It’s been a turbulent decade for law-makers in the USA. Beyond regulations controlling the banking industry, the number one divisive issue has been legislation around migration into the US and how to handle transgressors.

Mexico’s uncontrolled drug wars have led to a continued escalation of illegal migrants entering the US, taking greater risks against ever-tightening controls by the border states. Prison populations have reached breaking point. California’s borders seem to be the only ones successfully containing migrant inflows.

Yesterday’s announcement that Arizona, New Mexico and Texas would set up “prison camps” to alleviate pressure on formal jails has already been labeled “District 9” in reference to the movie of that name.

In anticipation, adjoining states have called for formal border controls to be established to stop illegal immigrants fleeing the border states. “We may as well declare the central US a separate country,” suggested one belligerent senator, who has been behind the economic boycott of Arizona for the past five years.

The Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, has been at odds with the US State Department and the United Nations for years over this “infringement of human rights” and likening it to “Nazi Germany,” but with little impact.

US politics is in uproar. The Democrat/Republican divide has been replaced by a new separatist angle that is encouraging the south west and central states to declare themselves “independent of the US Constitution.”

A Boston Democrat summed up the frustration: “It goes against everything I believe in, but I realize too that idealism increases proportionally with one’s distance from the problem! And, we’re a long way from understanding the pressures in those states.”