May I see your papers, citizen?

That doesn't quite fit what I saw on my last visit to Ellis Island. If I remember correctly, it was left wing xenophobes who ended America's first 145 years of open immigration around 1921. They were chiefly American labor unions who didn't like their wages undercut by new immigrants.

Actually, illegal immigration is free enterprise personified. There is an imbalance between where the jobs are and where the capable workforce is, so free enterprise drives the solution (people moving to where the jobs are and employers hiring the best workers) regardless of law. Setting up artificial barriers to this flow is anti-free enterprise. There are perfectly good reasons to maintain reasonable border control, but free enterprise isn't one of them.

Good point! I think you wanted to say that all immigration is free enterprise personified. It doesn't have to be illegal to be free. But other than that, you're right: Free migration is the mirror image of free trade, which conservatives claim to be all in favor of. It makes little sense to cheer the one while demonizing the other.

exactly

From today's care2.com/causes/politics/blog/arizona

istoric Supreme Court decisions, both of which detailed police disregard and callousness for the individual rights, particularly if those individuals happen to be minorities.

The most famous of these decisions, Miranda v. Arizona stands as one of the landmark Warren Court decisions reigning in the power of the government over the individual. Ernesto Miranda was arrested on a suspicion of robbery and while in police custody, questioned by officers and detectives in a room cut off from the outside world. He was never given a full and effective warning of his constitutional rights at the outset of his interrogation. Miranda eventually confessed to an unrelated crime of rape, and that confession was used at trial to convict him of rape.

While routinely criticized by the right, the Miranda decision should be embraced by those claiming to support reigning in the power of the government over the liberty of the individual. The Warren Court recognized the inherently coercive power of the government over the individual, a power the Bill of Rights was specifically drafted and implemented to counteract.

Some thirty years later comes another decision describing the lengths Arizona offers feel they are entitled to go while on the job. In Arizona v. Gant Respondent Gant was arrested for driving on a suspended license, handcuffed, and locked in a patrol car. Only after Gant was securely in custody and away from his vehicle did officers decide to search his car where they found cocaine in a jacket pocket. At trial Gant argued the search was per-se unreasonable but the Arizona court disagreed and allowed the evidence of the drug possession in. The United States Supreme Court disagreed, reiterating the constitutional standard for police searches that are incident to an arrest.

Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, subject to only a few specific exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347. For a search incident to a lawful arrest like in Gant, officers may only search the area from which an arrestee might gain possession of a weapon or the destruction of evidence. Safely secured in police custody in their cruiser, there was simply no way this exception applied to Gant. The officers would have or should known that and either chose to ignore Gant's constitutional rights or were not trained to properly understand and respect the line between lawful police activity and unlawful police activity.

So it comes as little surprise then that Governor Jan Brewer's after-the-fact proposal for law enforcement training to implement SB 1070 has fallen on skeptical ears. Prior to its enactment officers were already requesting birth certificates and proof of residency on traffic stops with no clear, articulable reason or need for such documentation.

It should also come as no surprise that passage of this bill has alarmed many civil rights advocates and moderate Americans who are frustrated with a ballooning immigration crisis but still respectful of the humanity of many who are simply looking to the chance to earn a living and maintain a productive life.

Two of the bills most vocal proponents are notorious civil rights violators. In the case of Maricopa County Joe Arpaio he faces a federal investigation by the Department of Justice for violations of civil rights after repeated complaints that he racially profiled arrests and coordinated activities with the nativist Minute Men who routinely patrol the Arizona border.

Worse is Sen. Russell Pearce, author of the legislation who has open and unapologetic ties and friendships with Arizonans tied to neo-Nazi movements like J.T. Ready. In 2006 Pearce was even caught forwarding an anti-Semitic email to his supporters from the neo-Nazi National Alliance, a move that cost him most Republican support, but not his seat in the Arizona legislature.

There is no doubt that Arizona is struggling with an immigration problem out of control. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon laid bare this problem eloquently in the Washington Post just after enactment of SB 1070, all but pleading with the American public to neither judge his state for the actions of an extremist legislature nor to follow in its footsteps. And in a time of crushing financial problems this bill threatens to bankrupt the state while it spits on the constitutional principles that are meant to protect us from overreaching and abusive government.

It's worth noting that perhaps the only domestic policy initiative of the Bush administration was immigration reform, an initiative killed by members of the hard right who who refuse to acknowledge the economic benefits of finding a path to legal residency for those who are seeking nothing short of the ability to take care of themselves and their families. Yes the federal government needs to act on this issue, and it needs to act immediately. So it is time the hard right gets out of the way.

