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On July 1, 2010, on the precipice of another July 4th celebration, President Obama told an audience that immigration was, in sum, “broken.” Furthermore, “everybody knows it.”  Yet neither he nor the Democratic leadership in Congress had any expectation of passing an immigration law in 2010.  Into this void, Arizona had months earlier passed its own law aimed at tightening enforcement. The New York Times reported that in his speech in July, Obama “used the opportunity to repeat his opposition to Arizona’s new law requiring law enforcement officers to question the immigration status of anyone they stop for other reasons if they suspect that they are in the country illegally, calling it ‘ill conceived’ and ‘divisive’.” The President said, “We face the prospect that different rules for immigration will apply in different parts of the country, a patchwork of different immigration rules where we all know one clear national standard is needed… . Our task then is to make our national laws actually work, to shape a system that reflects our values as a nation of laws and as a nation of immigrants.”  Different rules sounds like different immigration policies—as in who can enter the US.  If the President meant this, then he had a point. However, if he was arguing that tailoring different enforcement mechanisms to different regions, it could be argued counterwise that e pluribus union in a federal system not only allows for it, but thrives by it. In other words, the empire-scale of the US warrants a diversity of approaches. Furthermore, a federal system enables and indeed is strengthened by it.

Rather than looking at Arizona as a threat to the turf of the US Government, we can look at the state’s effort to enforce the US immigration law as a helping hand.  To be sure, there is a danger in the two governments helping each other out too much, for one of the benefits of federalism is that the state and federal governments operate (ideally) as checks on each other.  So they are not partners.  This is not to say that the state governments cannot act within federal law.  Arizona’s law does not conflict with federal immigration law, as the latter allows for people who are suspected of being in the US illegally to be stopped.  Arizona’s law requires another police matter—which is actually looser than the federal law.  The fear may be that enhanced enforcement would come with costs, and this cannot be denied. If the immigration system is broken as the President said, we ought to be willing to deal with them. Moreover, with the system being admittedly broken, the US Government is in no position to cherry-pick in accepting help.  Ironically, had that government been more focused on domains that cannot be covered by the state governments, it might have done a better job. The person who tries to be a jack of all trades does not do justice to any of them.  The President said that immigration is on his government’s turf, yet is there anything that is not? I contend that his government would be more effective were he to concentrate more on delimiting the enumerated powers rather than fighting for an exclusive right.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/us/politics/02obama.html?_r=1&hp

I once asked an official from a consulate office of the EU state of Britain about Turkey's possible accession into the EU as another state. He replied that it would be very disruptive—as much as if Mexico were to join the US as a state. The impact of another large state in union would be very significant, he observed. I was stunned that an official from a characteristically Euroskeptic state would make a reference that implies that the US and EU are on the same level. If his comparison is correct, then likening a Mexican state to a state in the US would evince a category mistake. That is to say, it would mean that a federal state could indeed apply to different scales of political organization, as Althusius had theorized in 1603.

Historically, Mexico was part of one colony of Spain called New Spain. For short-hand purposes, we could say that Mexico was a colony. So too was Virginia. While the latter joined a federative union with other colonies, and then sovereign (and then semi-sovereign) republics, Mexico remained as an independent state. At least by the beginning of the twenty-first century, a LAU (Latin American Union) had not formed. This does not mean, however, that Mexico is thereby a union in itself. Like many of the EU’s states, Mexico has provinces or regions, which in the American states would be intrastate regions or even counties. Some of the American states are sufficiently diverse that they would be good candidates for a federal system like that of Germany or Switzerland. Unfortunately, some of the intra-state officials in Europe and Latin America have been able to vaunt their status by calling themselves governors, as though their region were commensurate with France or Texas.

