The U.S. can do much better than discriminatory Arizona law

Arizona's SB 1070, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer last week, is not only one of the most anti-immigrant pieces of state legislation in recent history; it is a huge defeat for civil and human rights in the United States.

Giving blanket permissions to local law enforcement to detain and delay anyone who looks like an immigrant makes our country appear more like a military state than the place of liberty and opportunity so many of our ancestors migrated to.

I hope that your reporting on it will spur readers of faith and good will to counter this trend of discrimination by working for just and humane immigration reform at the national level.

BROTHER RICH REINHARDT

McCandless

The writer is a Capuchin friar.