Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment is called the Citizenship Clause and it states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 after the conclusion of the Civil War. It insured that the freedom of citizenship won with such enormous sacrifice was not undermined by the actions of former slave states. The Fourteenth Amendment was also a direct repudiation of the infamous Dred Scott case decided by the Supreme Court in 1857.

Dred Scott was born into slavery in Virginia sometime between 1795 and 1800. A U.S. Army Major owned him. For a time and because of the major’s postings, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet lived in free states. At least one of his children was born in a free state. After the major died, ownership of Dred Scott and his entire family passed to the major’s widow. Scott tried to buy his family’s freedom but the widow refused. He sued, arguing that his residence in free states had conveyed freedom and citizenship upon him and especially on his child, who was born in one of those states. The case ultimately ended up before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Chief Justice Taney, a southern sympathizer, held that blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it.” Moreover, Taney held that blacks could never be citizens no matter where they were born because the Constitution’s framers considered blacks “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations. . .”

Reflect on Taney’s words, those of you who seek to abolish or amend the Fourteenth Amendment. Your efforts align with the dehumanizing, racist core of Taney’s views. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment swept away that racism and conveyed citizenship on all people born or naturalized in the United States. Any attempt to undo the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright will only lead to conflict and as Abraham Lincoln put it, “a house divided.” I say, never again.

Those who see the promise and greatness of this country, reflect on Taney’s words as well. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights and privileges that we enjoy no matter our race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual preference. It protects us from people who hold on, still, if not to Taney’s racism, than to his sentiments and his divisive, segregationist vision. To you, I say steel yourself for the struggle, for your birthright is coming.

The theory holds true in the case of the attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson – a tragedy that resulted in the killing of six people and the wounding of fourteen, including Giffords.

Soon after the shooting, word spread to a gathering of the Maricopa County GOP in Phoenix. In attendance was DeeDee Garcia Blasé, the president and founder of Somos Republicans, a national organization of Hispanic Republicans. Garcia Blasé was shocked at the news, but doubly shocked by what followed.

“I heard snickers in the distance and muffled voices asserting that the shooting was probably ‘done by an illegal,” she said.

In the days that followed, conservative radio talk show host Chip Franklin, morning host at San Diego’s 600AM-KOGO, freely admitted that he thought the same thing when he first heard the news. Nice people. Just not particularly informed. The alleged gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, is not an illegal immigrant. In fact, he isn’t an immigrant at all. Loughner was born in the United States.  He’s one of ours. Lucky us.

Do you suppose that this rush to judgment is exactly what Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was talking about? After the shooting, Dupnik said at a press conference that tempers run high in the desert due to the vitriol of political discourse and that Arizona has become “the mecca for bigotry and prejudice.”

In the Grand Canyon State, there is no escaping the issue of illegal immigration. In fact, leading up to the midterm elections, polls showed that it was the number one concern of voters. And, as this story proves, Arizonans literally see illegal immigrants everywhere – even where they don’t exist. Maybe the people who assumed the assailant was an illegal immigrant were thinking about the fact that Giffords is a hawk on border security and someone who has defended Arizona’s tough immigration law as simply a response to “years of federal inaction and neglect.” Or maybe they weren’t thinking at all.

It’s more likely that these people were blinded by prejudice and guided by fear of those who are different. Many Americans see illegal immigrants as menacing and dangerous. And yet, interestingly, that perception doesn’t stop them from handing over their children to illegal immigrant nannies.

The story might have ended there. But as we now know, there is a shred of truth to the assumption that a Latino was somehow involved in the shooting. As it turns out, one was. Twenty-year-old Daniel Hernandez is an intern in Giffords’s office who, while at the scene, bravely ran toward the gunfire that others were fleeing. Hernandez, who is studying nursing at the University of Arizona, treated Giffords’s wounds and held her head in his lap to ensure that she didn’t choke on her own blood. He also asked her to squeeze his hand to let him know that she was okay, and rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital.

Hernandez has been credited with helping to save Giffords’s life, and he’s been called a hero. And, while – as he told a memorial service in Tucson attended by President Obama – he rejects the title, many Americans would say that it fits just fine.

