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DAVID HARSANYI: ?Immigration? isn?t the problem. For the most part, the controversy we face isn??

By Glenn Reynolds

DAVID HARSANYI: “Immigration” isn’t the problem.

For the most part, the controversy we face isn’t about immigration at all. It’s about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or offer rational policy. There’s a difference.

Gallup polls (and others) taken over the past decade find that around 60 percent of Americans, when asked whether immigration was generally a good thing or a bad thing for the country, believe it to be a positive. Yet, when Gallup recently polled Americans about the new Arizona law that cracks down on illegal immigrants, of the three-quarters of voters who had heard about the then-pending legislation, 51 percent said they favor it while only 39 percent say they oppose it.

Americans value immigration. They recoil from lawlessness. And frustration over the impotent border enforcement has manifested itself in a flailing overreach. Arizona’s law isn’t a referendum on Latinos or even immigration itself. It’s an unambiguous rebuke of Washington.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on May 01, 2010 (boomark / email).