A great deal of excitement and attention has been expended on Arizona's law preventing employers from hiring undocumented workers, a/k/a illegal immigrants. Now the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether the Legal Arizona Workers Act really is legal. And that decision will have an immediate impact on both the state's enforcement efforts, and the efforts of local and state governments throughout the country to tackle the issue on their own terms. 

As reported by LegalNewsline.com:Critics of the state law say if allowed to stand the statute would beburdensome for employers and workers alike.

 "The central issueis whether every state and locality can enact its own laws (on hiring), therebybalkanizing our immigration laws and dramatically increasing the burden onemployers," attorney Jonathan Weissglass told the three judges at ahearing Thursday.

 Arizona SolicitorGeneral Mary O'Grady told the judges that the state is only using the workerverification system that Congress devised.

 Arizona’s law has been onthe books since January, and was upheld in a February ruling by Judge Neil Wakeof the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Whichever way the Courtof Appeals goes, it’s a sure bet the U.S. Supreme Court will be the next stop.

 The impetus for Arizona’sgoing it alone has been the inability of the federal government to actintelligently and forcefully in this matter, to take the lead as the federalgovernment must. In any political issue, when a vacuum exists – a vacuum beinganother word for cowardly abdication of responsibility – somebody’s going torush in and fill it. In this case, it’s been the state, but whether the stateactually possesses that power is not certain. This is a topic of nationalconcern, a matter of our very nationhood. How we deal with immigration willdecide who we are and what we stand for, and we must choose as one people,together.

 It is understandable thatArizona, or any state, wants to act to protect the interests of its people, and in many ways it can operate effectively on its own, and has the right and obligation to do so. In this instance, however, as much as it might feel good to impose sanctions and stride forward ahead, all others be damned, it simply won't work. The problem is not employers, nor employees. The problem is our lack of a national consensus of what we want to do, and what we are willing to do.