Comic: Pulling up the ladder
Keeping Arizona Safe
An immigration bill passed by the Arizona state Senate Monday requires police officers to determine whether a person is in the United States legally, and requires resident aliens to carry their alien registration documents at all times.
The problem is, American citizens are not required to carry documentation proving their citizenship, nor do standard forms of identification (e.g. driving licenses) indicate citizenship.
So if my name is Roberto De Vido (oh, it is!), and I've got a nice suntan after a week's vacation in Hawaii, and I get stopped by a police officer and asked for my "papers" (the historical overtones of that request will be especially resonant with elderly Jewish Arizonans), I say, "I don't have any. I'm American."
Then what happens?
Roberto De Vido is a communications consultant, writer, cartoonist and jack of many trades. The former chief of Tucson Sentinel’s East Asia Bureau, he now lives in California (make of that what you will).