Yes, it was a fenugreek factory.

I was actually thinking of Demeter, but I guess not. [link]

Billytea, yes - and to do that you have to have enforced/enforceable laws/policies.

Quite so, and part of my point. Though my use of the term 'manage' rather than, say, 'control' or 'enforce' was deliberate.

However, no one in this conversation, nor in the wider political discourse, is proposing the abolition of immigration (explicitly or de facto), so that's a minor point at best. The more important point is that immigration law should be based on the same principles as the rest of the legal system. More important questions include, is the current law just? Is it discriminatory? Does it deny due process? Does it violate human rights? Does it violate international treaties? Is it proportional to the offence? (More controversially, I remain interested too in its degree of compassion, its social implications and its economic implications.

The AZ law, IMO, is bad law on these considerations. But my point is that the significant elements in both our countries that demonise illegal immigrants make such rational discourse and analysis of the situation difficult at best. We wind up with law and law enforcement that violates the principles on which our countries were founded and are detrimental to our countries' interests.

The alienating (so to speak) rhetoric is IMO the element that most threatens effective management of immigration policy. And while I can't speak for the US on this point, it's been immensely damaging to Australian values. Immigration itself has not. Australia is a far more open and confident member of the international community thanks to our immigrants. The current environment threatens exactly that.

Billytea, you most logically stated several points that I completely agree with, as do I agree with (More controversially, I remain interested too in whether it's compassionate, its social implications and its economic implications.

Well, and then the other question is, if you break the law, what are the penalties? I think many of us obviously feel that part of the answer is changing the immigration laws in terms of what makes an immigrant "illegal", but also...there are lots of laws people break, every day, here. Sometimes the penalty is a fine (traffic tickets). Sometimes it's community service. Sometimes it's probation, or jail time. Does the penalty for illegal immigration need to be "Go back to where you came from and NEVER COME BACK"?

OK, this may have ended hours ago but the "illegall immigration is ILLEGAL" argument is nothing but eye-rolling to me.

When you and even a dozen other people you know never speeds, never smoked pot, didn't have a single drink before they were 21, never snuck into a second movie, has never fudged something on their taxes, never ate a grape while shopping, scrupulously tells the waitress if she left off an app, hasn't gotten a discount of one sort or another from a friend working at whatever store and has only had sex in full compliance of whatever state they were in at the time (check the rules on fellatio, people). THEN get back to me about "but they're ILLEGAL!!!!"

Nearly everyone does illegal shit or has done illegal shit. It's a bullshit argument and it somehow gets treated as valid.

So that makes rioting okay? Shall we just give back Texas and California back then?

So what should we do with him? Nothing?

Y'know, I have a real problem with this kind of thing.

There are reasons that people commit crime. There are reasons that they riot. There are reasons that they commit acts of terrorism. We may disagree about what those reasons are, but attempting to understand why these things happen is not offering excuses or saying "Oh well, nothing can be done about it, because it turns out there were reasons ." It's the opposite. If we want to prevent something from happening again, it helps to know why it happened the first time.

Maybe I'm the only one bothered by it, but I think it's rude and dismissive to respond with straw man arguments. And I suspect that you'd be (rightly) offended if someone else had put words in your mouth that way.

Thanks, Strega, I am just now catching up since I've gotten home.

So that makes rioting okay? Shall we just give back Texas and California back then? Would that make something better? How does any country move on from its past evil deeds?

Shari, my response was not a "this is vengeance and doesn't it suck" thrown off post. It's more to do with a specifically post-colonial concern that, especially, Britain is encountering. It isn't about sins of past deeds; it's about real consequences of "owning" a massive amount of land around the world for a couple of centuries (and enslaving a lot of them) and now being responsible for the outcome of those occupations.

"Parenthood" is KILLING me. Gawd I love this show.

As a 1st generation American, with no grandparents who were born here, I realized I just can't process anti-immigrant sentiment at all, legal or not.

Word. I cannot be rational about the discussion of illegal immigration. My father came to the U.S. in 1965 on a tourist visa and never left. He legalized his status around 1968, with assistance from his employer, and became a citizen five months after my birth in 1974. If he would have never come to this country, I would have never been born. This is a man who never graduated from high school, but I consider him one of the most intelligent human beings I've ever met. I'm almost scared to think of what he could have done if he had the education. As it is, he is a successful business owner that is respected in the community, who has paid every tax ever required by the government (as an employer AND employee) for the last 45 years. Yet there are still ignorant people that walk into our restaurant TO THIS DAY, and tell him to go back to his country because he speaks English with a heavy accent. Sorry, he's just as American as you or me. These very same people are incensed when we cannot accept their WIC debit cards for a six-pack of beer. In this scenario, who is the bigger drain on government resources?

And I call bullshit on the language issue too. We speak Italian at home. I didn't really use English until I started first grade. My mother, who was born and raised in PA, LEARNED to speak it at the age of 33 so she could communicate with her MIL and BILs/SIL, regardless of their location. I speak four languages, including English, and that's probably three more than most "Americans," and by "Americans" I mean descendants of European immigrants who came to the New World. They are no more American than I am. Poverty and poor education are not going to be eradicated just by learning English and American ideals. Whatever happened to that basic American tenet that all (wo)men are created equal? I don't see any qualifiers in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution that limit basic rights to English speakers only.

France isn't retaining its culture by shunning and alienating Muslim immigrants; the country is doing what it always does when confronted with people who are not French. My father's sister and her family experienced years of overt discrimination when they moved to France in the early 1960s, from Italy. They weren't French enough then, and they're still not French enough, all these years later because of their last name. One difference - the reaction was different than what's happening now. Condemn the immigrants' reaction if you like (because it violates the criminal code), but don't romanticize France or Great Britain's treatment of the immigrants as a great struggle to maintain a cultural identity. It's xenophobia, plain and simple.

Oh, and Italy is not immune to this either: [link] and [link] This particular incident happened a half-hour from my father's hometown. It's just as upsetting there as it is here.

Immigration laws are absolutely necessary, but common sense should rule. Whatever happened to considering the totality of the circumstances? The current system obviously doesn't work all that well, so let's fix it, WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES of the U.S. Constitution. How ironic is it that Arizona is trying to manage illegal immigration illegally? If you think the feds aren't doing enough of the right things, then vote to change it, or lobby Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that puts immigration enforcement in the hands of the states. Just don't be surprised when a state then denies you entrance because you're Jewish or female or born on a Tuesday.

Or what Erin and billytea have said, much more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could.

Nah, I think you're pretty eloquent yourself, Maria. You should really go into a field where powerful rhetoric is valued. ;)