Immigration

It's easy to assume that Arizona has become the epicenter in the battle against illegal immigration primarily because it has one of the highest percentages of undocumented migrants of any state in the union. But that's just half the story behind the fear many white Arizonans evidently feel.

Immigration has returned to center stage in the U.S. for wrong but not un-reasonable motives. The S.B. 1070 signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in April has set off an explosion of condemnations, justifications, and demonstrations. This brouhaha has brought the issue back to the fore, leading thousands to muse about, hope for, or decry the possibility of comprehensive reform. It is long overdue.

Immigration reform came to the forefront once again last month, when Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a tough new immigration bill into law, which some fear will lead to racial profiling of Latinos. And now legislators in other states may be following suit.

Meanwhile, a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll found that while Americans are concerned about securing the borders, they are also concerned about the fate and welfare of undocumented immigrants who work and stay out of trouble.

Arizona's new immigration law has provoked a firestorm of denunciation from progressives. The portion of the law that allows police to stop and question individuals who might be illegal immigrants has rightly been denounced as encouraging racial profiling. That provision is all too reminiscent of "vagrancy" and "loitering" laws from the segregationist South, which gave law enforcement officers broad discretion in harassing and arresting blacks and low-income whites.

Why are large chunks of the American right so freaked out by illegal immigrants? Because they are no longer so freaked out by African-Americans.

And in this regard, the politics of 2010 are more like 1910 than 1970.

There's nothing like traveling abroad to learn what it means to be American and what being American means to everyone else who is not. I lived in Europe for a year when I was 14, and two unpleasant instances brought the complicated nature of our national identity into sharp relief.

The first happened at a party. After finding out I was American, a young Italian hipster suddenly started attacking me for my country's voracious, imperialist appetite. She cited chapter and verse: interventions in Chile, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala.

When you get beyond the anger and the calls for boycotts and the real possibility of major civil rights violations, the new Arizona law on immigration really is a good thing.

It gives so many different people what they want. Republicans can use the law to appeal to their anti-immigrant base. Democrats can use the law to appeal to try to drum up Latino turnout at the polls.

Opponents of comprehensive immigration reform argue that legalization rewards bad behavior. They contend that illegal immigration is a crime that merits punishment and expulsion, not amnesty. The logic is that if we respond with tough enforcement, illegal immigrants will finally get that they aren't welcome here and go back to their home countries. This kind of reasoning is what's behind laws like the one recently passed in Arizona, which requires law enforcement personnel to determine whenever possible the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants.

If Arizona's Republican legislators weren't so dumb, they'd be dangerous. Or maybe they're dangerous because they're dumb.

Either way, once they stop celebrating the passage of what should be dubbed the "We really, really, really don't like illegal aliens" bill , they're going to have to figure out how law enforcement is supposed to identify the culprits.

The proposition that more immigration can forestall or eliminate projected shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare funding is a perennial favorite on Op-Ed pages. But it's been shot down again and again by scholars who know what they're talking about. Bad policy ideas, though, never stay dead for long, and so it is that Robert Reich is now trying to revive this fallacy.