SENATOR MENENDEZ URGES BASEBALL PLAYERS TO BOYCOTT PHOENIX ALL STAR GAME

From the AP.

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[Jack]

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig Weighs In On Arizona Boycott

On Tuesday, 12 News asked Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to weigh in on the issue. He said the game has a long history with minorities.

"We're a social institution, and I'll rest my case on the fact that baseball has been remarkably socially active over the last 50 years," Selig said.

He would not comment on whether he will consider moving next year's All-Star game out of Phoenix.

Meanwhile, Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo, who was born in Mexico, told 12 News Monday night he hopes the Arizona law gets changed. He calls it unfair. "It's just disrespectful. I don't think it's right for person to come up to you and just ask you for your citizenship in the United States," Gallardo said.

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The law doesn't allow for that, Yovani, but it's understandable you might think that the way it's being misstated.

[Jack]

Hayworth: Calls to move All-Star Game silly

Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth, now running for the U.S. Senate, says if Major League Baseball pulls the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, the only place it can move it is Toronto.

Some critics of Arizona's new immigration law have called on MLB to move the game.

"The only place the All-Star Game could be relocated within MLB would be to Toronto," Hayworth said, "because every other city is in the United States, every other city in Major League Baseball is subject to federal law."

Federal law requires immigrants to have proof they're in the United States legally -- just like Arizona's new law, Hayworth said.

He said calls to move the game out of Arizona because of the immigration law are ridiculous.

"The Players Association again got out front on something that I dare say the executive director nor any of the players bothered to read and that is Senate Bill 1070," Hayworth said, referring to Arizona's law.

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[Jack]

"...it codifies racial profiling into law by requiring police to question anyone who appears to be in the country illegally."

"The Arizona law is an embarrassment to our country and a call to action to our communities to stand up against injustice."

Senator Menendez, the Arizona law expressly prohibits racial profiling. In four different places, the law provides that "a law enforcement official … may not consider race, color or national origin in the enforcement of this section …." Race may not be considered in making any stops or determining immigration status. Thus, isn't it nonsensical to claim that such a law "codifies racial profiling"?

Federal case law, by contrast, allows ICE to use race or color as a factor so long as they are not the sole factor (in establishing "reasonable suspicion").

Or are you saying that the mere act of questioning someone who appears to be in the country illegally is "racial profiling"? If so, ICE does that all the time and has broader authority than an Arizona policeman because they can engage in consensual questioning of someone in a public place--Arizona law enforcement cannot under the new state law.

So if you think the Arizona law (which proscribes the consideration of race) "codifies racial profiling", what
do you think of federal immigration law which allows the consideration of race? Is federal immigration law an even bigger "embarrassment to our country" and even more unjust? If you think an immigration law which expressly prohibits consideration of race is racist, are you saying that immigration law is inherently racist?

If a law results in the detention of mostly people of a particular race or nationality because the vast majority
of those in violation of that law are of a particular race or nationality, does that make the law unjust? Or are you biased against the Arizona law and immigration law in general due to the fact that you are of the same ethnicity as most of those who are in violation of immigration law? I.e., would you care as much (or at all) if the vast majority of those in violation of immigration law in Arizona were not Latino?