Daniel Hernandez, this hero intern, represents the very best that Arizona has to offer. The Republican Party officials who unfairly and recklessly jumped to hurtful conclusions without having all the facts? Not so much.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist, an NPR commentator, and a weekly contributor to CNN.COM.

Just look at what happened with the DREAM Act that recently failed in the Senate. The DREAM Act is the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act crafted by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-In) and once supported by former Republican presidential candidate John McCain.  The Act was meant to provide conditional permanent residency to young people in the United States illegally if they arrived before the age of 16 and attended two years of college or served in the military. Upon completion of college or military service (and at no time before such completion), these young people would be granted lawful permanent residency status and a chance to apply for American citizenship.  Failure to complete college or military service would subject these folks to deportation.

By most accounts, the DREAM Act was considered a win-win proposition. Kids who had no real choice in coming to this country would get an education either within the walls of our colleges and universities or within the ranks of the different branches of the military. With college educations, they could help power our economy as high-skilled workers. In military fatigues and with weapons they could go off and fight our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Korea, Venezuela, you name it, anywhere that our real or imagined economic interests demanded it.

My transparent cynicism on this last point notwithstanding, think about it for a second.  Those of you on the right who bray constantly against any relief for “illegals” but who also want to kick ass in every corner of the world and make America great again (whatever that means), fear that your kids will be shipped home in body bags from far off battle fields. With the folks covered by the DREAM Act, you have a large group of young people hungry to acquire lawful status, willing to work, fight, and die for it, and who must do so successfully to acquire and maintain that lawful status.  In a word, you have a motivated force captive to their commitment to themselves and, more importantly, to this country. It’s no different than the present situation. “Illegal immigrants” do the chores and fill the jobs that Americans can’t do or don’t want to do and American industries from agriculture to manufacturing love them for it.

But, I guess win-win was way too much to handle; at least it proved so for Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.

But here’s the rub. It ain’t over. Not by a long shot. Sure, not enough Republicans or anachronistic Blue Dog Democrats had the cojones or foresight to vote for a bill that makes sense for America’s society, economy, and military. Sure, the next Congress will be less sympathetic to immigrants. But, every dog has its day and some dogs you don’t want to keep poking with a stick, especially when all they want to do is help, when all they have been is loyal Americans in all things except status. Here’s why. The dreamers are not alone. They have us and many friends and we vote. And, we all know who drew the line in the sand.

The word is “illegal.” You and I know that word to simply describe something that is against the law. But, to those activists who agitate on behalf of illegal immigrants – including people who favor an open border and a suspension of all laws against unlawful entry into the United States – the word is an unfair and dehumanizing slur against a group of people who are more accurately described as “undocumented.”

To this bunch, “illegal” is a bad word. And those who use it are bad people. Ironically, that includes a wide swath of the liberal media that often expresses support for comprehensive immigration reform and condemnation of reactionary measures like virtually anything coming out of Arizona these days.

These are natural allies for those on the left, and so it makes little sense that radical left-wing activists would declare war on them. But that’s what happened when The Fresno Bee, the largest newspaper in Central California, ran a seven-day series called “In Denial” which explored the contradictions in popular attitudes and public policies over “illegal” immigration. The series asked: “We’re unhappy about illegal immigrants. So why do we make it so easy for them to live and work here?”

Good question. It points to the hypocrisy and dishonesty in a debate that often seems disconnected from reality. People talk about ending illegal immigration, but is there a national consensus that Americans want to see it ended? And if it were to end, who would do our chores for us?

These are the kinds of questions that one would have hoped people would have asked following the Bee series, but instead the conversation was hijacked by a silly and juvenile controversy over – yep, you guessed it – the “I-word.”

Like most of the media, the Bee uses the term “illegal immigrants.” The newspaper follows recommendations from the Associated Press Stylebook to employ neutral terms for reporting. In doing so, it eschews pressure from the left to use terms like “undocumented workers.” But it also resists pressure from the right to use the more inflammatory term, “illegal alien.” In this case, the middle-of-the-road approach is also the most reasonable and most accurate.

But not to Michael Medrano, an English professor at Fresno City College, who started a Facebook group that urged people to boycott the newspaper during the series. “HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT ILLEGAL,” Medrano has written. “Being called such is a violation of their human rights.”

Wrong, Professor. Human beings may not be illegal. But they can commit illegal acts. And the acknowledgment of that fact isn’t a violation of anyone’s human rights.

Elsewhere, another group of activists have launched a national “Drop the I-Word” campaign, which claims it is dedicated to eradicating the use of the word “illegals” in everyday life and in the media. The campaign urges everyone to sign a pledge not to use what it calls a “racist” word and offers a toolkit for journalists and organizations to use in discussing immigration.

Oh brother. Speaking as a Latino journalist who has been on the job for 20 years, I’m sure I speak for many of my colleagues when I say: I don’t need no stinkin’ toolkit.

But these people need to get a clue. There is nothing wrong with the word, “illegal.” Or with the phrase, “illegal immigrant.” They’re not demeaning or dehumanizing. They’re descriptive.

Besides, this isn’t about a word. It’s about what the Fresno Bee series tried to examine: denial. Many on the left are in complete denial that the people they’re trying to help have done anything wrong, broken any laws, violated any statutes or trampled any borders.

Guess what? They did. And we have a word to describe that sort of activity: illegal.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist, a regular commentator for NPR, and a weekly contributor to CNN.COM.

It was a great idea. It embodied that concept that you can’t get something for nothing. Instead, here, participants would have gotten something (legal status) for something (attending college or joining the military). It also happened to be the last best hope that Congress would do anything even faintly resembling comprehensive immigration reform before mid-century.

Of course, the DREAM Act had a troubled history. The idea of swapping college or military service for legal status isn’t new. It was first proposed way back in 2001, and it spent nearly ten years on Congress’s back burner. When that happens, it’s a giveaway that lawmakers in both parties find themselves in a tough spot.

In this case, conservatives knew they couldn’t very well support a measure that many in their base consider “amnesty” for college students; but they were afraid to come out against a group of individuals who seem sympathetic to much of the general public. Meanwhile, liberals were inclined to support the measure; but they were afraid that tackling the immigration issue piecemeal in this way would undermine whatever support there might be for a more sweeping comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But, after the 2010 election, there was a new sense of urgency to get something done and try to make the DREAM Act a reality. Perhaps Democrats were eager to repay the support of Latino voters. Or perhaps, with Republicans poised to take the control of the House of Representatives in January, some liberals concluded that this was their last chance to get the bill through.

Whatever the reason, the House of Representatives recently scheduled a floor debate on the bill and held a vote. C-Span viewers were treated to the spectacle of GOP Congressman saying a host of ridiculous things, such as when Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-CA, suggested that the bill would give college admissions “preferences” to illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens and thus amounted to an “affirmative action amnesty.”

When the votes were cast, to the surprise to many, the bill passed – mostly along party lines.

Then the spotlight shifted to the Senate, where those who oppose a piece of legislation have an additional weapon at their disposal: the filibuster. The concern of Democratic supporters of the DREAM Act was that Republicans might filibuster the bill, and that this would amount to a humiliating defeat. So naturally, they did the logical thing and simply surrendered.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the bill from consideration when it became clear that he didn’t have enough votes to avoid a filibuster. He might re-submit it, or he might not.

It doesn’t matter. The DREAM Act is dead. That is clear. The only question is whether supporters should direct their anger at the party that attacked the bill, or the one that abandoned it.

Answer: Both.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist, a regular commentator for NPR, and a weekly contributor to CNN.COM.

Think about it: who wants to explain why they’re for terror babies or anchor babies?

We have this well-worn script to thank for the recent introduction into the American political lexicon of the words: “ground zero mosque” and “anchor baby” and “terror baby.”

While there might be different definitions for “anchor baby” and “terror baby,” it’s probably fair to say that people are generally supposed to think that undocumented Mexican and Latin American immigrants have anchor babies here, while Middle Easterners (whether undocumented or not) have terror babies here.

