Finally! Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Should be a Role Model

Finally, people can travel to Arizona without worrying about being stopped and checked for immigration status.

Judge Susan Bolton thoughtfully struck down provisions in the Arizona law which would have allowed for drag-net police actions against people who looked suspicious or "illegal". This law would have put everyone on notice for proving immigration status, without regard for how innocent people would have been impacted by such precipitous police authority.

I suggest Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer demonstrate how much she personally supports the law which she signed by being the first person to be called into question for her immigration status.  Hopefully, there would be media coverage to witness the event.  Let's see Governor Brewer be a role model for her own law.

Arizona's proposed law empowered police to clean up the state's illegal immigration problem like giving them a dirty dust rag to keep employers clean. Rather, I suggest the state's intolerant citizens who support the drag-net provisions focus, instead, on the crack down on the employers who solicit and hire illegals.  Therein is the core problem!  Judge Bolton upheld provisions in the law which focus on solving the problem without violating the US Constitutional right of Americans to live in freedom from unlawful imprisonment.  How many  Americans carry our immigration papers with us when we go to the grocery store?

Although Arizona will appeal Judge Bolton's ruling, the law Governor Brewer signed will likely be re-written regardless of how other federal courts rule.  

Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of all immigrants, legal and illegal, I am thankful for one Federal Judge who is standing up for the rights we are guaranteed under the US Constitution. Finally!

My Grandparents - Independence Day in New York Harbor

It was 1913 when a young married couple named Alessandra Dini and Eugenio Anselmi arrived in New York Harbor as Italian immigrants. They left their beautiful home in Tuscany, Italy, to start a new life in America.

They raised four daughters (the oldest was my mother Elda) and grew a small grocery business in Monesson, Pennsylvania while Eugenio prepared for his US citizenship swearing in.

Several years after establishing themselves in Pennsylvania, they sent for their only son, who was back in Italy, to join them.

Although the Anselmi family experienced many hardships, they never looked back. American was their home. They were Italian Americans.

Today, many ill informed people are making it increasingly difficult for young immigrants to reach the same American dream my grand parents worked hard to achieve. Regardless of a person's citizenship status, an immigrant's life is never easy. They are sad about the life left behind, even if they are refugees. Yet, the tide of anti-immigration rising among some Americans is making the transition from immigrant to citizen more difficult than ever before.

Every single American is a descendant of an immigrant. We should honor the brave people who came before us to blaze the democratic road to our economic and social freedoms.

Instead, an anti-immigration movement is rooting itself in the hearts and minds of some people who simply forget where their own ancestry came from. These hypocritical people are likely unable to pass the same citizenship history tests given to newly sworn in American citizens. In fact, a recent survey by the Marist College in New York reported that 25 percent of those interviewed did not even know what country Americans fought to achieve our independence.

"....a new poll suggests more than 1 in 4 Americans don't know which country America declared its independence from. According to a new survey from Marist College, 26 percent failed to correctly identify Great Britain as the country the United States fought an eight-year war with to gain its independence." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/tag/cnn-ticker-producer-alexander-mooney/?fbid=GMP7hvGmtFN

As Americans celebrate our heritage, freedom and security from wants, we must also honor those who made the sacrifices we appreciate and remember on July 4th - Independence Day.  

To do otherwise is to denigrate the very occasion we joyously salute with fireworks, parades, and decorative bunting topped by flags and highlighted by sparklers. Let's always remember where we came from.

My grandmother Alesandra Dini Anselmi loved the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor because she knew it was a symbol of all the freedoms America stands for. 

God Bless America.