What happens when there’s no national consensus on an issue?: No coherent national policy.

Chorus: Give me your tired, your poor, your — guest workers, yearning to use the Port-O-San.

It’s no coincidence that the routes used by illegal immigrants are exactly the same routes used by the cartels to smuggle drugs into the US; and, illegal immigration from Mexico is not fleeing from economic opportunity.

So, what’s wrong with States passing laws to enforce immigration laws, if the federal government won’t?

The result would be a patchwork of enforcement that would encourage illegal immigration to states where xenophobia is less rampant, and enthusiasm for enforcement is less rabid — like, Cahly-forn-eyah.

We don’t have true Federalism anymore — it’s more like administrative decentralization: States get to exercise their policy prerogatives, until a national consensus gives Washington policymakers political cover to formulate a national policy.

Chorus: Land of the Home, free of the Brave. [Thank you, Sam Phillips]

It’s not that the Arizona measure is good or bad, unconstitutional, or even racist [which it is] — but, rather, that immigration touches and concerns the Nation: States have no policy prerogatives [nullification] in a federal policy domain [preemption.]

Appeals to patriotism and fidelity to the principles of the founding, ring hollow when among the “long Train of Abuses” cited in the Declaration of Independence, “… obstructing the Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migration hither …” was  high on the list.

Nobody asked, just my opinion.