So in 2010 when all six Mexican border “governors” (six meaning that each is akin to a region say of Texas or Arizona and thus not equivalent with an American governor or a European head of state) wrote Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona to inform her that they were boycotting the 28th annual conference between “governors” of the border “states” because of Arizona’s new law to beef up enforcement of US immigration law, she could well have replied, “Well, I should really be meeting with your head of state anyway.” Just because the semi-sovereign American states do much in common through their federation does not mean that the states have somehow shrunk, such that France, a state in the EU, is now somehow equivalent to the US. That would be like saying that Virginia and the EU are equivalent. Europeans would be very offended. Yet Americans turn a blind eye to the convenient category mistakes that are made by others—and even ourselves—at our own expense.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/us/07governors.html?_r=1

The far right in Europe is different than in America. Right wing movements [such as Le Pen’s] in Europe often differ in significant ways from the right wing that’s made in the U.S.A. Put aside the usual caricature of “people in pointy hoods and the Ku Klux Klan,” Marine Le Pen says, and she still believes “the American right is much more to the right than the National Front.” She might agree with those who want to manage American frontiers more effectively and prevent massive illegal immigration, but she’s also a big believer in the state’s ability and obligation to help its people. “We feel the state should have the means to intervene,” she says. “We are very attached to public services à la française as a way to limit the inequalities among regions and among the French,” including “access for all to the same level of health care.”

Analysis:

Perhaps the American right is more far-right in terms of government, but I suspect not in terms of immigration and other issues.  For example, the euro-skeptics are much more skeptical of the EU than the state rights advocates in America are of the US. I am struck by the fact that the far right in Europe is for universal health-care. Notice that the assumption is that the states of the EU (e.g., France) should cover health-care policy.In the US, by contrast, health-care policy is assumed to properly reside with the US Government rather than with the states. Also, it seems that the wealthy “I don’t want to help others with my tax dollars—just defense” view doesn’t seem to get much political expression in the EU.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/05/how-marine-le-pen-is-changing-french-politics.html

Thousands of Romania’s Roma, also known as Gypsies, have been heading for the relative wealth of Western Europe, and setting off a clash within the European Union over just how open its “open borders” are. Migration within the 27 nations of the European Union has become a combustible issue during the economic downturn. The union’s latest expansion, which brought in the relatively poor nations of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, has renewed concern that the poor, traveling far from home in search of work, will become a burden on wealthier countries. The migration of the Roma is also raising questions about the obligations of Romania and Bulgaria to fulfill promises they made when they joined the union. Romania, for instance, mapped out a strategy for helping the Roma, but financed little of it.

Nicolas Sarkozy of the state of France has demanded that the Romanian government do more to aid the Roma at home. He vowed to keep dismantling immigrant camps and angrily rejected complaints from EU Commission officials that the French authorities were illegally singling out Roma for deportation. Mr. Sarkozy has tried to revive his support on the political right by deporting thousands of them, offering 300 euros, about $392, to those who go home voluntarily, and bulldozing their encampments. The European Commission has threatened legal action against Paris over the deportation, calling it disgraceful and illegal.

This case illustrates the problem the EU has in enforcing compliance of the terms of the accession talks of new states. In addition, this case puts the power relation between the EU and its state governments under palpable pressure. Lastly, the case showcases the difficulty involved in integrating Europe.  More than a common market, the EU states have open borders.  This appreciably decreases the power, and indeed sovereignty, of the state governments such as France and Germany—governments that were hitherto used to being in the driver’s seat.  So it will be interesting to see whether Sarkozy bows to the EU government or the ECJ (the EU’s Supreme Court) when he is under what must be strong domestic pressure to get rid of the Roma.

Relative to Arizona’s new immigration law, France’s deportation of a race of people is radical. Yet whereas in the US France’s policy would produce a vitriolic response from the media and the left, in the EU it is largely the EU government that is objecting. This difference points to a difference between American and European culture.  Perhaps due to the relatively recent history of racial slavery in some of the American states, there is more sensitivity to race in the US—yet there is also racism in the US. Perhaps the racism in the US is one on one now, whereas the racism in the EU is in some state policies.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/world/europe/17roma.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp