Friendly fire | The Salt Lake Tribune: "A group of Utah Republicans has launched an online petition drive urging the Legislature to repeal the state’s new guest worker law. We agree that the law never should have been enacted and should be repealed, but we disagree on the reasons.
The petitioners are right that the new guest worker law is unconstitutional. Only Congress, not the state of Utah, can pass immigration laws. If each state attempted to create its own immigration system, chaos would result. For that reason, the new Utah law should be repealed.
Otherwise, we part company with the law’s opponents. They are against the law because they say it is amnesty for illegal immigrants who have flouted U.S. immigration laws and deserve to be punished, not rewarded, for their behavior. Utah’s new law, they say, will make the state a magnet for illegal immigration.
While it is true that Utah cannot enact its own program of guest worker permits for illegal aliens, it is also true that any realistic immigration reform enacted by Congress should include a guest worker program similar to the one in the new Utah law. It would require illegal aliens to come forward, identify themselves, pay a fine, undergo a criminal background check and join the legal workforce."
The MexicoBlog of the Americas Program, a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), is written by Laura Carlsen. I monitor and analyze international press on Mexico, with a focus on security, immigration, human rights and social movements for peace and justice, from a feminist perspective. And sometimes I simply muse.
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