It\u2019s in places like Carpentersville where we may be witnessing the opening of a deep and profound fissure in the American landscape. Over the past two years, more than 40 local and state governments have passed ordinances and legislation aimed at making life miserable for illegal immigrants in the hope that they\u2019ll have no choice but to return to their countries of origin. Deportation by attrition, some call it. One of the first ordinances was passed in Hazleton, Pa., and was meant to bar illegal immigrants from living and working there. It served as a model for many local officials across the country, including Sigwalt and Humpfer. On July 26, a federal judge struck down Hazleton\u2019s ordinance, but the town\u2019s mayor, Lou Barletta, plans to appeal the decision. \u201cThis battle is far from over,\u201d\u009d he declared the day of the ruling. States and towns have looked for other ways to crack down on illegal immigrants. Last month, Prince William County in northern Virginia passed a resolution trying to curb illegal immigrants\u2019 access to public services. Waukegan, another Illinois town, has voted to apply for a federal program that would allow its police to begin deportation charges against those who are here illegally. A week after the Senate failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona\u2019s governor, Janet Napolitano, signed into law an act penalizing businesses that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. \u201cOne of the practical effects of this failure\u201d\u009d to enact national immigration reform, Napolitano wrote to the Congressional leadership, \u201cis that Arizona, and states across the nation, must now continue to address this escalating problem on their own.\u201d\u009d Admittedly, the constitutionality of many of these new laws is still in question, and some of the state bills and local ordinances simply duplicate what\u2019s already in force nationally. But with Congress\u2019s inability to reach an agreement on an immigration bill, the debate will continue among local officials like those in Carpentersville, where the wrangling often seems less about illegal immigration than it does about whether new immigrants are assimilating quickly enough, if at all. In Carpentersville, the rancor has turned neighbor against neighbor. Once you scrape away the acid rhetoric, though, there\u2019s much people actually agree on \u201d\u201d but given the ugliness of the taunts and assertions, it\u2019s unlikely that will ever emerge.<\/p>\n