Arizona’s Immigration Law

by Jeffrey Miron on April 27th, 2010
39 CommentsComments

The measure – set to take effect in late July or early August – would make it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. It directs state and local police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.

This law is incredibly misguided. Enforcement will be selective, inflaming ethnic and racial tensions. Police resources are better utilized pursuing crimes like homicide, rape, and theft. And the measure’s impact on immigration will be modest in any case.

The only way to reduce illegal immigration is to expand legal immigration; punitive, “supply side” measures will not work so long as the wage gap between Mexico and the U.S. persists.

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  • Jeffrey, I love the book. I haven’t finished it up, but I am enjoying it.

    I recently(last night) wrote a blog post about my views on immigration, that were greatly influenced by your book.

    hhttp://www.dustintownsend.com/politics/open-the-borders/


    • Jacquelyn

      As you are for open borders it might interest you to learn the plan of “Reconquista” set forth by followers of MEChA which is an active student organization well established in many of America’s universities. Look into it. You will find that Colorado, California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Oregon are part of a territory called “Aztan”. Followers of MEChA believe that these areas should surrender to “La Raza” (The Race) once enough immigrants enter to claim a majority.
      According to Miguel Perez of Cal State-Northridge MECha chapter: “The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest (to it). Once Aztlan is established, ethnic cleansing would commence. Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled. Opposition groups would have to be quashed because you have to keep power.”

      http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=13863


  • Julie Anne

    Sir, do you live in Arizona? If you do not, you have no idea of the havoc being wreaked on a daily basis by the influx of illegals, brought in by a very hardened criminal class. Citizens are *dying*, including legal US citizens of Hispanic descent. This bill isn’t great — I’m concerned that it de facto rids us of probable cause — but it’s better than nothing, and nothing is what we’ve gotten from the Federal Government despite YEARS of trying to get help. Our state bears the vast majority of the costs associated with illegal immigration, and some of them might surprise you — like the cost of cleaning up the millions of tons of trash they leave in the fragile desert ecosystem. Our state has been begging for more soldiers, and despite a recent murder of a rancher (whose killer’s tracked were followed back into Mexico where he no doubt picked up his next “cargo”), Mr. Obama has yet to respond to our Governor’s request.

    This bill will not “inflame racial tensions”. I live in Tucson, and while there have been protests, they have been both few and small in attendance, most under 50 protesters. This city is 35% Hispanic. 87% of those citizens want tougher laws against illegal immigration.

    I could go on and on, but in short, if you don’t live here, you have no right to speak. You can’t know how bad the situation has gotten in the last ten years. People who live along the coyote trails are afraid to leave their homes for more than an hour or so because otherwise when they return, they WILL find them inhabited, not by lone amiable illegals searching for water, but by drug-cartel sponsored coyotes who’re well-armed and have no compunction about beating you, stealing your property, or killing you. These aren’t people right on the border. This is happening to people living more than 60 miles from the border.

    Live here. Deal with this problem of how to protect yourself and your home. Then write your sanctimonious columns.

    • With the possible exception of inflammation of racial tensions, nothing you wrote refutes the claims made by Dr. Miron. How will the abandonment of “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” help to thwart armed home-invading criminals?

      Our national and state representatives should be publicly answering the question,
      Why are the many illegal immigrants in the USA illegal? I think people will come to the conclusion that expansion of legal immigration is the proper course of action after thoughtfully answering that question.


    • Jess Austin

      Then write your sanctimonious columns.

      That is rich. Project much? Your message is full of the sort of “useful idiocy” that the military-enforcement-industrial complex requires for its inexorably-increasing upkeep. Here, I’ll help you connect the dots:
      Make a common human behavior (e.g., looking for work) illegal.
      When people persist in the common behavior, hurt them.
      When only the truly desperate persist, hurt them some more.
      When the truly desperate enlist the help of actual criminals, hurt them all some more.
      When the desperate criminals become violent and hardened, hurt them all some more.
      Profit!

