SB 1070: A Review of the Impact on Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence in Arizona
Posted: 3 Oct 2010 Last revised: 18 Oct 2010
Date Written: October 1, 2010
Abstract
This article argues that the tenor of Arizona Immigration Bill, SB1070, will exacerbate the plight of victims of domestic violence in Arizona. Specifically, the Bill threatens to impinge upon the rights provided to victims under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and has the potential to destabilize a federal scheme that provides rights to these victims. This Bill threatens to nullify well-established federal laws pertaining to the rights and obligations of immigrant victims of domestic violence. Chief among them is the right to be free from deportation. Not only does the Bill threaten to erode these laws, and further destabilize an anemic immigration system, the Bill seeps into the international law arena, and has the potential to violate certain human rights treaties, such as the U.N Convention Against Torture (CAT).
At its very core is an inherent tyranny. The language contained in this Bill will sever the rights and civil liberties of not just illegal immigrants, but all of us as American citizens. The Bill raises questions of civil liberty issues already cognizable under Federal immigration law and secondarily the rights of VAWA and asylum victims to confidentiality, which the policing embodied in this bill seeks to erode.
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