Let’s start with the alleged terror baby treat, as laid out by (who else!) representatives from my great state of Texas. In late June, Congressman Louie Gohmert on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives talked about the threat of “terror cells” who were “getting them [pregnant women] into the United States to have a baby” who would go back to their home countries to be “raised and coddled as future terrorists” and then sent to the United States “20 or 30 years down the road” to destroy our way of life. He evidently heard about this risk from an unnamed retired FBI official.

A few days later, Congressman Gohmert “clarified” his comments and added that he also heard about the terror baby threat from a woman on an airplane. Queue the Daily Show clips.

Then, last week, Texas state representative Debbie Riddle picked up the terror baby mantle and was quoted on Anderson Cooper 360 as saying that pregnant foreigners were touring the United States and having babies “with the nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists, who will then come back to the U.S. and do us harm.” Representative Riddle then went a step further and characterized “folks having their babies when they’re not here legally” from “south of the border or whether they’re coming from Middle Eastern countries” as security threats to the American people. She too apparently heard about these threats from unnamed FBI officials.

To his credit, Anderson Cooper followed up by interviewing former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes, who stated that the FBI and its 75 overseas offices, including offices in the Middle East, had never seen a “credible report or any report” about a terror baby plot.

While Representative Riddle appears to be the first public figure to suggest that undocumented immigrants from south of the border are a “security threat,” she is not alone in thinking that the alleged anchor baby threat warrants drastic measures. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and House Minority Leader John Boehner have all come out as saying that something needs to be done about anchor babies.

But are anchor babies really a widespread problem? A recent Pew Hispanic Center study found that of the 340,000 babies born in the U.S. to at least one undocumented parent, “well over 80%” of these births were to women who had been here more than one year, which is not exactly the invasion-by-pregnant-illegals scenario that is being portrayed.

Further, as PolitiFact points out, because of immigration law, a child born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants does not really “anchor” his family here because that child can’t sponsor his parents for citizenship until age 21, and the parents would have had to return home for 10 years before their application would be considered. In rare cases, these undocumented parents may seek relief from deportation, but they must have been in the U.S. at least 10 years, and still, there are only 4000 slots for such undocumented parents annually.

But despite the lack of evidence to support the terror baby and anchor baby charge, we are now hearing that the U.S. Constitution needs to be changed.

The offending language is the first line of the 14th Amendment, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted this language, which was added to the Constitution in 1868 after the Civil War, to mean that the children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. are citizens—i.e. birthright citizenship. This holding has been upheld in later Supreme Court decisions.

Therefore, because it is so unlikely that the Supreme Court would overturn its precedent which has been on the books for over a century, and in light of the Congressional debates which show that the 14th Amendment drafters did not intend to limit its application to free black slaves alone, the only way to change such a long-standing rule would be to amend the Constitution.

The best argument for leaving the 14th Amendment as is that I’ve heard, comes from columnist Michael Gerson, who recently said that the 14th Amendment drafters “essentially wanted to take this very very difficult issue — citizenship — outside of the political realm,” because they wanted “an objective standard, birth, instead of a subjective standard,” which is whatever standard the current legislative majority wants.

However, apart from the wisdom of amending the Constitution is the practical reality that it is almost impossible to amend the Constitution.

Based on Section V of the U.S. Constitution, and the process by which the 27 Amendments in the Constitution were added, there is a two-step process involved: two-thirds of both houses of Congress must vote to propose an amendment, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures (38 of 50 states). In other words, the Framers of the Constitution deliberately made it difficult to amend the Constitution. Knowing this, it seems virtually impossible for a new amendment that removes birthright citizenship to ever be proposed and ratified.

But this near impossibility may not matter to those who only want to score political points by saying that that Democrats or President Obama are for terror babies and anchor babies, or that they are endangering our country by ignoring this threat

There are some elected officials, like Texas state representative Rafael Anchia, who are admirably seeking to inform public opinion about the lack of any evidence to support the existence of a terror baby / anchor baby threat, let alone one so ominous that we must change our Constitution.  Let’s hope others also come forward with facts and reasoned arguments to dispel the baseless and unsubstantiated myths surrounding the supposed anchor/terror baby plot.

