On Wednesday The New York Times (and many other news outlets) reported on an immigration/borders story that I worry many folks missed. The below paragraph really says it all:

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all. Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom. [The New York Times]

The ability to overturn laws in order to build a fence granted to Chertoff in 2005 is something completely new and unseen in terms of control and power. It’s also unconstitutional. The legal battle over the unprecedented control that is now Chertoff’s is a long and complicated one, but it remains to be seen how this will effect illegal immigrants coming and already in America.

On the flip side of a story like this, Tom McCarthy’s latest film The Visitor opens today in New York and LA. The film is a quiet story of friendship and the realities of being an illegal immigrant in a post 9/11 detention center filled world. A.O. Scott has a great great write up of the film in today’s New York Times and I think he gets it completely right when he says:

To summarize Mr. McCarthy’s film as I have is to acknowledge some of the risks he has taken. It is possible to imagine a version of this story “” the tale of a square, middle-aged white man liberated from his uptightness by an infusion of Third World soulfulness, attached to an exposé of the cruelty of post-9/11 immigration policies “” that would be obvious and sentimental, an exercise in cultural condescension and liberal masochism. Indeed, it’s nearly impossible to imagine it any other way.

And yet, astonishingly enough, Mr. McCarthy has. Much as “The Station Agent” nimbly evaded the obstacles of cuteness and willful eccentricity it had strewn in its own path, so does “The Visitor,” with impressive grace and understatement, resist potential triteness and phony uplift. [The New York Times]

I recommend reading the entire review and if you live in New York and LA. I can’t imagine a better way to spend two hours this weekend than immersed in McCarthy’s story. It is a much needed look into the realities of immigration policy.

To do your part to control what you can in a Chertoff border controlled world, be sure to and visit The Visitor’s social action campaign at http://takepart.com/thevisitor. The trailer to the film is below: