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Macomb, IL – It's a star-crossed time when the professional sport most associated with America has about a third of its players of Latino descent and still played its storied All-Star Game in Arizona, the state that first passed legislation targeting undocumented immigrants, many of whom are Latino.
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah all followed Arizona in passing sweeping anti-immigrant laws. The crackdowns are adversely affecting not just immigrants and their families, but farmers, businesses and communities, and despite federal judges in four of the states already blocking the worst parts of the laws, immigrants are starting to take their labor and their spending elsewhere.
At the All-Star Game in Phoenix, fans and players - if not owners - surely thought of Latinos and of all the local lawmen unfairly required to enforce federal laws despite overcrowded jails and underfunded departments.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash, when he blocked Georgia's law on June 27, said, "State and local law enforcement officers and officials have no authorization to arrest, detain or prosecute anyone based upon sections 7 and 8 of HB 87 while this injunction remains in effect. You are not going to have 50 systems of immigration regulation - every county, every municipality is going to decide what its immigration policy is going to be under this law.
He continued, "The apparent legislative intent is to create a climate of hostility, fear, mistrust and insecurity."
The Major League Baseball Players Association said that it's opposed to the measure as written.
Meanwhile, Illinois, New York state and Massachusetts all opted out of a federal program named Secure Communities, designed to identify and deport illegal immigrants, since it's too broad.
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating Secure Communities, according to Wendy Sefsaf of the American Immigration Council. That's why, she said, "a few governors are now saying, Excuse me, I don't think I'm going to engage in this program until I understand it and you guys justify what you're doing.'
She added, "You're supposed to be deporting bad-guy criminals, and we're finding out you're deporting busboys and nannies."
In rejecting Secure Communities, Massachusetts' Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick said, "We will give up more than we get. We run a serious risk of ethnic profiling and, frankly, fracturing incredibly important relationships in communities that are important for law enforcement."
Businesses are also speaking out against such draconian anti-immigration laws - but not the Major Leagues' Lords of Baseball, who should have been reminded of the controversy at the Civil Rights Game in May in Atlanta, where the week before Republican Gov. Nathan Deal signed a law that essentially killed Civil Rights for the state's Latino population.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat and Civil Rights hero, criticized the law, saying, "This is a recipe for discrimination. We've come too far to return to the dark past."
Baseball's kingpins didn't count on such voices when Commissioner Bud Selig invited musician Carlos Santana to be one of those honored at the Civil Rights Game. Santana took the microphone and said that he represented all immigrants, adding, "The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia - you should be ashamed of yourselves."
Later, Santana said, "This law is not correct. It's a cruel law. This is about fear. People are afraid we're going to steal your jobs. No, we aren't. I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy. I am here to give voice to the invisible.
Santana continued, "Most people at this point they are either afraid to really say what needs to be said: This is the United States, the land of the free.'. If people want the immigration law to keep passing in every state, then everybody should get out and just leave the American Indians here."
Omar Jadwat, a lawyer with one of the groups that sued to stop the law, said, "In order to express hostility toward immigrants, the folks who passed the Georgia law are willing to throw out fundamental principles that protect all of us."
Baseball - the sport of Roberto Clemente, Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson - should be ashamed of its owners and celebrate the progress in its past by standing for the future, and freedom.
Bill Knight is a freelance writer who teaches at Western Illinois University. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of WIU or Tri States Public Radio