by Donald Rosenberry

Created on: May 28, 2010   Last Updated: May 29, 2010

Arizona has passed a new law, and the debate it has launched is worthwhile for every American.  On the surface, the law simply makes the legal and arguably rational effort to enforce the rule that if one is present in the United States without have complied with immigration law for entry, then one has committed a crime and should be deported.  We have federal law that states as much, so why the outcry?

It is because the law has not been passed solely to enforce immigration rule compliance.  In fact, the extent that it enforces the rules for proper immigration is a byproduct of its purpose, which is to assuage fear.  

That Arizona suffers from a disproportionate share of illegal immigration can be argued, mostly due to its physical location with respect to our neighbors to the south. 

It fails on a number of levels, not the least that it is redundant to federal law, and because it is unconstitutional for a state to pass a law attempting to usurp those powers ascribed to the federal government by the constitution. 

Whether or not someone is afforded residence in the United States as a non- citizen is a federal decision.  There are reasons the nation would want to selectively enforce immigration law and we see that on a regular basis as applied to victims granted asylum for a number of individually unique circumstances. 

These particular cases require the individual deliberation of federally authorized personnel to make a just decision that is right for America.  

This is certainly not the first time Americans have faced an onslaught of immigrants and specifically Mexican immigrants, and each time we have had to make hard decisions, and not the first time we have made the unfair ones.  When the US needed cheap hard labor as when the Mexico to US railroad system was built, we were more than happy to employ Mexican immigrants. 

They came by the tens of thousands to lands that had been Mexican originally.  Then, when the job was finished and the labor pool became bloated, the masses of “true Americans” decried the horde of illegal immigrants taking our rightful jobs and contributing to the downturn of the economy.  Then World War II came along, and American manpower was siphoned off to fight, suddenly the Mexican worker was welcome once again.

The US and Mexico signed the Braceros treaty in 1942, which paved the way for an eventual labor force of over four million Mexican workers. 

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