In his column at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson writes that the immigration turnaround — the fact that net migration from Mexico has slowed to a halt and may actually have been reversed — makes this the perfect time to discuss sensible, real-world reforms.
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According to the Pew report, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States; six out of 10 are Mexican. The number of immigrants without papers has actually been falling. Wouldn’t this be a perfect time to take a deep breath and start talking about reasonable ways to engineer a more rational immigration policy?
Yes it would, but don’t hold your breath. Apparently, we’re going to have a lot of shouting without actually trying to find a solution. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s “driving while brown” law, which instructs police to challenge and, if necessary, apprehend anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. The law forbids racial profiling, but the truth is that it effectively guarantees profiling.
The administration argues that the state law usurps the federal government’s prerogative to set immigration policy. The court is expected to decide the case this summer, and the ruling’s impact may be less practical — since illegal immigration, I repeat, is already on the decline — than political.
Read Eugene Robinson's entire piece at the Washington Post.
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