If Arizona thinks it has an illegal immigration problem, they might want to take a peek at the European Union (EU) and the attempted extortion of 5 billion Euros annually by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. During a speech in Rome, Gaddafi claims he needs the money to shore up border security against the flood of Africans seeking refuge in European countries and to prevent them from "turning Europe black".
As one who is no stranger to controversy, Gaddafi also used his two day visit to Italy to urge Europeans to convert to the Muslim faith. Call it a fundraising pilgrimage. Libya is well known as a gateway for illegal migration into Europe, and exploiting his own architecture to extract a continuous ransom must be seen as brilliant from Gaddafi's perspective. Threatening the stability of an entire neighboring continent is not new to Libya, but to do so without bombs and bullets is not only novel, but probably more effective.
Playing to colonial airs of superiority resulted in a degree of support from European politicians, some going so far as openly entertaining the notion but questioning the price tag.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is rowing a different boat then that of Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. Both stand on the vanguard of the explosive political and social issue of illegal immigration that has no simple solutions, but some key differences do exist.
Arizona and other states facing similar challenges are a destination for aliens, whereas Libya is, for the most part, merely a conduit to a destination. Being the final stop in the journey means that each illegal immigrant costs Arizona taxpayers at every turn, creating a disproportionate ballooning of service provision (and corresponding expense) against its true census. Libya is like an open faucet, taking in illegal immigrants from one end of a pipe and spilling them out the other end without providing anything in between.
Libya is controlled by a dictator who may act on a whim, arbitrarily enacting and enforcing policy and legislation as he so chooses. Arizona cannot act with such disregard. Yet.
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