a very long time. However, ask yourself this question: Weren’t the Americans immigrants themselves when they came over from Great Britain and other European countries, and took over the Native Americans? Is this law fair to immigrants who can be blamed for being illegal and are actually not ? Don’t you think that this law needs to end ?

Please visit the following link at the bottom of the page to sign our petition. Our petition is to end this Arizona Immigration Law, which we believe is unfair. The government is being unfair to immigrants who aren’t illegal and have to make a living in our country. It is not long for this law to spread in our state, New York. End this order SB1O7O.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/021196/petition.html