A Legal Immigrant's Take on Arizona's Immigration Law

As a legal immigrant, I neither empathize with nor support those who break the law in order to gain admission into the United States of America.

I am a legal immigrant. My family and I emigrated from Russia to New York in 1993. We applied for permission to do so in 1990. Throughout those three years we went through numerous background checks and interviews and we waited patiently to be granted the right to move to America.
My status as a legal immigrant shapes my perspective on the illegal immigration issue in general, and Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070 recently adopted by the state of Arizona in particular. When confronted by critics of this legislation, who have urged me to empathize with illegal immigrants, I draw the following comparison: when a person goes into a bank with a check and receives cash for it, that person follows the legal and proper procedure for obtaining money; however, when a person robs a bank with a gun, that person, too, has received cash, but by way of committing an illegal act. Both individuals leave the bank with money, however, one is a law abiding citizen while the other is a criminal.

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