      If you were really concerned for Arizonans’ safety, and weren’t already brainwashed by the mainstream narrative, you’d be pushing for less immigration enforcement. Laborers who are welcome to cross at Nogales won’t be walking through the Sonoran desert or getting mixed up with coyotes or drug cartels. Even if you can’t stomach extending free enterprise to your Mexican neighbors, you should be pushing for drug legalization. The gangsters who invade homes are the same gangsters who have gotten rich by supplying us with drugs. It’s a natural market for their expansion, since they’ve honed their expertise in serving markets to which the US government has erected violent barriers to entry. We won’t hurt their business or end their reign of terror by strengthening those barriers.


      • Julie Anne

        I *am* in favor of drug legalization, and in fact actively campaigning for the medical marijuana initiative on the ballot this November.

        You assume racism where none exists — in fact, for all you know, I am Hispanic.

        I’m all for opening the borders, btw. You assume I’m not. But since the borders are NOT open, the business of running illegals has changed in the last ten years. Ten years ago, illegals would show up at my door asking for water, which I gladly gave them — in fact, I gave them gallon jugs of it to take with them. Now I go out to my back 40 and get a gun put to my head. Only once, true, but that was enough. My land is full of trash litter the groups leave behind in their wake. My friends leave their homes for a couple hours and return to find them occupied. I haven’t fallen prey to anyone’s crap — I LIVE HERE.

        I’d love a Libertarian US, but we don’t have one. All my wishing isn’t going to make it so. I work towards it. But I also live on the border with the current laws, and I have to live with the consequences of those immigration laws every day. Until you do, don’t come preaching at me.


        • Jess Austin

          No one here accused you of “racism”. When I said “your Mexican neighbors”, I meant people who live in Nogales (and want to work in Tuscon), nothing more. Most people who oppose immigration do so for economic self-interest rather than out of “racism”, whatever that is.

          I’m sorry to hear of your violent experience on your own land. That goes some way in excusing your willful miscommunication. Please consider that the host and commenters on this site do care about your plight, but that we advocate a different solution.

          I’m glad you’re “libertarian”, but I encourage you to ponder that a bit more. We can agree that neither Mexican labor supply nor USA labor demand caused the gun to be held to your head. It was instead the USA government’s ridiculous violent response to labor market conditions that resulted in that unfortunate incident. To me, it then follows that we should be hiring fewer LEOs, not more, and that they should be enforcing fewer authoritarian laws, not more. Do you think anyone wants to hire a coyote and skulk about in your patch of desert? I’m sure they’d be happier just taking the Greyhound up to Tuscon.

          If this seems like preaching to you, I conclude that you haven’t had to sit through as much religion as I have.


  • dfvazan

    In a world run by libertarian principles, the libertarian support for immigration makes perfect sense. A free-market, non-welfare state nation stands to have a net gain from low cost labor at one end of the spectrum and innovative entrepreneurs seeking opportunity at the other end. But that is not the world we live in. Rather, minimum wage laws, business regulations, social security, medicaid/medicare, healthcare regulations and publicly funded schools create perverted incentives for the post-war wave of immigrants and impose additional costs on citizens that weren’t generated by prior generations of immigrants.

    As long as business owners are subjected to minimum wage laws and other labor law restrictions, they will continue to employ undocumented immigrants. Increasing legal immigration will not change this. Labor and wage laws must either be repealed, preferably, or the federal gov’t must strictly enforce the existing laws.

    Equally important, immigrants (legal and illegal) use finite resources. Their children go to our publicly funded schools, they use our publicly funded health clinics, our emergency rooms are required to treat them regardless of means or legal status and, yes, when the small but significant minority of them break laws, our publicly funded law enforcement and legal system picks up the tab. These are a substantial costs imposed on tax paying citizens.

    Add to this the illegal immigration driven by the illicit drug trade. Until the “war on drugs” is ended, this subset of violent immigrants will continue to exist regardless of any immigration reform.

    Arizona’s law may be “misguided” but given the federal gov’t’s abject failure to stanch the numerous incentives for illegal immigration they created, it is the only alternative a state on the frontlines of the issue has.


    • AJs

      This law is not going to change any of that. If anything, this law advances the root cause of those things mentioned above, not reduce it. You are supporting a law that will do more to make things worse, not better. You are supporting something for the sake of ‘doing something’ rather than doing the right thing.


      • dfvzazan

        True enough. The law will do nothing to change the root causes of illegal immigration. That’s the duty of the federal gov’t and it wasn’t the intent of the law. Genuine immigration reform would involve enforcing or modifying labor laws, issuing more green cards and work permits to truly meet the demand of the labor market, restricting access to public resources many illegals freeload on and legalizing drugs.

