The Arizona legislature has taken a bold and controversial step. They have passed a bill to enforce the immigration laws, and it has stirred up a firestorm.
 

Every part of the country has its own special illegal problem. For example, 4% of Boston is made up of illegal Irish. Profiling them would be tough.
 

But if the governor signs this bill, Arizona is ready to try to control what the feds can’t.
There is no doubt, that the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country do inflict a cost on society.
 

That, of course is somewhat offset by the work they do, often for less money.
 

But the Arizona bill, approved along party lines, makes illegal immigration a state crime as well, and therefore enforceable by the state.
 

Representative Leo Berman says he’ll introduce similar legislation here.
 

“We can do exactly the same thing because I’ll be filing the same bill,” Berman told us.
And the question that follows is…who will pay?
 

“I have 200 prisoners shipped out today to five different counties because we’re overcrowded. Who’s going to pay for all this,” Sheriff J.B. Smith asked. “ When you have 25,000 illegal aliens within a 40 mile radius around Tyler, Texas, where are you going to put them, and who is going to pay for it? It sounds great, but you can bet the state’s not going to pay for it. The federal government’s not going to pay for it. So again, it falls right back on your local taxpayers.”
 

But Houston immigration attorney Charles Foster says there is a better way…
 

“The Social Security card is printed the same way today as it was in 1934,” Foster says, “and yet that is the basic document that determines who is work eligible. We have a Social Security card. What’s wrong with making it in a format that it cannot be stolen?”
 

Why not indeed?
 

Just too logical I guess.
 

And by the way, the government of Mexico has formally protested the bill saying it will affect cross border relations and open the door to racial profiling.