Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, over 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were place in internment camps throughout the West as a national security measure, even though there was no evidence that they were disloyal to the US. During the McCarthy era in 1954, the US government initiated "Operation Wetback" to deal wit the increasing flow of Mexican immigrants across the border. Consequently, more than one million Mexican immigrants and their US-born children were deported. 
Thus, the current campaign against immigrants is consistent with a long-established American tradition of scapegoating immigrants during periods of political crisis. It is as American as Apple Pie. However, the present campaign serves a new sinister purpose. Under the guise of fighting international terrorism, the right wing of the Republican Party has exploited the anti-immigrant sentiment of the public to halt the trend towards progressive immigration reform which was beginning to occur in the months preceding September 11, 2001. 
Before September 11, the prospect for a comprehensive Amnesty Bill granting legal status to millions of undocumented workers were good. Labor unions, business associations, church organizations and community groups throughout the nation expressed a desire to pass this legislation. In the summer of 2001, President Bush met with Mexican President Vincente Fox and began to speak of exploring means of granting legal status to millions of undocumented Mexican workers. Legalization was in the air. 
But it was not only legalization that was on the congressional agenda. In December 2000, President Clinton signed the Life Act restoring §245(i) which permitted undocumented aliens to adjust their status in the US. In April 2001, the US Supreme Court had rendered a decision in St. Cyr v. INS which had reinstated §212(c) relief to those immigrants who had pled guilty to crimes prior to the passage of AEDPA in April 1996. There was talk of passing the DREAM Act which would grant conditional status to out-of-status students who were pursuing colleges degrees. There was also discussion about enacting the Immigrant Fairness Restoration Act of 2001 which would reform the Immigration Law of 1996 by eliminating mandatory detention, eliminating the bars to admissibility, restoring waivers and restoring judicial discretion and judicial review of immigration decisions.
After September 11, there has been a deafening silence about enacting any type of immigration reform. There has been a virtual halt to the passage of immigration legislation in Congress. The talk is not of immigration reform, but of enhancing national security. The mood is not to increase the flow of immigration, but to restrict immigration. The desire is not to legalize immigrants, but to expel immigrants. The sentiment is not to give immigrants due process rights, but to take away the few rights and privileges that they already have.