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There is no excuse for this lack of political diversity. Certainly a significant amount of the anti-immigration rhetoric on the right is reprehensible and without excuse. But if organizers of this rally were looking to show a broad spectrum of support for just, compassionate immigration reform and therefore be more persuasive to body politic writ large -- let's grow up and accept "No Borders, No State" and "Unconditional Legalization Now" are nonstarters on any realistic level -- they would attempt to engage those outside their conspiracy theorist coterie. There are conservative and libertarian voices out there certainly willing to accommodate them, perhaps even a voice from within the administration.

"We know we are scapegoated for all of the problems in society," Day Worker Center Director Maria Marroquin told the crowd. "But if people understood our struggle they would be with us, because this is a human struggle."

Allowing a march to devolve into a circus where immigrant rights become inextricably entangled with pet issues of the far left, however, only serves to further convince those with conflicted feelings about immigration that this categorically is not their struggle.

Despite all the rhetoric, all this noise in the streets has not significantly increased new voter registration. The crowds at the Labor Day rallies were much smaller than those at the May Day marches only last spring. It's time for the immigration rights movement to decide whether it wants to cast a wider net. As it stands now it has more to fear from those desperate to associate attach themselves as "friends" of the movement than it does from Pat Buchanan.

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