SB 1070 will most likely be found unconstitutional on the basis of federal preemption, but until then Arizona and this country must face the ugly truth of hate and racism that drives this bill. A narrative by supporters that this bill is anything short of that is disingenuous given the nativist impulses driving the state and fueling Arizona law enforcement. A mainstream media that simply refers to this bill as "tough" enables and empowers those who believe that only certain individuals are entitled to the protection of our Constitution. But just like the civil rights struggles of fifty years ago, it is time to speak truth to power and fight for the recognition that civil rights are human rights and not the entitlement of a privileged few, and the Constitution is not a tool of the privileged to advance an agenda of hate.

Sorry! The first 2 paragraphs did not copy. Here they are:

Those supporting Arizona SB 1070 have rushed to defend the immigration bill that allows for police to essentially profile anyone believed to be in this country illegally have shot back that the bill does not encourage profiling based on race. Unfortunately for Arizonans and the nation the state's history suggests quite the opposite.

Historically Arizona has struggled to find a balance between a lawful exercise of its police powers and respecting the rights and humanity of Latinos and Native Americans in its state. This tension played out in two historic Supreme Court decisions, both of which detailed police disregard and callousness for the individual rights, particularly if those individuals happen to be minorities.

This is an interesting claim. It could be interpreted in either of two contradictory ways.

If by "struggled" you mean "failed", then I agree with the statement. If "struggled" implies that they made any type of effort in good faith, then this claim is laughable.

Your first paragraph contradicts what is the basic leftist philosophy, which is that corporations are promoting an oligarchical, if not fascist, regime here in the US. The corporate class already has an inordinate share of both the wealth and power. For you to state as you do that leftists " . . .should consider that many in the corporate class also aim to depower national governments . . ." is ridiculous! That is what the left is saying and saying and saying.

And, your entire post, as a response to the section of my words that you have selected, is a non sequitur.

Funny, most of them come here for the what pretends to be the free enterprise system.

The reagan and two bush administrations offer ample illustration of the fact that the right likes government that does what the right wants it to. Since the right is, as many responses on this and the two other threads on the AZ situation show, afraid of "brown skinned" people, limits on them are fine. I doubt that these same respondents would enjoy being stopped and searched by the police. Sure, they will say they have nothing to hide (and they probably don't . . . which you can take any of several ways), but were they to be treated as Mexicans or African-Americans are routinely treated, they would be upset.

That was, as you write (perhaps) 1921, and not the middle of the 19th C., as I wrote.

Actually, the Immigration Act of 1924 was the product of two Republicans, Representative Albert Johnson, a newspaper editor and a proponent of eugenics, and Senator David Reed.

Reed and Johnson were known for almost nothing else and worked hard to pass their bill.

With thanks to engineer who said what I had to say with greater eloquence.

I don't think that contradicts the post of mine you're replying to. Back in the 20s, the term "left-wing Republican" wouldn't have been an oxymoron yet.

Examples of leftist Republicans: Lowell Weicker and Jacob Javits.

You're proving the point here. Republicans like this can't exist today. Jacob Javits has been dead almost 25 years and Lowell Weicker went independent 20 years ago and now leans Democratic.

American businesses and individuals employ illegals for a reason.

they cost less. and they have no rights.

profits make this an acceptable trade off. (the aliens don't get a say, really they are simply being taken for the ride)

laws are for people without the money to operate outside of them.

Yeah, I don't get the anger towards illegal immigrants. Why aren't people mad at the people who hire illegal immigrants? They're the ones a) profiting and b) causing the whole problem to begin with.

Obviously, the illegals are way more visible, especially off the job site. Dear Ms Peabody is alway dear Ms Peabody. Her housekeeper from El Salvador doesn't quite blend in.

There's some truth that some US employers hire illegals because they have no rights, but I think that is simplistic. Often companies hire illegals who work along side their US counterparts, get the same salary and are treated the same. If a community can't supply the workforce at a competitive price breakpoint, the company must either move to where the workers are, raise salaries, import workers or go under. Many companies have moved to find cheaper labor, first from the northeast to the south, then overseas. If you don't bring the workers to the jobs, the jobs will go to the workers.

the real world has uglier side effects than the one you describe.

the jobs they are taking where I have been are not white collar by a long shot.

and if they get hurt, oh well. no work for you till you are better. or not.