Protests are cropping up on American campuses as well. Students at Yale University protested the bill last week. Blogger Nathan Rothstein's sister was part of the protest and he writes about the mock raid and protest here. The Yale Daily News also wrote about it, saying:
Yesterday, members of MEChA, Jews for Justice and Fierce Advocates, along with other concerned Yale students, staged a mock raid in the Commons dining hall during peak traffic to raise awareness of the urgent seriousness of the issue. At 12:30, we released our “ICE agents,” who hounded unsuspecting students and demanded to see proof of residency. When students failed to procure the proper documents, we handed them an informative citation that explained that, if this were Arizona, they could have been detained.
At 12:45, our leading Sheriff stood on top of a chair and shouted into a megaphone, “This is a raid!” Immediately, our agents rushed to the “undocumented students” we had planted throughout the dining hall, handcuffed them, and pushed them to their knees in the center of the dining hall. One by one, we stood and explained our demonstration through a megaphone held up to our lips. We informed the community of the passage of S.B. 1070 and the subsequent multi-agency raid on our communities in Arizona. Finished, we walked handcuffed and surrounded by ICE agents down Commons’ main aisle to disappear through Morse’s closing walls.
At another Ivy League university, Cornell, students are staging their protests in crowded lecture halls. The Cornell Daily Sun reports:
Donning signs reading “Mexican-lookng,” “Sub-human” and “Alien,” members of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán protested Arizona’s recently-passed immigration reform bill in an ILROB 1220: Introduction to Organizational Behavior class this Wednesday.
The class witnessed an example of what could occur in Arizona any day due to Senate Bill 1070, according to Natalie Ramirez ’11, co-chair of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán.
The demonstration included faux immigration and customs enforcement agents coming through the lecture hall demanding papers of students who didn't "look American."
The “officers” picked out the demonstrators wearing the cardboard signs and forced them to kneel on the ground in front of the rest of the class before leading them out of the lecture hall.
Ramirez said the demonstration in Introduction to Organizational Behavior followed another in a quantum physics lecture on Wednesday.
Protesters are planning on staging more demonstrations and concentrating on crowded lecture halls for maximum exposure.
This afternoon two lawsuits were filed against the bill:
Two lawsuits were filed Thursday attacking the measure. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders filed suit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleging the measure is illegal because it usurps federal immigration enforcement authority and because of concerns that the law contributes to racial profiling. The group said on its website that it represents 20,000 churches in 34 states.
An attorney representing a Tucson police officer filed suit in U.S. District Court in Tucson to block the law.
In a Gallup poll, Americans favor the Arizona law 51% to 39% while Obama calls attempts by other states to copy the Arizona law "misguided efforts." Because, you know, nobody can do it as well as he can.
I suppose we can expect the fallout to continue but the fact remains that Arizona is doing what the federal government failed to do and if their efforts are misguided it's nobody's fault but the Feds.
Students at Cornell and Yale might get the chance to put their money where their mouth is now that Mayor Bloomberg has invited Arizona illegals to New York; maybe some will filter over to their campuses. He said, "if Arizona happens to be the only state to adopt the policy, the bill could actually be good for New York 'because people will come here. We make sure that we protect everybody.'"
And the cycle continues.