        I fail to see how the law worsens the rate employers hire illegals, the amount of public resources they use or the ability of drug cartels to freely operate in the state. It may be a sloppy attempt at treating the symptom rather than the disease, but it will certainly discourage illegals from living and working in the state.


      • dfvzazan

        Despite your prediction, the law doesn’t appear to “be making things worse,” if your definition of worse is more illegal immigrantion.

        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_day_labor_3


        • Jess Austin

          Taking our cue from Julie Anne above, maybe we could say that increased violence in border areas (the inevitable result of increased enforcement) also qualifies as “worse”?

          The parallels between the War on Immigrants and the Wars on Drugs and Terrorism are remarkable. Our security strategists are like hamsters on a wheel.


          • dfvazan

            That doesn’t follow. If living in or traveling through Arizona becomes more difficult because of the law, fewer illegals will enter at that location. They will access the country at other points and Arizona’s border violence should decrease. It certainly does nothing to stem illegal immigration for the country as a whole (that’s Washington’s job), but it should be effective at reducing Arizona’s burden.

            Again, a single state is left with few attractive options when the federal gov’t fails to perform even its most basic duty of securing our borders. Arizona is looking out for Arizonans, as they should. It’s not their duty to consider the impact on California, Texas or other border points.


          • Jess Austin

            …fewer illegals will enter at that location.

            You may be right at the margin, that some potential immigrants might not enter Arizona under the new law, but that doesn’t address the ongoing existence of jobs for immigrants in Arizona. A larger effect will be one of substitution: more-skilled laborers who can sell their services in other states will do so, while the truly desperate will continue to stream in. Since Arizona has these jobs, immigrants will show up to fill them, now in the more-violent context that this law creates.

            I also disagree with the implication that Arizona can’t do anything to regulate employment. Most states have books full of laws regulating who may work and how. Arizona doesn’t have to wait on Washington to write its labor regulations. Due to a lack of imagination and a surfeit of enforcement-industry lobbying, Arizona is attempting to deal with this situation the same way we deal with all situations in our modern statist paradise, by eliminating individual rights. It’s good for profits at the prison operators, you see.


  • Edward

    Professor Miron,

    You disagreed with Milton Friedman’s quote on immigration and the welfare state problem on John Stossel’s show by saying that if immigrants came here and just sponged off the system, voters would get rid of those entitlements.

    Are you serious? I too, along with Friedman support open immigration in theory, but do think the welfare state and increased crime merit some level of rational restrictions. I don’t mind open immigration with immigrants from Asia or Africa. They and their children get highly educated and are likewise productive.

    So what surprised me about your answer if the level of rationality apparently you think voters have. I just got through read Brian Caplans book and I’d have to agree with him and apply voter irrationality to this problem too. Voters aren’t going to get rid of the welfare state and even if they do, judges that mis-interpret the law will grant whatever is left to the spongers.

  • I guess I must be missing something but isn’t it already illegal to be in the country illegally?


  • Jeffrey Miron

    Yes, it is already illegal under federal law. But this is about a state law. So now Arizona has the power to act on its own.


  • Alexei (Rochester)

    Prof. Miron,

    you’re assuming that Arizona is trying to do something against immigration to the U.S., or all states are passing this.

    Since neither is true, this is just a way for Arizona to tell the illegal immigrants that they’re better off in Texas or California. If I were an illegal immigrant, and I would have a choice of which state to go to, I would think more than twice about going to Arizona after this law.

    Some IO perspective :)

  • I agree, in this case, expanding legal immigration among the groups most likely to illegally immigrate is the best option.


  • Bob K

    “It directs state and local police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.” — this is only partially true. They may not stop people based on racial profiling, they must have some other cause, e.g. traffic violation.

    I thought libertarians believed that one of the few legitimate functions of government is enforcement of law.


