| 02:00 UK time, Thursday, 5 August 2010
n the southern California countryside, Shellie Milne's children play on their two miniature ponies in their yard. She's just back from a Tea Party meeting: she's an enthusiastic organiser for the movement and she says her latest cause is immigration.
She's insistent that the organisation isn't about social conservatism but is purely about fiscal rectitude. How then does immigration fit into that?
She has six children and says her children's education is suffering directly because of illegal immigration. Many of the children don't speak English and even the children of illegal immigrants must, by law, be educated in the state system.
She adds that the health system is also over-burdened. Of course, there's no national health system here but hospitals do have to treat anyone who turns up in the emergency room. If they can't pay, the hospital foots the bill. Shellie says its like a party. If 30 people RSVP and you cater for that number and then 100 turn up, everybody goes short. It's not much of a party any more.
Her solution? Illegal immigrants should be deported or go to the back of the queue.
She says in opposing the Arizona law, President Barack Obama has behaved like a dictator, ignoring the will of the majority of people in the state and the country.
That you'd expect. But the president isn't popular with his own natural supporters either.
Angelica Salas, of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, says she's disappointed with President Barack Obama. She tells me that she expected it to be an uphill struggle to get the positive advances they wanted, but not to be on the defensive.
She says that the Obama administration will deport 400,000 illegal immigrants this year, much higher than the figure under George W Bush. She quotes Mr Obama's campaign promised not to rip a child from its mother and says he is now doing exactly that.
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Posted by Kathy Vega
