Sunday, May 02, 2010

Arizona and immigration - an inarguable response

Diabolic.

Gwynne Dyer, to the bemusement of anyone who has read his past columns, seems to support Arizona's immigration policy ...
Gwynne Dyer: Arizona bucks belief illegal migrants have rights - Gwynne Dyer - NZ Herald News

The President of Mexico was furious. "Criminalising immigration, which is a social and economic phenomena, opens the door to intolerance, hate, and discrimination," Felipe Calderon told a meeting of Mexican immigrant groups.... 
... But suppose I went to Mexico as a tourist and then stayed there illegally, taking work that might otherwise have gone to some deserving Mexican citizen. I would not be treated more gently by the Mexican authorities.

Why does Mexico believe that its own citizens who are illegally in the United States deserve better treatment? ...

.... Some argue that they are doing jobs nobody else wants, but that is only a possible reason for letting them stay. It certainly does not give them the right to stay.

Yet the Mexican government reacts with outraged indignation whenever the US government, or in this case an American state, talks about enforcing the law against illegal immigrants.

It has come to think of the nod-and-a-wink arrangement that allows large numbers of illegal immigrants to cross the border each year as the natural state of things.

Arizona is calling time on that system, and intends to seek out and send home people who are in the state illegally.

In most parts of the world, that would not be regarded as unreasonable. What is different in Arizona's case?...
Hmmm. Sounds reasonable. Surprising to see Dyer on the side of the GOP though.

Except then he skewers Arizona and its supporters in the penultimate paragraph. Do read the essay, it's brilliantly done.

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