Perhaps the best test to see how ominous this supposed threat is, will be to see if these same people are still talking about it after this November’s election.

But sometimes what a Harvard student needs is the real thing: a U.S. passport. Or, for that matter, a birth certificate, Social Security card, or any proof of legal residency to avoid being deported to a country you don’t know.

That sort of thing would have come in handy for Harvard sophomore Eric Balderas, a 19-year-old biology major who recently became internationally known after he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for being in the United States unlawfully. The arrest occurred on June 7 as Balderas tried to board an airplane to Boston after visiting his mother in San Antonio. Because he lost his Mexican passport, he tried to board the plane using only his Harvard student ID card and his Mexican consular card. That tipped off authorities. So Balderas was quickly slated for deportation to Mexico.

This didn’t make sense to a lot of people, and the case triggered international outcry, support from Harvard officials, involvement by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, and a lobbying effort on Facebook that drew more than 5,000 supporters.

Why, supporters wanted to know, would the federal government want to deport Balderas to Mexico when he hasn’t been there since he was 4 years old. Besides, coming here fifteen years ago was hardly his idea; it was his parents who made the decision to bring him without the United States without proper documents. Also, with all the hand-wringing about how many U.S.-born students perform so poorly academically, wouldn’t the United States want to keep an intelligent and driven former high school valedictorian, Harvard student, and aspiring cancer researcher? Is this really the kind of export we want to send to Mexico? Why? So he can contribute to that country and not this one?

Good arguments, one and all. Good enough, it seems, to have convinced ICE officials to back off and abandon their changes to deport Balderas. Instead, they granted him “deferred action,” a discretionary authority that federal immigration officials can use to halt a specific deportation based on the merits of an individual’s case. Balderas can stay in the country until the deferred status expires. When it does, he can apply to have it renewed. In the meantime, while he remains in the United States, Balderas can finish his studies at Harvard and apply for a work permit.

This particular story had a happy ending, and that’s great. But not everyone is so lucky. Not every college student in the United States, who is also an illegal immigrant, has the benefit of having Harvard fight for them, or U.S. senators lobby on their behalf because their story is so compelling and their plight so sympathetic. There’s no question that the main reason Balderas captured the imagination of the media and, in turn, won the support of powerful members of Congress was because of his affiliation with Harvard. But there can’t be one set of rules for Harvard students, and another set of rules for everyone else.

That’s why we need for Congress to stop sitting on its hands and finally pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Both Democrats and Republicans have actively ducked the issue because, in each case, the debate divides their party. That needs to stop. Congress needs to fix a broken system.

And while they’re at it, lawmakers should also approve the Dream Act. This is a piece of legislation, introduced in 2001 with bipartisan support, that would allow young people who are in the country illegally to apply for legal residency if they finish two years of college or join the military.

It’s a good deal for participants, who get a chance to earn their spot in our society. And it’s a great deal for the United States, which gets to keep precisely the kind of people who countries all over the world dream of having.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist, and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

This fall, Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce is expected to introduce a bill that is already getting a fair amount of national attention. The legislation would deny state-issued birth certificates to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants – those so-called “anchor babies” that nativists and others on the right have been trying to marginalize for more than a decade. And why is that? It’s because U.S. citizenship acts as a protective cloak over these children and prevents those on the far right from doing to them what they’d really like to do: deport them along with their illegal immigrant parents.

It’s an ugly and punitive crusade that started in Congress more than a decade ago, and luckily never went anywhere – not because Democrats stopped it but because others on the right worked to undermine it for the good of the Republican Party. In the late 1990’s, the member of Congress leading the fight against “birthright citizenship” was Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-CA. The San Diego-area congressman proposed a bill to limit the privilege to the children of U.S. citizens. The legislation didn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t even get a hearing from some of Bilbray’s fellow Republicans, who rightly cringed at the idea of visiting the sins of the parents onto the children.