    • AJs

      Then define ‘reasonable suspicion’? If not racial profiling of some sort, then what the hell else could be ‘reasonable suspicion’? Because I have an accent, is that reasonable suspicion that I English may not be my primary language therefore I may not have been born here therefore it is reasonable to suspect I am not a citizen? Will ‘reasonable suspicion’ be because I have a WA Drivers License which by the bills definition is not acceptable as proof – therefore I must be detained until they can complete a Federal background check on me? (A valid federal, state or local government issued identification, if the issuing entity requires proof of legal presence before issuance. – WA is one of the states that does not require proof of legal presence)

      As Prof Miron indicated, this law is misguided. It does not address the causes of these problems. It only strengthens the Coyotes and criminal element who profit from stricter immigrant laws.


      • ThinkWithMe

        AJs, you’re jumping to conclusions, my friend. If I was a police office and I pulled you over and asked for your driver’s license and registration, and you had neither. Suppose I ask what your social security number is, and you give me eight digits or ten digits rather than nine digits; maybe I ask you 5 minutes later and you give me a different number (granted that I don’t “demand” an answer). Maybe you tell me your driver’s licence number is five digits long. Maybe I ask where you live and you say a house over there and point to an area I know has absolutely no houses. What if you assure me that you have insurance on your car, and you can’t tell me the name of the insurance company or you say it’s with Wal-mart.

        Perhaps not just one of these flags in particular would be enough for probable cause, but a collective few would certainly be supportive evidence that an individual is in the country illegally, especially in a state having difficulties with a relatively high number of illegal immigrants. Your concerns with racial profiling would be more valid if around 1 in 3 people in AZ weren’t of hispanic origin in the first place. Racial profiling there would be impractical and ineffective, if not impossible.


        • AJ

          In the situation you described a situation where I would likely be going to jail no matter what my citizenship is – so I fail to see your point? It is already a crime to drive without a license, and without valid proof of insurance, as well as (at least in my state) to provide false identification to a police officer. None of that has anything to do with my immigration status.

          This law allows an officer in any interaction to demand proof of identification from anyone or face detainment. There is no reason to have a law on the books unless you intend to enforce it to the fullest extent. How much more likely do you think anyone of any Hispanic descent is going to be to cooperate with the police? Do you actually believe this is going to reduce crime or lessen the problem of illegal immigration? Do you think this will actually change the demand for the much-needed low-skilled labor so important to the AZ economy? I just don’t see how it can… no more than increasing the penalties on drug possession charges has reduced the use of drugs.

          What it WILL do is make it easier for an LEO to get away with intimidating people with the threat of detainment, increase the tax burden because more law enforcement dollars will need to be spent and will do little to nothing to actually improve any of the problems.

          There are only two solutions to improve the immigration problem – either a.) become and even more authoritarian/totalitarian state requiring all citizens to have acceptable ID at all times and conduct regular random checkpoints or b.) honor our Free Society heritage and have REAL immigration reform making it easier for more to come in through the front gate legally, documented, and tracked. These immigrants would MUCH rather not have to come here in such criminal and clandestine ways fueling the violent gangs and coyotes. With real reform you can then focus law enforcement on the remaining criminal element that does need to be deposed.


  • ThinkWithMe

    I disagree with the professor’s opinion about expanding legal immigration as well. Perhaps I’ve mistakenly assumed that he’s idea in expanding it by disregarding a degree of time-consuming and thwarting regulations required that tend to ensure that potential legal immigrants don’t objectively view the United States as a country to live, not work, and collect welfare and other benefits and thereby enjoy a higher standard of living than working a full-time job where they came from. I’m not making accusations or predicting that immigrants would do this, but I certainly don’t wish to open any doors for widespread abuse of an “expanded legal immigration” policy as that would facilitate additional unfavorable gov’t policies for collecting more taxes and politicians purchasing more votes by expanding entitlement programs in light of this new, resulting constituency.


  • ThinkWithMe

    My point was intended to highlight potentially common, non-jailable offenses where a suspected illegal immigrant would likely be given a ticket and probably not show up for the court date and not pay the fine, and yet safely remain an illegal immigrant. I’ve been pulled over for expired tags and forgotten my proof of insurance. All I got was a ticket, and I could show up and prove that I had fixed the situation, and it was waived. My thoughts were that if I were an illegal immigrant, how could things be different? I’m sure there are plenty of other non-jailable offenses where even if someone exposed themselves as an illegal immigrant, an officer would previously be required to allow the person to go free.

