Here’s one reason why Arizona’s new laws aren’t any good: to those who chose not to exercise reason, the laws institutionalize bigotry, and in doing so make it passable for everyone – like this restaurant owner in Georgia:

Mulligan’s on Roswell Road in Cobb County joined the heated debate over illegal immigration.

A sign in front of the restaurant read, “Hell Yeh [ sic] Arizona. Send those [expletive] home! Anchor babies & all! If u [ sic] can’t feed um [ sic] don’t breed um [ sic]”

via Marietta Bar Hangs Controversial Sign.

Background: The state legislature recently passed an extremely strict new set of laws that grants police new powers to identify and prosecute illegal immigrants – see the NYT’s summary: Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration.

Among the criticisms levied against the bill is that the ability to demand valid papers from any passer-by will make racial profiling against Latinos systemic, and will create a fascist-feeling environment in which jackbooted Arizona police will demand your “papers.”

I’m mixed: the libertarian in me views any attempts to hinder the free movement of people and capital as counter-productive. The community minded part of me, however, sees the costs of illegal immigration in everything from artificial downward wage pressure and increased crime, to increased pressure on taxed social services.

It strikes me that persecuting illegals once they’ve arrived at the expense of the civil liberties of all Arizonan’s can’t be the best way to go at resolving the issue. Instead, why not look for mechanisms to remove illegal’s motivations to cross the border in the first place? That is to say, they cross to work in Arizona, which means Arizonan businesses are employing them illegally. If stemming the tide of illegal immigration into Arizona is the goal, my opinion is that going after those businesses would be the more rational way to do so.

Of course, targeting businesses isn’t something Republicans (or conservatives) are likely to do.

What do you think?

I watched this movie last week with my wife – the Visitor. Its a quiet, intense drama – the kind of movie I usually dodge in favour of lighter fare. I’m happy to have seen this one, however. It is a movie about post-911 immigration policy in the US and how compassion (or indifferent justice) and the debate on immigration, asylum, and refugees in the end affects the lives of people – sons, mothers, and friends. It also touches on the privatization of prisons.

I’m don’t claim to know how close the scenario played out in the movie matches what happens in the US, or in Canada – but it makes me want to find out.

A deeply moving drama built around longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, The Visitor is a simmering drama about a college professor and recent widower, Walter Vale (Jenkins), who discovers a pair of illegal aliens who were the victims of a real-estate scam living in his New York apartment. After the mix-up is resolved, Vale invites the couple–a young, Syrian musician named Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and his Senegalese girlfriend (Danai Gurira)–to stay with him. An unlikely friendship develops between the retiring, quiet Vale and the vibrant Tarek, and the former begins to loosen up and respond to Tarek’s drumming lessons as if something in him waiting to be liberated has finally been unleashed. All goes well until Tarek is hauled in by immigration authorities and threatened with deportation. His mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), turns up and stays with Vale, sparking a renewed if subdued interest in courtship. However, the wheels of injustice in immigration crush all manner of hopes in post-9/11 America. Vale soon realizes that he has unexpected anger over Tarek’s plight, and the positive changes to his personal life that emerged from a deep involvement with his friend and Mouna might be the only legacy he takes from this experience. Writer-director Thomas McCarthy has created a wonderfully measured story about change and renewal and put it all on the shoulders of Jenkins, a largely unheralded but masterful performer whose time for renown has surely come. –Tom Keogh [IMDB]

I had hoped to be able to point you to an iTunes rental, but the movie doesn’t appear to be in the Canadian iTunes catalog. You can order it from Amazon, though, or do as I did and rent it at BlockBuster.