The second is from the Paupers' Field in Tucson, which is a section of the main cemetery designated for unnamed illegal immigrants.  The plot has become full and the county is now starting to cremate remains.  The full story is here, and deserves its own diary.

My humble blog - featuring Friday Basset Blogging

Within the EU national boundaries are less rigid than within say NAFTA. With the exception of the new accession countries where there are transitional arrangents, any EU citizen has the right of abode and working anywhere in the EU. Many countries are in the Shengen area where there are no border controls between countries at all. Movement between non-Shengen countries for citizens usually involves a minimal examination of either a passport or National Identity document to make sure it is genuine.

By the way absence of passport control is going to be a significant difference between the experience of citixens travelling within the EU and a US citizen travelling outside the country. Not many at the moment realise they will need a passport for re-entry to the USA next year for all countries except Canada and Mexico. These follow a year or so later so that honeymoon trip to Niagra or weekend drinking taquilla is going to be more complicated.

As far as those from outside the EU are concerned, you have to distinguish between legal immigration (for fixed periods like tourists and some seasonal workers or permanently), the (initially) temporary entry of refugees under the Asylum provisions and illegal immigration mostly for economic reasons. Because the level of pay, even for the most menial jobs, is far higher within the EU than in neighbouring countries to the east and south, there is a desire to enter to work even illegally. Such illegal immigrants often forget the additional costs of living but, like the USA are prepared to accept much worse living conditions to enable them to send financial support home.

Freedom of movement within the EU means the external borders have to be "harder" to stop illegal entry. The assimulation eastward means Poland is now has the main border responsibility in the east. Other countries with significant border control problems are Italy which has to tackle speedboats from both Albania and North Africa. Spain has similar problems over the Straights of Gibraltar and als owith its land borders in North Africa. They have recently had an amnsety to regularise illegal entrants.

Illegal economic immigration has often been attmepted in some countries, especially the UK, based on a claim for asylum. The UK has some draconian and quite frankly racist and unpleasant regulations to "tackle" this. There are far more people here illegally as overstayers from temporary visas granted to white Commonwealth countries than fake asylum claimers.

As I alluded to earlier, some people who have been born outside the EU have right of abode as they have a claim to citizenship. These are mostly from the British Commonwealth whose parents are or were UK subjects. Immigration is also granted in the UK for family reunion purposes (so for example a wife and children can join a working father here). You should note that  French Ovrerseas Departements and (I believe) Territories form part of the EU as do the Spanish enclaves in north Africa.

A worker from outside the EU can get a permit to work if they have a skill in shortage - technically a company has to give an assurancve that the post cannot be filled by an EU citizen. A feature of much more of EU immigration compared to the US is the initial intent to return home. In Germany this was formalised as the  "Guestworker" scheme which resulted in many Turks entering to work. Large scale immigration from the Caribbean in the 1950s to the UK was prompted by personnel shortages in public transport and nursing. Very frequently this initial intent to return becomes a more distant ambition although retiring "back home" is getting increasingly popular. Also apparently increasing is investment in the home country to ensure a good income on returement or migration back later in life. Parlicular countries showing this pattern are Ghana and Bangladesh. Some countries like the UK also have schemes to permit agricultural workers from outsie the EU to help at harvesting for a few months. This scheme is becoming redundant as the countries involved acceed to the Union.  

Incidentally, the UK government is currently making proposals that would mean work visas for doctors and nurses are for limited terms and the person will have to return home at the end of the period. This is to stop the attracting of skilled medical workers from the 3rd world and them staying permanantly. The intention of this is to maintain the additional training and experience for the individual at the same time ensuring health provision in the home countries are not as badly disadvantaged.  

I live in California where immigrant labour does almost all the dirty jobs.  every construction site, every low-rent auto repair shop, every corporate ag field of pesticide-laden gmo pseudo-food, every hotel cleaning staff, every restaurant kitchen, has its complement -- up to 100 percent -- of Spanish-speaking low-wage labour.  every big hardware store, every morning, has the same crowd of Hispanic men and boys waiting outside, hoping to be picked up as casual day labour by the (mostly Anglo of course) contractors as they drive by in their huge trucks and SUVs.  pass by around noon, and you see the dispirited rejects -- elderly, youthful, scrawny, whatever -- still trying to look strong and able as they court an ever-diminishing chance of making any money that day.  a fair percentage of this "flexible" (as our pundits of race-to-the-bottom econ love to say) labour force is "illegal," paid under the radar, paid in cash and well below the going rate for legal, documented Anglos.  and it is a labour force that can't complain -- the threat of being turned over to la migra is always there, the employer's ace up the sleeve.

so this issue is in my face, day after day.  Anglos in California take for granted that the weary guy trying to sell strawberries on a street corner, the gardener's heavy labour crew, the grunt labour for the roofing contractor, the guys who tent and spray for termite poisoning when houses are sold -- all the jobs that mean back breaking effort, sweating for hours in the hot sun, and exposure to heavy toxicity -- are "Mexicans."  that's just how it is.  and at the same time, the Anglos who feel these jobs are not good enough for them, complain about "Mexicans coming here and taking our jobs."

when I was young I worked in an auto shop -- a dubious auto shop run by a Mexican immigrant who had wealth or connections or both to start with, and had parlayed these into business ownership.  he brought countrymen in through a network of friends and family.  working alongside these guys as a junior grease monkey I got to hear some of their stories.  one gently-spoken, grave and courteous guy told me he was qualified as a lawyer back in Mexico City, but the economy was very bad and there were no jobs, so he was making more as a mechanic in el Norte than he could back home.  the shop owner used to amuse himself by chucking small lit firecrackers onto the shop floor when the guys were working under cars and trucks.  he found it funny if he could get a worker to start violently enough to hit his head on the underbody.

anyway, it was an eye opener for me at the age of twenty, a work experience I never forgot -- the feudal authority of the shop owner, the bitter dignity of some of the workers, how you could tell who had legal papers and who didn't.  California is in this sense an apartheid state:  there are two classes of labour and the division is mostly racial.  there are workers who have unions and ombusdmen and due process and OSHA rules, and then there is a Dickensian subculture of intimidated, underpaid, undervalued Gastarbeiter.

political harm is of course done in several ways.  racial tension is exacerbated between the low-cost immigrant labour and demographics who used to do those same jobs -- poor whites, poor Blacks.  a downward pressure is exerted on wages generally when "we can always get some Mexicans who will work for less" -- especially useful for union-busting.  and the immmigrant labour force serves as an ideal scapegoat for the job-destroying policies of the corporate elite, the offshoring and downsizing and whatnot.  the real reason you (or your young-adult children) don't have jobs, mister, is those darned immigrants.  never look upward, only downward or sideways.

I think all of the above helps to explain the insanity at the border and the appalling indifference of US public opinion.  Americans feel afraid, and rightly so -- standard of living eroding, employment uncertain, health care often nonexistent or brutally unaffordable -- and the idea of Defending Our Borders against an external, infiltrating force that can be blamed for our troubles is seductive.  doesn't hurt at all if that force speaks a different language and is darker complexioned than the Aryan ideal.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...