BATON ROUGE, La.
They worry about the economy here, and the public schools, and a fit of violence by bored teenagers. But as the heat turns from powerful to painful in just a few hours, and people run inside for relief, there is little talk of the immigration wars that rage in the political campaigns or a looming Supreme Court decision about Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. Immigrants rebuilt this state after Hurricane Katrina; that memory is often why, despite being a pretty conservative place, there is little hatred of the other here. As one Republican politician told me, “We are conservative, yes, but we know Arizona is not where we should be.”
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It is shameful that Juliette would talk about the latest Obama fiat, and ignore the illegal process that he used; ignore the politics behind it; and ignore that this act just added upwards of 1 million people to the number of job seekers at a time when unemployment exceeds 8%. NEW PARAGRAPH: I am amazed that in this economy, liberals like her seem to think accommodating illegal immigrants is important. It is not, and "reform" should be put on the back burner until there are fewer workers than there are jobs. Those who came here illegally, and stayed here, will have to figure out a way to get by. It is NOT a primary problem for this country, to find a way to legalize these people.
So it's best to just keep ignoring the problem. ¿Que!!
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Hmm, a title that suggests moderation, but text that continues to vilify Arizona's law as "extreme" for daring to enforce federal law. Also, how completely cynical can you be for claiming AZ's law has hurt its economy? Maybe it wouldn't be hurt at all if it weren't for all the liberal towns and organizations in the country sought to boycott it. Its quite insulting that they care more about people in this country illegally than the businesses and jobs of their fellow citizens (who may have had nothing to do with the law at all). Are they doing this because they love the convenience of cheap, illegal labor to exploit?
Arizona's law is Not anti-immigrant! It is anti-illegal immigrant. Arizona is not self-destructing. It is trying to prevent the destruction and cost coming from (some) illegals who have been running drugs, guns and people, committing other crimes, and burdening its health care, educational, criminal justice and other social service systems. Arizona doesn't demand that police check the papers of anyone the police may feel is illegal. They can only demand papers of people stopped for a violation of another law. I understand editorial freedom and that, of course, the Globe tolerates all the snide comments and inaccurate about Republicans and conservatives in this piece. But must the Globe allow actual blatant inaccuracies?!
Where are the facts behind statements like this - "Immigrants rebuilt this state after Hurricane Katrina". These blanket statements devalue the rest of the column. Since we know that is factually inaccurate (yes we know some did, but most rebuilding is not being done by immigrants), how can be buy into the rest.
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