Thread: State Legislatures Tackle Immigration

State Legislatures Tackle Immigration
Carlos Macias
May 2, 2008


Several new state laws require employers to verify the legal status of immigrant workers.
The size of this year’s May Day pro-immigration rallies paled in comparison to the massive demonstrations held across the United States in 2006. Yet the large number of state-level immigration laws under consideration demonstrates the issue’s continued importance. Earlier in the week, Arizona’s Governor Janet Napolitano vetoed state legislation that would have mandated all state police and sheriff departments to enforce immigration laws. The bill raised concerns about ethnic profiling and the likelihood of imposing a heavy burden on the state’s already overloaded crime-fighting capacity. A New York Times editorial applauded the governor’s decision, saying that a “rational immigration system will not be resolved by simplistic, predatory enforcement schemes.â€

[quote]The arrival of immigrants in new parts of the United States is just one factor behind anti-immigration legislation; the foundering U.S. economy is another. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, James Riley comments that immigrants become scapegoats when economic concerns loom, and in this day and age. “Today, it means blaming Latinos,â€