Allow me to confess something. I am an immigration restrictionist. I think that immigration””legal and illegal””is too high. A wall should be built on our border where vast numbers of illegal aliens cross. Harsher penalties should be imposed on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The “anchor baby” system where illegals cross the border and give birth to automatic United States citizens should come to an end. There should be a moratorium on immigration for a short period of time to allow the current immigrant population to assimilate into the culture.

I think that immigration is a huge problem, and something must be done to correct it. The law recently passed in Arizona, however, isn’t it.

The law states, in part, that “for any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official of a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.”

The controversial part of the text is the term “reasonable suspicion.” Some have compared it to Nazi Germany, apartheid and Jim Crow. That it most certainly is not””to compare it to any of those is to cheapen the memory of those who suffered at the hands of that evil. But it does raise one’s eyebrows.

Proponents of the bill have pointed out that the key passage is “lawful contact.” “That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he’s violated some other law,” said Kris Kobach, who helped write the bill, according to an article in the Washington Examiner by Byron York. “The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop.”

The bill even explicitly says, cry its supporters, that race and ethnicity cannot be the basis of the suspicion.

While I can certainly sympathize with Kobach, York and the rest of those who support this legislation, that is mostly wishful thinking.

There is too much gray area in this law. Who’s to say that a cop wouldn’t pull someone over, punch out their taillight and then use that as an excuse to ask for the driver’s identification? There are too many ways a bigoted police officer could circumvent the law for his or her own discriminatory purposes.

Out of this law one can easily find fault in the federal government. For it is their lackadaisical effort at solving this problem that left the Grand Canyon State feeling as though they had to take so drastic an action. Roughly 14 percent of the state’s population is illegal immigrants. The citizens of Arizona needed something to be done, and if the feds weren’t going to do it, the state was.

But didn’t mom always tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right?

There are sensible ways to fix the immigration crisis. The so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” that the Obama administration wants passed isn’t it, and neither is the Arizona law. But something must be done.

You may not be an immigration restrictionist like me. But at least we can agree on that.