Border & immigration
La Raza, other Hispanic groups boycott over Arizona's SB 1070
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2008 photo by Civil Rights/Flickr'No conferences. No travel,' urged Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza.
Several Hispanic groups have organized a boycott of Arizona because of the state's new immigration law.
The National Council of La Raza, along with nearly 20 other labor and civil rights groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Puerto Rican Coalition, will pull money and meetings out of the state. They're also asking companies and organizations not to schedule - and even cancel - events, conventions and conferences.
“The law is so extreme, and its proponents appear so immune to an appeal to reason, nothing short of these extraordinary measures is required,” Janet Murguía, the president of N.C.L.R., said Thursday at a news conference in Washington, as reported in the New York Times.
La Raza also has called for Major League Baseball to not hold its planned 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix.
Gov. Jan Brewer responded to the boycott in a column on ESPN.com.
Boycotts are just more politics and manipulation by out-of-state interests. As a border state, Arizona has already paid a heavy price for the federal government's failure – hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in unreimbursed costs – and its citizens should not be punished further.
Also a coalition of Asian American groups have joined the opposition to the law.
The Japanese American Citizens League, in a statement, called SB 1070 “the worst case of racial profiling since World War II” with national director Floyd Mori comparing Arizona’s new immigration law to the WWII treatment of Japanese Americans who were targeted by law enforcement because of their shared heritage with the country that attacked Pearl Harbor, reports PacificCitizen.com.
The Arizona chapter of JACL has introduced a resolution that SB 1070 should be overturned, and will vote on it at its national convention this summer.
On the Web
- New York Times: Latino Groups Urge Boycott of Arizona Over New Law
- ESPN.com: Arizona governor: Boycott is misguided
- PacificCitizen.com: Asian Americans Join Fight Against Arizona’s Immigration Law
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