Can American Jews, who have always embraced ethnic diversity and generous immigration policies, support Arizona’s controversial new immigration law? Yes, we can – and we should.

Traditional Jewish support for a liberal American immigration policy has been rooted in two concepts, one practical, one idealistic. The practical is the need to shelter refugees from persecution; the idealistic is our vision of a pluralistic, multiethnic society. The Arizona law is consistent with both of these admirable goals.

America — today a home to all peoples — opened its doors to successive waves of Jewish immigrants in the 19th century and the 20^th. German Jews came in the mid-1800s, working their way up from pushcart peddling to creating the likes of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. Russian Jews came in the early 1900s, fleeing Czarist pogroms. The American Jewish community owes its very existence to America’s open doors.

The closing of those doors spelled doom for millions. Despite American Jewry’s fervent support for President Franklin Roosevelt, it was FDR’s administration that refused to admit all but a handful of European Jews fleeing persecution in the 1930s and 1940s.

The longest-serving Jewish member of Congress, Emanuel Celler, who fought unsuccessfully to pry open America’s doors during the Holocaust, was the one who eventually brought about the abolition, in 1965, of the old “national origins” immigration quotas, which had kept out people whose countries of origin were considered less desirable (i.e. East European Jews and Italian Catholics).

It is important to keep in mind, however, that what American Jews such as Celler were seeking was legal immigration. They were seeking flexibility within the existing immigration law, and temporary shelter for those fleeing persecution.

American law today provides for both. “The U.S. has the highest legal immigration in the world,” a former New York City mayor, Ed Koch, pointed out in a recent column. “Every year, we allow 750,000 immigrants to enter the country legally and make them eligible for citizenship within five years.”

As for emergency shelter, any refugee who can demonstrate a “well-founded fear of persecution” in his native land qualifies for asylum and eventual American citizenship. Each year, the president sets the maximum number of refugees who can be granted asylum; for Fiscal Year 2010, President Obama has set it at 80,000.

Welcoming strangers from around the globe fosters the kind of diverse, multiethnic society that Jews have long advocated. It is no coincidence that this attitude likewise guided the Jews who founded the State of Israel. Their generous immigration policy provided haven for oppressed Jews from across the planet, especially from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, bringing together Jews of every color, race, language, and religious tradition to build their new society together.

But both Israel and America have been guided by the rule of law. That is what keeps both societies from crumbling into anarchy. A country needs borders. There have to be limits. There have to be rules that govern immigration.

Recent history provided us with a bitter example of what happens when there are no limits. In 1980, Fidel Castro decided to empty Cuba’s prisons and mental health facilities. An estimated 125,000 Cubans boarded ships in the Mariel Harbor and headed for Florida. President Jimmy Carter let them in.

The problem with the Mariel immigrants was not that they were Hispanic; by 1980 Cubans already composed Miami’s largest group. The problem was that so man y of them were criminals. Entire sections of Miami, including many of Jewish elderly on limited incomes, were transformed overnight into drug-ridden, crime-infested, urban war zones.

Arizonans are not racists because they want to be protected from Mariel II. When the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws proved lax, the state of Arizona had to act. Governor Palin has spoken out as the most prominent supporter of Arizaon’s action because, the new law merely gives the police the tools “to do what the federal government has refused to do, and that is help secure the borders.”

Opponents of the Arizona law, recalling the racism and anti-Semitism that sometimes marred American society in the past, understandably fear Arizona’s actions could lead to oppressive racial profiling.

Fortunately, Arizona has acted to address those fears. A follow-up bill, signed by Arizona Governor Brewer on April 30, narrowed the wording of the original legislation so that police can request proof of citizenship only when they are stopping someone suspected of another crime. They are not allowed to request i.d. simply because of someone’s ethnicity.

Another one-time mayor of New York, David Dinkins, described his city as a “gorgeous mosaic” of ethnic and religious groups. Legal immigration has built America into that gorgeous mosaic. But illegal immigration, if left unchecked, could tear that fabric apart. Arizona’s law is not a racist act; it is a praiseworthy step in support of legal immigration.

Mr. Korn edits JewsForSarah.com.