Well, in a word, no. The INTENT is to curb illegal immigration.
The application of it may border on racism, but the intent is not.
The intent is most certainly racist. Let us see the implications of the law. Suppose a brown person (by brown, I mean brown skinned person from any country, whether Mexico, Guatemala, India or Pakistan) is pulled over for speeding. The cop asks him for citizenship proof. If he cannot produce it, he will be thrown into jail.
Or a cop is writing an illegal parking ticket. As he is writing the ticket, the driver returns, he happens to be brown. Cop demands citizenship proof. If the brown person cannot produce it, he will be thrown into jail.
What the upshot is that a brown person (Mexican, Indian, both Native Indian and from India, Pakistani, from South America etc.) has to carry his papers with him all the time (immigration documents, birth certificate, passport etc.) or he risks being put in jail.
The white people have no such fear. If they wanted to make the law race neutral, the law would have stated that if pulled over for suspicion of a crime, the police will have to check the citizenship status of everybody pulled over, no exceptions. This would included whites, blacks, browns everybody.
But then whites will also have to carry citizenship proof with them all the time (birth certificate, passport etc.). That will inconvenience the white majority, we can’t have that.
The law was crafted in such a way that only the brown people will be harassed by the police. Indeed, chances are on that grounds alone it may be overturned by the courts, forget about the merit of the law. On its face, the law is plainly racist, it is meant to harass only the brown citizens of Arizona, both legal and illegal.
It is no wonder even so many people are opposed to the law.