    You also have a couple of faulty premises:
    1) The law will be enforced to the fullest extent. I would cite speeding limits, cable theft, even prostitution, and petty theft as contrary examples. Cops don’t go around looking for cable/electricity thieves, but if they expose themselves or are reported, the case is *sometimes* investigated. Depending on how busy the office is, small time reports are documented, but often not substantially investigated (thus the law wasn’t enforced to the fullest).
    2) More tax dollars will be spent. It’s subjective as to the level of enforcement, and I don’t recall any funding directives or increased taxes in the newly passed law.

    Basically, in my opinion, I believe this law was just meant to send a message to illegal immigrants. There was one dropped version that would charge illegals with trespassing, which isn’t at all practical or sustainable or enforceable when you think about it.

    It must also be considered that these individuals have already chosen to break the law in a premeditated and extended manner of doing so. Sure, we can empathize with criminals of all types, but it doesn’t make their acts more lawful. Millions have made extensive, premeditated plans and crossed the border illegally and continued to break the law through staying here; however, millions more have chosen to respect our law and wait in line. Those choosing to respect our law and not cross our border illegally are, at least in my opinion, have the most potential to be the upstanding American citizens we would gladly welcome as neighbors in our communities. So for me, it’s somewhat of a matter of principles, and a person who would like to live in the US choosing to respect our laws or not. If I really, really, really feel I HAVE to live in Japan, for example, I personally wouldn’t intentionally break their law and abuse their citizen-funded policies just because it’s the path of lesser resistance when compared to legally entering and becoming a Japanese citizen. In essence, by foregoing immigration enforcement, we’ve attracted a lot of “criminals” willing to cross the border (yet another example is a store in a mall that finally decides to do something about shoplifting when the mall cops are continuously absent; the shoplifters would probably feel entitled because it was easy to do and the law was not enforced, but it doesn’t exonerate those people or make their actions any more legal).


    • AJs

      There is no purpose in passing a law to simply send a message… If you want to actually send a message, the proper way to do that is reward those people who go through the legal channels and make that the preferred method. Right now, the legal channels do not allow for enough migrant/immigrant workers to enter the US to do the work that is needed. The black market/illegal immigration is filling that void. Infringing on legal residents rights in the name of enforcing the law against illegals is wrong and again, does not solve the problem. If you could waive a magic wand and magically get all of the illegal immigrants to go home tomorrow, it would collapse our ag industries and border economies. That labor is desperately needed – this coming from someone who’s family used to run farming operations in California that went well beyond out of our way to try and hire LEGAL residents.

    • ThinkWithMe wrote:
      “It must also be considered that these individuals have already chosen to break the law in a premeditated and extended manner of doing so.”

      I consider breaking immigration policy civil disobedience. Other than it being illegal I don’t see what is wrong with efficient immigration.


      • ThinkWithMe

        Bob K’s post captured my thoughts – our personal property as tax investments is being embezzled by illegal immigrants (public schools, hospitals, etc.).


  • Bob K

    “I consider breaking immigration policy civil disobedience. Other than it being illegal I don’t see what is wrong with efficient immigration.”

    Immigration policy is fundamental to maintaining a distinct nation. Remove that and you devolve to One World Government (or one world chaos).

    If I extended your logic down to the level of the individual, then wandering through your yard and home would be mere civil disobedience on my part. Eating from your pantry, not a problem.

    • Bob K wrote:
      “Immigration policy is fundamental to maintaining a distinct nation. Remove that and…”

      I see no reason to eliminate immigration law. I simply think that the current structure is absurdly disjointed from reality. Let’s make the rules more in line with what people actually deserve, which is opportunity to compete economically.

      Bob K:
      “If I extended your logic down to the level of the individual”
      Why would you want to extend it to the individual? It should only apply to governments. The nature of a government is much too different than that of an individual to interchange the two in most situations.


      • ThinkWithMe

        “Why would you want to extend it to the individual?”
        It was analogy simplifying and illustrating his point. I don’t believe he meant it to be taken as literal.

        • Indeed. And my statement was a rhetorical question intended to highlight the shortcomings of his analogy.


          • ThinkWithMe

            Sure, but.. you’re sweeping the grain of salt away due to… Let me start over.

