The e-mail is a perfect allegory. That's probably why it riles so much.

I hate to be redundant, but the mirror principle applies (as usual)

You by default go into the "racist redneck" assumption and tirade just as easily as these folks go into the offensive Mexican stereotype of the border runner, taking jobs from legal citizens.

To assume only racist rednecks want to halt illegal immigration is the great defense of all those here illegally. You post with that instant denegration of the authors and try to use guilt to make the reader sympathise with your point of view - which is, apparently, that illegal immigration is actually legal because evil businessmen hire them when they are here and lure them to break our laws.

I'm sorry. I found it quite an apt comparison and hit the nail on the head, even if it omitted those evil businessmen that break laws as well. And it is a bit late in the game for the wake-up call about illegals. About 10 years too late.

In Arizona, those laws you mention were passed and are on the books as of January 1, 2009. Not a SINGLE business has been prosecuted, shut down or their business license revoked. The courts, politicians and residents living in fear of 600,000 residents who are here illegally or or the offspring of illegals. There are no jails to deal with these folks. The sheriff has been targeted for rounding up illegals when the unspoken 'law' is let them be - because they are almost ALL here illegally. There is no INS staffed anywhere near well enough to pursue it. The laws are just a deterrent for those who obey laws. The businesses and illegals are by default lawbreakers who don't believe in laws - so such laws have now proven completely and totally ineffective and like all over the US, where judicial activism tries to thwart the will of the people, we see the people's will thwarted.

The sheer numbers of the illegals now must be feared, much like a docile version of the Huns that started to outnumber the native Romans. So saying aloud, I support border control, deportation and borders walls, and fines on businesses who hire illegals, is tantamount to placing a target on ones head for the millions of lawbreakers in our land on both sides of the border - lawbreakers who have business money, drug money, or the power of sheer numbers to intimidate judges, politicans and citizens.

Unless they are selling t-shirts bumper stickers or are asking for donations - there is no agenda here except the preservation of the qulaity of life they used to have. In essence, you condemn the legal residents for acting in their own best interests, and smear them as racists, while lauding the illegal who does the exact same thing - seek their own best interest.

;-)