Crazy Thoughts of an Expat

If I knowingly break another country's immigration laws, would ideologically dogmatic American liberals consider me "innocent" the way they consider "innocent" those who break our nation's immigration laws? Or, as is likelier the case, would I be patronizingly admonished to respect the laws and culture of foreign lands, were I to share with such liberals a temptation to do the opposite? If I were caught by another country's immigration authorities, would American liberals go to bat for me - or recruit help abroad - the way they go to bat for illegal immigrants in the USA?

What I'm also asking is, "What makes America different?"

The standard argument that, "Well, we are a nation of immigrants," doesn't quite cut it, as the days when a man or his family could alight on American soil and begin a new life relatively free from the constraints of immigration laws (that, once upon a time, didn't even exist) ended a long, long time ago. What immigration laws and border control practices are in place in America exist for various socio-economic, political, security and health reasons...and a great many of these are reasonable, sensible, and quite good. Similar arguments can be made about other countries.

So, again...what is it that makes the United States of America so different...so (and now I'm going to use a word modern liberals - Obama included - loathe to use to describe the USA) "exceptional", with regards to our immigration practices? How is the logical leap made that allows someone to argue against the enforcement of our immigration laws at the same time they defend the right of other countries to enforce their immigration laws? Is that right? Is that fair to Americans? Does "You don't have to follow our laws, but we have to follow yours," make sense?

Without intergovernmental reciprocity on that score internationally, it doesn't to me...and even then, with such reciprocity, it really wouldn't make sense, would it?

And, wouldn't it be kind of, well...racist...to sympathize with illegal immigrants of a certain ethnicity within America, but then deny the same sort of sympathy to an American - regardless of his or her skin color - living and/or working illegally in a foreign land? Or is it not "politically correct" these days to point out hypocrisy...unless a conservative is at fault? I'm just wondering all this, you see, from the perspective of a seasoned, itinerant expatriate. I'm not now breaking any immigration laws, nor do I plan on doing so in the future. I'm just curious.