The United States has witnessed anti-immigration storms since the beginning of the New Year.

It was reported on Jan. 14 that some Republicans would propose a voting at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, demanding tougher immigration policy and border security measures.

In fact, since the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a strict immigration resolution, many states started mulling over or putting into place a variety of laws and regulations concerning employment, housing, welfare and driving, carrying out a more rigid immigration policy in as many aspects as possible.

Early this month, more than 150 law-enforcement staff from agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Inland Revenue Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service launched a surprise inspection in 11 antique shops in Los Angeles. After a ten-hour search, they arrested 29 laborers who came from countries like China, Mexico and Israel, engaged in sales, storage and purchase.

In the state of Colorado, there have been Conservative assemblymen proposing a bill to ban illegal immigrants from receiving certain welfare and to prohibit companies employing illegal immigrants from taking government projects. They also asked to disqualify children of illegal immigrants from in-state tuition.

Virginia also started implementing a new rule from Jan. 1 to exclude illegal immigrants from the recipient list of welfare provided by the state government. The governor of Minnesota also announced to tighten up law enforcement and impose tougher punishment on those involved in illegal immigration, human trafficking and using of fake identities.

According to report by the Washington Post, some local governments strongly opposed to immigration even intended to drive new immigrants out of various of residential communities.

In the city of Manassas, Virginia, a new ordinance has restricted households to the owners and their immediate relatives with a limit on the number of residents.

Mayor of Manassas even once requested the governor of Virginia to declare the state of emergency for illegal immigration and give more power to local police to catch illegal immigrants.

Statistics show currently illegal immigrants in the United States are between 10 million and 11 million, 530, 000 of whom have been ordered by court to return to their own countries but still stay. According to U.S. law, these people have turned themselves convicts.

USA Today said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service plans to double the population to be arrested this year and it has deployed 52 special groups across the country including in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Apart from nationwide haunt, the United States will continue its border fence plan in the areas adjacent to Mexico in states like Arizona and New Mexico, with one per meter. President George W. Bush once said that the border wall is helpful for preventing illegal immigrants influx.

The United States has always boasted itself as a "country of immigrants" and a "melting pot". The anti-immigration roar represents the resentment of Christian fundamentalists who gathered in white communities and are dissatisfied with alien people as well as their culture and religion. The anti-immigration tides are a manifestation of America's flooding New Conservatism in recent years, which might eventually arouse strong opposition among local people and employers.

It was reported that if the House of Representatives' bill on rigid immigration can be adopted at the Senate, and put into effect by the President, an even larger scale of antagonism and dispute would flare up in the United States.

By People's Daily Online