When Bilbray lost a bid for re-election in 2000, he went to work as a lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a restrictionist outfit that puts the lie to the claim by some that the immigration debate is only concerned with cracking down on illegal immigrants because the organization is just as desperate to keep out legal immigrants. When he ran for Congress again in 2006, Bilbray got elected after warning elderly voters that one day their grandchildren wouldn’t choose to take Spanish in high school as much as “have to” take Spanish in high school. Once back in Washington, Bilbray continued to milk the immigration issue for all it was worth. During a recent television interview, while defending Arizona’s racial profiling law, Bilbray insisted that detecting illegal immigrants isn’t that difficult and suggested that police “will look at the kind of dress you wear, there’s different type of attire, there’s different type of – right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.”

This is what we have come to expect from Bilbray. He’s not a serious person who says serious things. And the good news is that his anti-citizenship bill never enjoyed any serious support, even from members of his own party.

But now comes Arizona, with its unique — and undoubtedly unconstitutional — self-serve approach to immigration reform. First, state lawmakers deputize local police to enforce federal immigration law based on nothing more than a suspicion that someone is in the country illegally. Now, they’re threatening to disenfranchise the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, as if the states had the power to decide on whom we should bestow U.S. citizenship. They don’t.

I guess someone was sleeping in high school civics when the teacher covered the 14th Amendment. Here’s a refresher:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

It’s pretty cut and dried. It’s also the law of the land, which makes it all the more curious that a crowd that claims to cherish the concept of law and order would be, when it suits their purposes, so quick to brush it aside.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

One minute, they’re badmouthing the federal government for being ineffective in securing the border and stopping illegal immigration. The next, they’re defending the state law by insisting that it’s a mirror image of federal law, the same approach that we were just told is ineffective — but apparently still worth emulating.

One minute, they’re insisting that they care about the rule of law and that’s why they oppose illegal immigration. The next, they’re declaring their support for a state law that is blatantly unconstitutional — or, in other words, contrary to the rule of law.

But perhaps the biggest contradiction of all has to do with racial profiling, which is, after all, the whole purpose of SB 1070. One minute, supporters are asserting that there is no way Latinos will be profiled by local and state police under this law. In fact, they say, the law – in several places – specifically prohibits racial profiling. Thus, they assume, what is prohibited cannot happen.

How quaint. It’s worth noting here that racial profiling is already prohibited by federal statute, and yet it still happens. It happened, for several years, on the New Jersey Turnpike where, as state officials formally acknowledged a decade ago, state troopers searched African-American and Latino motorists with much greater frequency than they did white drivers. Moral: Just because something is against the law doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

That’s not even the biggest problem, however. While this idea is still out there – that police won’t racially profile Latinos who they suspect of being in the country illegally – supporters come back with a second punch. But, they say, in the unlikely event that Latinos were profiled, such a thing would be totally justified given that most illegal immigrants come from Mexico and the rest of Latin America. After all, they say, in a state like Arizona, which borders Mexico, who should police be looking for if not Latinos?

One reader wrote me to say: You suggest that we not use “racial profiling” (a politically bad word) to determine if someone caught near the Mexican border is here unlawfully. Would you suspect a blue-eyed blond to have crossed the border into our country from Mexico? Of course we must suspect Spanish speaking “Latinos” as possible illegal immigrants!

Another wrote: What bothers me is that you are vehemently opposed to the Arizona law recently enacted. You call it racial profiling, presumably against Latinos. Well, sir, who is coming across our borders illegally? It certainly are (sic) not Swedes, Inuit, Estonians, Bosnians, etc. It is Mexicans. So, really, the law has to target them because that is the group coming over.”

Absolutely unbelievable. What rhetorical dexterity. Obviously, supporters can’t have it both ways. They can’t insist that a practice won’t occur. Honest it won’t. Then turn around and insist that it is perfectly logical and thus likely to occur if police do their jobs correctly. One of these things can be true but not both.

