I would like to pose a question to those who are in favor of the recent Arizona immigration bill: Are they against all immigration or just Mexican immigration?

While it is true that Mexico currently has some political problems going on with the drug cartels, not all Mexican-Americans come to this country illegally. Some Mexican-Americans obtain work visas to try and obtain citizenship, while others legally have migrant-worker papers and return to Mexico after the farming season.

The Arizona immigration bill gives police officers the right to ask anyone who is stopped for a form of identification that indicated they are an American citizen. The bill only states that these officers must have reasonable suspicion. Nowhere in the law are the words reasonable suspicion defined.

As a Hispanic-American, I am outraged by the passage of this bill. The bill clearly targets Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics, which is a clear violation of a citizen's 14th Amendment right to equal protection. Proponents of the bill argue that nowhere does it say that only Hispanics or people who look Hispanic will be asked for identification. And they are right; that is never stated in the bill, but in the eyes of the Latin community, it targets only Latinos.

Because Arizona shares a border with Mexico, one would expect that the largest group of illegal immigrants would be of Mexican descent. But in this country there are Chinese, Canadian, Italian and other ethnic groups whose members are illegal immigrants. The attitude of the Arizona bill clearly targets Latinos.

And let's not forget that this bill is not constitutional to begin with. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that all powers not relegated to the federal government, nor specifically denied to the states, are the powers of the states. However, Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution is very clear that immigration is to be relegated and controlled by Congress: "Congress shall have the power to … establish a uniform code of naturalization." As such, the Arizona government, or the government of any state for that matter, cannot make a law that affects immigration. Congress should step in and assert its power. A possible solution would be blanket amnesty, similar to what President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s.

I, as a Hispanic-American, see this bill as a slippery slope. It's not a far jump from identification, to separation, to segregation. Perhaps the government of the United States, the greatest country in the world, should live up to the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…"

Why should we send away those who are only looking for a better life for themselves and their families? Is that not why our ancestors came here? Is that not the American dream?

Editor's note: The writer resides in Niantic.