Shift

Despite the constant outrage of civil rights activists and politicians over the immigration reform bill passed recently in Arizona, the current trend throughout the nation shows surprising results. Although the bill is being bombarded left and right with its possible un-Constitutionalism, a majority of Americans support the bill and Arizona's right to make such a law. Approximately 60% of Americans believe that Arizona law enforcement should be doing the kinds of things outlined in the bill, and that Arizona in fact had the right to pass such a bill in the absence of action from the federal government (The Arizona Republic).

However, there is a flip side to this coin. There are still a strong number of protesters and politicians who oppose this bill and would like to see it repealed if possible. Among those who disagree is Attorney General Eric Holder, who is considering having the federal government sue the state of Arizona to prevent the bill from going into effect. Ironically, some of his claims are a bit controversial based on his admission in a recent House committee hearing that he had not yet read the bill. Protesters and citizen advocates for the repeal of the bill are also using this lull of action from the federal government to raise awareness and prompt action against the bill.

In this time of immigration reform consideration, other states are also beginning to take steps towards tackling this issue. Florida Governor Charlie Crist, running for a Senate seat as an independent, recently proposed a possible remedy for some of the problems that either side of the immigration debate has. Crist, who recently changed his political affiliation from Republican to Independent, stated that he does support immigration reform and even an eventual path to citizenship. However, his idea is one which would require some lenience on either side of the debate. His idea is that there would be an "earned" path to citizenship for the nearly 14 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in this country (The Associated Press) - but that those wanting citizenship would need to get in line behind those already seeking it. In this way, Crist feels that those immigrants who would become citizens could then off-set the worker to retiree ratio of the Social Security System and limit the proposed cuts and restrictions suggested by other politicians.