Of course, the first claim is meaningless public relations. It is just garnish on the plate. It allows supporters to pretend to oppose racial profiling in the hopes of building their own credibility and the credibility of the shady law they support.

It’s the second claim that matters. That one they believe. They obviously think that racial profiling isn’t just justifiable but also effective and essential to good law enforcement. And they want it used in this case to ferret out illegal immigrants by focusing on the group of people that most resembles them: Latinos.

In battle, the biggest break you get is when an adversary steps from the shadows, shows himself and makes clear his intentions. Don’t look now. But supporters of SB 1070 are standing in full view.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

For the last eighteen months, ten Republican members of the Texas Board of Education have systematically rewritten the curriculum to be used in Texas public schools. They labored to eliminate the so-called “liberal bias” they and their party perceived in the way history and social studies were taught. The Board highlighted the Second Amendment over other equally or more important constitutional provisions such as the right to free expression, to the free exercise of religion, to be free from state established religious beliefs, to the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the civil rights amendments. The Board sought to eliminate discussions regarding the separation of church and state embodied in the First Amendment’s establishment clause and to downplay the role of the Civil Rights Movement in shaping our country. The Board even partially succeeded in eliminating any mention of the contributions of ethnic minorities to the cultural, political, and economic development of America.

From Arizona came two major headlines. First, SB1070 became law and made it a state crime to be in the country illegally, exposed law enforcement officers to lawsuits if they mistakenly stop someone for a supposed immigration violation or if they refuse to enforce this monstrously ambiguous and racist law.  Second, Arizona enacted a law terminating funding for ethnic studies classes since, the theory goes, such classes tend to promote one ethnic group over another despite reputable research demonstrating that such classes tend to promote racial acceptance and tolerance. But, perhaps that is the problem for some.

John Stossel from Fox News agreed with Tea Party darling Rand Paul that portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and by implication each subsequent civil rights enactment was wrong.  Primarily, Stossel argued that private businesses should be allowed to revert to the segregationist era practice of discriminating against someone on account of race. After all, the argument says, the free enterprise model of business would not tolerate racist practices in the market place. Paul and Stossel ignore the ugly little historical fact that the market model was exactly the one that was in place when the various Civil Rights Acts outlawed segregation and discrimination based upon race, gender, disability, age, ethnicity, and most recently sexual orientation.

The relationship between the three events is as clear as the rallying cry of militant conservatives that they’re “taking their country back.” Their country? Back from what? Our democratic foundations? Our centuries-long multiculturalism? The constitutional mandate that government safeguard the inalienable rights of people and provide for the common good? Perhaps more importantly, the question should be “back to what?” Segregation? No social security? No Medicare? Ethnic minorities relegated to the crappiest schools and the back of the bus? One set of workers making eighty-two cents on the dollar or less? Oops, women still only make eighty-two cents to each dollar men make.

Hunter S. Thompson said it best: “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” It’s a never-ending, daily struggle. That’s why I wasn’t surprised. The reactionary right’s tactic is clearly meant to demonize, degrade, and thus raise the level of fear of anyone who does not agree with its agenda. They are trying to control the environment so that the rest of us are “put in our place” so much so that we’ll grow too weary or too scared to fight back. At least that’s their hope.

This tactic is masterfully cynical.  It’s been used before with devastating consequences.  Not too long ago, Hitler, who came to power, plunged the world into war, and committed unspeakable acts of genocide and synthesized the method this way: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Sound familiar? Too familiar, perhaps too immediate. We as a people have the right to have our individual votes count equally with all others, to demand our place in the fabric of this country. If we don’t exercise this fundamental right, we all lose and we are all to blame. Our liberty and continuing struggle to make America and the world a better place is bought only with eternal vigilance and courage. I for one am not ready to be put in any particular place.

Raised in a migrant farm worker family in the poverty-stricken area of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, Vito de la Cruz was taught to value hard work, education, family, and community by his grandmother and his aunt. Now, he is an instructor at the National Judicial College, National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the National Criminal Defense College, and the ABA-ROLI Latin American trial advocacy programs in Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador. De la Cruz is a regular columnist with the Reno Gazette Journal.