Life in general has a way of putting us in our place. In the animal kingdom, the zebras stay in a group, as do the gazelles and warthogs, and lions come around only when they’re out to kill their next meal. Otherwise, lions don’t belong where the zebras, gazelles and warthogs are.
Human beings categorize and make rules for all sorts of things, but the most complicated system of categorizing involves ourselves and where we belong.
We tend to have places for (almost) everybody. We prefer to keep criminals away from us by confining them to large, guarded penitentiaries. We keep our children in school buildings or gated playgrounds to encourage their learning and protect them from harm. We have state laws designed to help people enjoy a degree of comfort and confidence in the tenets of our law-abiding country. We do, however, tend to see our state of residence as being unique and, much like those zebras, we get uncomfortable if a lion from someplace else wanders in. They might be here for lunch. Travel from state to state is a culture shock in itself, without somebody from overseas or north or south of us complicating matters.
The common notion about Texans, for example, is that their gun laws are designed with their residents in mind, and it is possible that plenty of folks there carry guns. If the law says it’s okay there, and folks are okay with that, then it’s a fine state law for Texas. Let’s say, however, that a Texan takes a road trip to another state. They might not want to pack heat there. By the same token, somebody from the other 47 contiguous states who takes a trip down to the Lone Star State might want to bone up on the local culture, if for no other reason to avoid being freaked out by some local pulling their map out of the glove-box and having a pistol fall out behind it.
Because so many people feel like fish out of water outside their own area, and because people tend to look suspiciously at anybody with a out-of-state license plate, we frequently wish–even if for a moment–the outsiders would not venture about. After all, zebras aren’t known to deal with rogue zebras who want to eat them for dinner, do they? Let’s keep the warthogs and gazelles, too, but we get nervous around lions.
Arizona wants to keep illegal immigrants out of the state, so a new law has made it a state crime to be there without proper documentation. If an officer has reason to believe that somebody may be illegally trespassing, they can ask for official proof, such as ID or work papers.
There are arguments about profiling going around in light of this law. After all, no zebra asks a lion for ID. A lion is a threat to the culture of zebras and gazelles and warthogs. The idea from the law partially stems from recent killings along the Mexican border: the lunch was usually a hard-working Arizonian, and the lion was somebody hopping over the border with a desperation not unlike hunger. So let’s go on record as saying these incidents involved criminal lions.
It’s an unusual situation in Arizona and Mexico border states, involving lots of fish out of water. What Arizona might need to do is sort out the zebras from the lions and figure out how best to keep their economy strong, whether it involves changing their labor policies or trying to physically keep the borders breach-proof. However, they should remember that zebras don’t just live in Arizona, and lions don’t just come out of Mexico.
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