            This situation is like if I were to say, “we’re batting responses back and forth like we’re playing ping pong,” it’d be like you saying, “no, the intricacies of TCP/IP packet dissimination, transmission, assimilation, and database storage, incorporating set theory, are much different than that of a ping pong paddle.”

            The commonality is personal property and collective personal property encompassed by national lines.


      • Bob K

        Yes my analogy had its limits…but ThinkWithMe captures what I meant. I was trying to make a point that national borders encompass collective property which often are the result of the accumulation of the hard work of their citizens throughout decades. Respecting personal property rights – a core libertarian principle – makes wonderful sense. I submit that ‘property rights’ apply at a national level as well. When I visit the Grand Canyon I do so as a citizen with certain inalienable rights as articulated in the Bill of Rights. When I visit the Arche de Triomphe, I do so as a guest of France and do so by their leave.

        Regardless, I find this comment interesting – “Let’s make the rules more in line with what people actually deserve, which is opportunity to compete economically.”

        This may be your heartfelt desire, but it’s not spelled out in our constitution nor bill of rights, and even if it were so it only applies to citizens.


  • dfvzazan

    Jess Austin said:
    “[Despite this law] the truly desperate will continue to stream in. Since Arizona has these [menial, low-paying] jobs, immigrants will show up to fill them…”

    I suppose that’s one theory. I would suggest that even the truly desperate will actively avoid AZ due to the higher risk now exacted. Instead they will cross at, work and/or reside in more comfortable states like CA,NM and TX. Bottomline: significantly fewer illegals will choose to come to AZ. More importantly, potential employers will be (and are being, according to AP’s article) far more cautious in whom they hire. This will result in employers raising wages (modestly at the current unemployment rate) to attract citizens to jobs previously done by illegals. The demand for illegals will, thus, be reduced accordingly.

    You’re absolutely right about AZ being able to freely adjust their minimum wage laws, somewhat right about their semi-rigid labor laws (most of which are overrided by federal mandates) and wrong about an (implied) state’s right to opt out of FICA. Illegal labor can easily circumvent all of the higher costs imposed by state and federal labor laws and taxes. Some can be changed by the state, but most can not. It will always be cheaper to employ someone who doesn’t exist on Washington’s rolls.

    I think you and I agree about the many factors that need to be changed on a national level in order to make immigration fair, efficient and beneficial to US citizens and immigrants alike. My point is that in the absence of federal action, AZ has done something that will protect her legal inhabitants at the expense of a non-citizen’s individual rights, which shouldn’t be the concern of the US anyway. If anyone’s rights should be prioritized, it should be those of US citizens. To repeat, until the feds act, this law is reasonable, just and most importantly, a catalyst to federal action (wishful thinking, I know).

  • “it’s not spelled out in our constitution nor bill of rights”
    This is no reason not to advocate what one believes to be just course of action. The Constitution can be changed. And State governments reserve the powers not granted to the federal government by the constitution. State governments are allowed to change their laws accordingly.

    “and even if it were so it only applies to citizens.”
    I think that the US Supreme Court agrees that the constitution is limited geographically by the borders of its States and its Territories, not by citizenship. Please point me toward evidence to the contrary (if it exists).

    “The commonality is personal property and collective personal property encompassed by national lines”
    I think that the most recent the recent laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, Elinor Ostrom, was recognized specifically for her work showing that the application of personal property rights is not always the best way to regulate common property. By extension, I maintain that the current immigration laws in the USA are detrimental to the economic interests of both the inhabitants (both citizen and non-citizen) and neighbors of the USA. There is room for improvement by making them less restrictive and allowing for more legal immigration.


  • Edward Clipp

    The truth is that we have a problem of illegal entry at our southern border that is way out of control. The people of Mexico and Central and South America have certain features and skin tone native to that region. This doesn’t mean that we are being racist by trying to deal with the problem. If someone of a different race broke into your house, are you racist for wanting them caught? We should have controlled legal immigration, but this is out of control.


  • Jacquelyn

    I am a little late in commenting. I live in Tucson. The vast majority of entry level jobs here list “bilingual” as a hiring prerequisite. Growing up, I did not learn the Spanish language as I did not see myself traveling to Spanish speaking countries. This was my misfortune in interests, because in the meantime, Spanish speaking countries quite realistically saw themselves traveling to the United States. I am now discriminated against because I do not speak the language of another country.

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