Callidior Quam Ursus Typicus

And I would argue three points to your counter. First, the laws are being enforced (INS officers don't just sit in a chair collecting paychecks). But like speeding laws, perpetrators aren't always caught, and those that are caught are treated differently in different jurisdictions. Second, the reason the laws aren't uniformly enforced is the volatile political nature of immigration. Some people believe that illegal immigration is a victimless crime, that the workers put more into the system than they get out of it, and that we should have completely open borders; others see all immigrants (documented and otherwise) as an invading army that must be stopped at all costs. Most people fall somewhere between these two extremes, but it's the extremes that are fueling the debate, and it's the extremes that get donations and win elections. Last, but certainly not least, whether the law is currently enforced or not is beside the point. SB-1070 infringes on citizens' 4th Amendment rights, which shield against unreasonable search and seizure, by essentially requiring every citizen to carry around copies of their birth certificate/passport or risk possible detention and deportation. And a state that requires their own citizenry to carry passports to travel, and has police saying "show me your papers" is not the America I grew up in. That's the Germany my grandparents fled.

This affects us in particular because of Estrella (and Atenvelt events in general). If the Florence police decide that SCA activities constitute reasonable suspicion of any illegal activity (not a difficult assumption even when we're at our best), they can come on site and start demanding papers. All of a sudden, a dozen random fighters from Midrealm who didn't tuck their passport into their gambeson are in the pokey awaiting INS processing.