In terms of GNP, Mexico is the 14th largest economy in the world. They have a larger economy than the Netherlands, than Australia, than many of our European friends.

Would Australia or the Dutch tolerate this level of national abuse?

Mexico is also a victim of NAFTA. They built their economy around a set of empty promises from the United States.

* Mexico has distorted their economy to cater to the US. They have turned down offers from China and Japan to continue their NAFTA relationship with the US.

* The drug problem is in the US, not in Mexico. If the US had civilized drug laws and drug intervention programs, this problem might be alleviated. (and the CIA would be deprived of a major funding source for covert operations)

*The southwestern economy is in the toilet. Why not scapegoat the Mexican? How many predatory banks from Mexico cashed in on the real estate bubble?

* Mexico has a large middle class that has no interest in life in the US. Yes, it's a great place to visit...but, why should I be insulted by boorish americans?

* There will always be a Mexican underclass who will migrate to the US. When the economy hits the wall, white trash reacts against the competition. They can take out their frustrations on Mexicans. They cannot walk into the local bank and harass the president.

Thirty years ago a Phoenix cab driver complained to me that retirees flocking from the North were ruining the area. At the time I wondered if there were any Apaches available to illuminate that conversation. I'm still wondering.

Your not supposed to say NAFTA, shame on you !!!!!

Anyway, when did the United States ever care to enforse
any human rights, or give a good crap about what the
United Nations wanted unless it benifited Wall Street???

They were sure quick to get Milosevich to a world court.
Bush and Obama have way out done him....

So do you believe Holder, or Obama, other than electioneering
give a good crap about Arizona..
Look, Holder just said, "No Miranda Rights, please judge.."

Swell, now the UN can send Interpol to collect Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer,
and that inhuman Kansas lawyer, Kris Kobach, who wrote this travesty.

Like international laws and treaties ever stopped the US before...

Let's see, the USA, I mean Arizona, is violating international law, and your point is?

Naaawww, you don't say! The US has never been interested in human rights anyway. It's all just a load of bilge the corpo-politicos of the MIC trot out when they want to kick the cream cheese out of somebody. It's something you tell children at bed time to keep them quiet. Never give a sucker an even break. (ooo a gambling image - how apt)

How about the Gaza strip you eternal jokers at the UN?

"...an immigration law that may allow for police action targeting individuals on the basis of their perceived ethnic origin."

"May allow?" Is that like a toothpaste brand that "can help" whiten your teeth? (In advertising, they call those "weasel words.")

In fact, the law requires officers to have the standard "probable cause" before asking about a person's citizenship.

As the very next paragraph in the AP report explains: the new law requires "police enforcing another law to question a person about his or her immigration status, if there is 'reasonable suspicion' that the person is in the United States illegally."

That's good. It would be more objectionable if police did not so question apparent illegal migrants when they are apprehended for other crimes. But, I suppose inflammatory copy sells newspapers.

Yeah, fine Mr. & Mrs. UN. How about saying and doing something about America's illegal and murderous wars that are taking the ultimate rights from people: their lives, homes and cultures?

Such absolute bullshit in the name of protecting developers along with other entities that lower the wages of good American jobs--all the while turning theirs heads while criminals hold regular folks lives hostage in Arizona.

This isn't anything but cheap labor and liberals are carping on behalf of the rich for whom they pretend to hate. (And the Constitution only becomes important when its convenient for their rich pals.)

One one hand they cry like stuck pigs over Walmart's wages, on the other, they facilitate the lowering of (what were) good American wages.

That's why people hate democrats, they're just the world's best hypocrites.

When you wonder why, just ask yourself: who benefits?

the Arizona law is indeed motivated by racism...but its based on "probable cause" - perfectly legal - as Che said, "all illegal things are done legally in los Estados Unidos"...but i ask "what does the Arizona anti-immigrant law actually say????..."...?

I find it very interesting that so-called UN "experts" choose to weigh in as they feel that legal immigarants might be offended it they are suspected of being illegal.

Most people I talk to say that it would be the least concern of those legals as they are even more adamant with regard to getting the illegal immigrants deported. They feel that if they had to come here and get in line and follow proper procedures in order to obtain citizenship, everyone should.

I'm sure they are delighted when those who try to "cut in line" ahead of them are discovered and thrown out.

If UN "experts" have nothing better to do, why don't they take a look at the innocent civilians that are being killed by U. S. troops in Afghaanistan....I said KILLED, not detained.

Why isn't the UN forcing Israel to come clean on their nuclear weapon status? Do you really want me to go on? I don't think so.

It's all a matter of what is convenient at the time

I have been in countries where you were required to keep your passport or resident alien card with you at all times. If asked, you needed to present it to police. Without it, they took you to the police station while you called around to find someone to bring them the proof of your being in the country legally. That all seemed fair to me. Their country, their law.

If indeed the law is used as a tool to stop only brown skinned people for NO cause other than their being brown, then this is an illegal law. If the law is applied in the course of other law enforcement, as in they were stopped for some other cause, I don't see how this is illegal although it might be mean spirited....

I don't actually think the UN has any business telling anyone what to do or not do anyway considering their excellent work in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Congo, Haiti, the Mid East, and Gaza. I mean if they can't handle that, why listen to them on this?

Since when has the UN become a human rights expert? They let Iran in on the women's rights panel. And they figure that SIX human rights experts from the UN are better than one? Give me a break. How gullible does the MSM think we are? Oh yeah, pretty gullible. Obama became president.

The AZ law MIRRORS the federal law from what I understand. So, if the AZ law is unconstitutional, then so is the Federal law. Can't have it both ways.

absent in discussions and in the article itself - regardless of what flaws the UN and critics of the law , as well as what other countries do in their borders, is this:

that the UNITED STATES of America is REALLY an ILLEGAL "nation" .

boiled down to basics - minus all the fancy , historical rhetoric and sophistry and brick by brick "construction" of the USA --

it is a "nation" by way of THEFT and genocide.

whatever people SIT ON TODAY - regardless of their individual merits (hard workers, came "legally" , came illegaly, etc.)

they are - we are - ALL sitting on STOLEN LAND from the native indians by way of the european notions of "right of discovery" and "civilizing the world" .

it is all fancy talk to justify something ILLEGAL -

it's called ROBBERY and GENOCIDE of people who were already in the "discovered land" for thousands of years and are the only real "owners" of this land. everything ELSE is built on the basis of ROBBERY of someone else's land. ....and that's the native indians and their related - including the mexicans and south americans who passed by the north american continent and left something of themselves -

LONG before it was all stolen from them by so-called "christians" -- who TODAY -- pass "laws" about "illegals" ......and bray about "following the law".

Re: "Arizona's new law on illegal immigration"

It's a federal law. The state of Arizona has simply decided to begin enforcing it. State leaders have done this in order to match the voting public's apparent desire to curtail tax dollars spent on illegal immigrants.

Even with all of the mis-information about this legislation (special thanks to Commondreams for being no part of that whatsoever, no sir!), a majority of Arizonans still support it (see any recent poll). It's democracy, folks. If you don't want somebody coming into your house and nibbling out of your fridge when you're not looking, you get a lock. You have a right to do this and not be the equivalent of an SS Einsatzgruppenfuhrer, right?

We're at a crossroads with immigration now. It's not really about Latinos as much as it is about cheap labor (both outsourcing and in-sourcing [whether legal or illegal]). It's really making what amounts to a class war about race. The upper classes and moguls of industry want to import cheap labor any way they can get it. The bottom line for them is to increase profits. Remember, most are psychopathic in that they do not care who or what they destroy or harm to gain them. In another post someone said that illegal immigration is not the problem, but NAFTA is. We cannot ignore the fact that in-sourcing plays a role in depressing wages as well. To completely dissolve the borders would in effect be economic suicide, where only the rich would ultimately benefit--if only for the short term; eventually, ALL boats would sink. To support illegal immigration is to indirectly support worker exploitation. While I believe the undocumented want to come out from the shadows, I do not believe that they want to allow even cheaper labor to undercut what they've worked to achieve. That said, we must address the WHOLE of the problem which includes immigration (in-sourcing) as well as the GATT and NAFTA (outsourcing). Those who most benefit from illegal immigration would like nothing better to make it about race.

Keep in mind that we Americans celebrated President Clinton's welfare "reform" agenda -- which directly violates the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- at the same time that we celebrated the anniversary of this esteemed international agreement. Even US progressives shrugged with utter indifference. The 30+-year campaign to dehumanize America's poor was so successful that we generally don't even recognize our policies as being in violation of this international agreement. There is no outrage when we occasionally see that back page filler items about "body of homeless man/woman found..."

We strongly believe in human rights -- for those we decide are deserving.

It isn't clear which international human rights agreement the Arizona immigration laws violate, but I have to wonder if it matters, anyway. We know, for example, that our welfare "reform" policies explicitly violate the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the standard international human rights agreement, but Americans have clearly been unconcerned about this. We decided as a nation, conservatives and progressives alike, that human rights standards don't apply equally to people; there are a number of exceptions. If we don't care about protecting the human rights of "certain" Americans, why should we care about any human rights violations in Arizona's immigrant laws?