The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the U.S. Government which had sued to prevent sections of the chilling anti-immigration law Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had fought to get implemented. It will be interesting to see if Brewer uses additional Arizona tax dollars to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. The contention being that the Federal Government is doing too little to crack down on illegal immigration, and the Arizona law is necessary to protect her rightful citizens.
There are probably not that many people who would disagree that the Federal Government is doing too little to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants in our nation. Unfortunately, it's not a simple problem and there's no basis in the Arizona law other than racial profiling that indicates it would be able to do any better.
The reason it is so complicated is that the United States is a nation of immigrants founded and built by them. We are, in effect, beholden to immigrants. Tens of millions of people have immigrated in the past 100 years. Every wave of immigrants has met with resistance of some form or another. What most are not willing to say, but it's the elephant in the room, is that right now, the average American really doesn't have a problem with immigrants come to the USA and even working. They have a problem with one particular subset of immigrants. It's time to admit that. The Arizonans need to admit it to themselves. They need to admit the reason their law is flawed is because it was designed to help get rid of illegal Hispanic immigrants. It's not designed to get rid of illegal Canadians, Asians, Europeans, etc.
Why do so many in the south and southwest have a problem with just the Hispanic immigrants? Unfortunately, the answer here is complicated as well because categorizing all Hispanic immigrants into one group isn't fair from the start. It's really a subset that may be the root of the issue. There's a subset, and let's just be perfectly honest, there's a subset of Hispanic illegal immigrants that wants to become part of American culture (whatever that means) and there's a subset that does not. There is a group of American citizens that does not want any Hispanic people to ever become empowered here, so they fight for bilingual education to keep them from ever becoming fluent in the dominant language of commerce. But, there's also a group that has made no attempt to assimilate. When my grandfather was born in NYC to Swedish parents, he was never taught a word of Swedish nor a single Swedish tradition. He was told "Charlie, we are all Americans now." His family did not move to an enclave of Swedish people, retain their mother tongue, send all their income back to Sweden, utilize bilingual services at school, refuse to take English courses, and demand all forms be bilingual.
With the risk of sounding politically incorrect which is not my style, immigrant classes that have worked to assimilate into the national fabric have struggled but eventually reached mainstream acceptance. You will notice there are plenty of examples of amazing Hispanic people, children of immigrants some many generations old, that have made incredible contributions to America. I think right off of former Denver Mayor Federico Peña as but one of many. Unfortunately, there exists a subset that shows little signs of wanting to assimilate and become part of this country. Of course, there is another possibility, it could be that they want to but feel too unwelcome.
The first thing that needs to be done is to create legitimate pathways to citizenship. This is not only fair given the history of our nation, but vital to it's continued success. Where would our nation be now were it not for the tens of millions of brilliant immigrants who brought fresh perspective and ideas? We need to ensure that everyone is welcome. Second, we must then force people to make a choice to buy in or buy out. If you don't want to assimilate, if all you are doing is working to send money back home, then you need a work permit. These are what should be limited, not the number of immigrants.
In the end, we don't need laws like this reckless one produced by Arizona, but we do need to address the problem they were trying to address. Congress and the President need to seek a compromise and understanding of the real issues at heart here.