SEIU Arizona Member Speaks Out Against SB 1070

[Fernando Villalobos is a founding member of SEIU Arizona's Gilbert Chapter]

Even though I'm a U.S. citizen and a native Arizonan, since SB 1070 passed, I'm starting to feel like some people think I don't belong here."

Most of us wouldn't even be Americans if it weren't for immigration.

I was born in Kearney, Arizona - a small town between Phoenix and Tucson.  But my own parents came from Mexico.  They came, like so many people before them, to make a better life for their kids.  My dad worked in the copper mines and my mom worked at Motorola.

Today, I've achieved what my parents hoped for.  I'm a proud Arizonan with three kids.  I work for the Town of Gilbert Water Department, making sure our hydrants are safe, water lines are clear and our system is running smoothly.  Without a doubt, I'm one of the lucky ones.  But with the political storm brewing on SB 1070, I'm starting to think my luck may have run out.

Even though I'm a U.S. citizen and a native Arizonan, since this extreme immigration law passed, I'm starting to feel like maybe some people think I don't belong here.

Just last weekend a sheriff's car pulled me over and asked if I was speeding.  And then they asked if I had any covering over my taillights.  Now, I'm pretty sure they didn't clock me for speeding - since they didn't even write me a ticket.  And I don't know how they could have seen my taillights - since they were driving in the opposite direction.  But what they could see as I was coming down the road was my face and my last name - Villalobos - proudly stenciled across my back window together with my son's football jersey number.

The police asked for my registration and driver's license - so they saw I'm a citizen and they let me go.  But I felt targeted for being a Mexican-American.

That same weekend, some stranger at a restaurant approached me and my friends and used a slur you don't hear that much anymore: "Wetback."  He told me I'd better start carrying my papers around now that SB 1070's been passed.  I felt attacked.

They may say this law is aimed at solving illegal immigration but it feels to me like it's aimed right at me and my family.

I don't really care much for politics and it seems to me that the politicians who passed SB 1070 aren't really interested in immigration reform.  They're just trying to get more votes from people who want to see some action taken on the problem.  But this is the wrong action - way wrong.

We need to stop SB 1070 before it leads to division and hate in our communities.  No one who works hard and contributes to their community deserves abuse just because of the way they look, the cars they drive or their last names. 

Arizona needs to do better.  I know Arizona can do better.

Why SEIU Arizona is Against the New Immigration Law

By signing SB 1070 into law, Governor Jan Brewer has put the jobs of our members in Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert and Pima County at risk.  For the employees represented by SEIU Arizona, this bill could not have come at a worse time.

Public service employees in counties and cities across Arizona are facing pay and benefit cuts, furloughs and layoffs as our employers struggle to balance budgets that have been wrecked by the recession. 

SEIU Arizona chapter leaders have been working long and hard with management to find ways to help balance municipal and county budgets without losing jobs.  We believe that preserving jobs - even with difficult temporary sacrifices - is better than losing them.

In our toughest budget year yet, SEIU Arizona members are fighting hard and making progress:  Holding down health care cost increases in Pima County.  Working to restore 30 to 50 jobs in Tempe.  Supporting cost-saving, revenue-generating options in all chapters.  But budgets for next year in Gilbert and Tempe await the will of the voters this May on questions about local sales tax increases.  And Chandler and Pima members will likely see health care costs increase next year. 

So we are on rocky ground any way we look at it.  And we will be for some time after the 2010-11 budgets are approved. 

Now throw this into the mix:  Police and Sheriff Department employees across Arizona will be required to enforce costly new provisions of SB 1070.  So city and county public safety budgets will have to accommodate these new requirements - while their total budgets are being reduced.  It's a classic case of an "unfunded mandate" - at a time when funds have dried up.

Overburdened police departments, swamped justice systems, an unfunded re-deployment of resources at the expense of the residents of cities and counties who will continue to pay for services that fewer public service employees struggle to deliver  ... These are reasons enough for SEIU Arizona to be against SB 1070. 

Additionally, whatever our opinions on the immigration issue may be, the national and international condemnation of SB 1070 will lead to lost revenues that will further frustrate our state's efforts to put this recession behind us. 

Immigration reform is a complicated issue.  It's also a federal issue.  The state "solution" signed by our Governor just creates more problems for SEIU members and our local communities. 

Losing valuable public service jobs in Arizona to pay for immigration "enforcement" may be an unintended consequence of this bad public policy, but it will be a consequence nonetheless.

SEIU Joins Legal Challenge to SB 1070

The Service Employees International Union joined with other labor unions and civil rights groups in a lawsuit to challenge the legality of SB 1070.

SEIU leaders have joined in this action to block implementation of the law because they know that it will harm the civil rights of individual members and hurt the financial interests of all members as cities and counties face out-of-control costs to enforce it.  With budgets being slashed everywhere in our state, the last thing we need is an unfunded mandate to enforce federal responsibilities to control illegal immigration.

"Arizona's new immigration law is a flawed solution to a serious problem," said Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of SEIU and one of the leaders who helped create our union here in Arizona.  "If implemented, the law will violate our most basic civil rights, burden local law enforcement and undermine public safety, all while failing to solve Arizona's immigration problems."

In addition to SEIU, the lawsuit was filed on behalf the United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW), Arizona South Asians for Safe Families (ASAFSF), Southside Presbyterian Church, Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Asian Chamber of Commerce of Arizona, and other social justice organizations and individuals who may be subject to harassment or arrest under the law.

The issue of immigration reform is an emotional one, and opinions about the issue are as varied as the members of our union.  Since our International union joined a widespread national boycott in response to SB 1070, SEIU Arizona has heard from many members who are angry about this law and heartened that our union is taking a stand - and other members who are angry about the stand we are taking. Our union is one place where public employees with different viewpoints but common interests can come together, say what we think, and then work together for our common good.

When all is said and done, however, we believe that SB 1070 is precisely the wrong answer to the immigration problem.  We joined as plaintiffs because we also believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - the sooner this law is repealed, revoked or declared unconstitutional, the better for the members of SEIU Arizona and everyone in our state.

And the sooner the federal government takes responsibility for the problems Arizona faces because of the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, the sooner we can really solve the problem of illegal immigration.

The legal challenge filed May 17 by the American Civil Liberties Union, MALDEF, the NAACP, the National Immigration Law Center and others charges that SB 1070 unlawfully interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution; invites racial profiling against people of color by law enforcement in violation of the equal protection guarantee and prohibition on unreasonable seizures under the Fourteenth and Fourth Amendments; and violates the privileges and immunities clause of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit also charges that the law violates the Arizona Constitution's prohibition on investigatory stops by law enforcement without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.