A year ago, illegal immigration stood out as the issue many of us feared would dominate the presidential campaign of 2008.  First, there was Congress, where fiery speeches and anti-immigrant rhetoric soared in a fierce debate on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed access to public housing.  Democrats pulled out all the stops to kill this Republican motion.  While the GOP plan was defeated, the back-and-forth voting was so controversial that the chamber had the atmosphere of a near riot.   [Congressional Record]

We had presidential candidates, early on, who blasted illegals  [YouTube] and, as a result, the climate for immigrants, legal or not, became a fearsome one. 

Our federal government was well on the way to building a non-stop wall between the United States, a land of freedom, and the United Mexican States, our poorer neighbor to the south.  And self-styled ‘Minutemen’ patrolled the border "doing the job the federal government will not do".   [BBC News]

Unfortunately, the trend in Europe continues in that direction with the recent election of Italy’s fiercely anti-immigrant Silvio Berlesconi.   [Reuters]

And there's the continued influence in Russia of Vladimir Putin, who was quoted last year as saying his decision to ban immigrants from food market stalls will “ease tension on the labor market and make it more civilized.”   [New York Times].

Mercifully -- thanks to the immigration reform policies of John McCain and Barack Obama -- immigrants, particularly Latinos, won’t be bashed at the national level.

While the GOP presidential field did have an aggressive anti-immigrant player, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., his defeat in the primaries, and the failure of anti-immigration rhetoric at the polls, demonstrated that “candidates with a hard line – ‘close the border and kick them all out’ -- fared worse than those in favor of more nuanced reforms.”   [Reuters]

State action is another matter.

And Virginia stands out as among the worst.

The Washington Post reported May 11 that Loudon County, Va., public schools have experienced a markedly slower enrollment growth in English as Second Language (ESL) courses, those provided for children who know little or no English.  The Loudon Board of Supervisors last July passed a resolution to limit illegal immigrants’ access to county services.  [Washington Post] 

While decrease in construction activity in Northern Virginia was noted as a possible cause of the slump, Alessio A. Evangelista, supervisor of Loudoun's ESL program, said, “"I suspect the decrease in [ESL] growth also has to do with the general appearances’ that Loudoun has become less friendly to immigrants.”  [Washington Post]

On May 7, the voters in the town of Herdon, Va., re-elected their mayor and town council, all of whom backed a policy that removed the city’s job center for day laborers.   [Washington Post]

The most anti-immigrant jurisdiction in Northern Virginia, Prince William County, April 30 revised its October “check immigration status of all ‘suspects’” policy  [Washington Post] and put in place one that allows county police to question the citizenship of arrested persons only.  The motive for the change was described as giving the county “better protection from potential racial-profiling lawsuits” at the suggestion of its County attorney. 

But, when asked if this move was a change in Prince William’s vicious anti-immigrant stance, County Board Chair Corey A. Stewart responded, "We have not rolled back or repealed any portion of it."  [Washington Post]

Other examples of anti-immigrant policies include:

North Carolina, where the state’s Attorney General, Roy Cooper, “advised the [state’s] 58 community colleges to return to a 2001 policy that prohibited illegal immigrants from degree classes.” [Raleigh News & Observer]; and 

Postville, Iowa, where, on May 13, according to the Des Moines Register, “federal agents conducted what they're now calling the largest raid of its kind in the nation's history” and arrested and detained 390 workers alleged to be illegal immigrants.  [Des Moines Register]  

The local school superintendent spent the day trying to help more than 200 immigrant children find out what happened to their parents. [Education Week]

Aren’t those of us who are ‘white’ lucky?  We don’t have to go through the day wondering if the authorities will suddenly burst in and deprive us of our freedom.

While the presence of illegal immigrants from Latin America may be the most openly-expressed reason for these anti-immigrant policies, the unspoken reason could be a nationalist fear of the growing numbers of persons in the U.S. of Latin American descent.  According to the U.S. Census, Hispanics are the nation’s fastest-growing minority, whose children are now one in four of all children under the age of five.  [Washington Post]

Of course illegal immigration is a problem.  But the way to handle it is to develop a “path to citizenship,” as Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have proposed.  [US News].

Looking at the origins of our nation, you have to agree that among our founding ‘fathers’ were persons who came here with no legal right to displace native peoples.  They sailed into Massachusetts on the Mayflower and occupied what they chose to call “New England,” where native peoples already lived.  They invaded Virginia and set up their own ‘illegal’ settlement at Jamestown.  They conquered the West and Southwest with their invasion from Spain, illegally taking land from the Incas and Aztecs and well-established native nations of the area.  And they illegally claimed all of the middle of North America in the name of the King of France, naming ‘their’ misbegotten land Louisiana.

So, who are the illegal immigrants among us?  Ellis Island was established in 1892, long after these earlier invasions and occupations.  [Bowling Green State University].

You see, we are not as ‘legal’ and ‘pure’ Americans as we would like to think.  And those who also come here ‘illegally’ yearn for no more and no less than those who landed on this multi-nation continent prior to 1892.  Imagine what emotions must tear at Native Americans when they hear us sing, “This land is your land; this land is my land.”  It is?  Really?