Arizona Immigration Law

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal Arizona immigration into law on Friday. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.

The move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally.

Even before she signed the bill at an afternoon news conference here, President Obama strongly criticized it.

Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty service members in the Rose Garden, he called for a federal overhaul of immigration laws, which Congressional leaders signaled they were preparing to take up soon, to avoid “irresponsibility by others.”

The Arizona law, he added, threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest Arizona immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry Arizona immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

The political debate leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, and Mr. Obama’s criticism of the law — presidents very rarely weigh in on state legislation — underscored the power of the Arizona immigration debate in states along the Mexican border. It presaged the polarizing arguments that await the president and Congress as they take up the issue nationally.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was worried about the rights of its citizens and relations with Arizona. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said the authorities’ ability to demand documents was like “Nazism.”

As hundreds of demonstrators massed, mostly peacefully, at the capitol plaza, the governor, speaking at a state building a few miles away, said the law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”

The law was to take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends, meaning by August. Court challenges were expected immediately.

Hispanics, in particular, who were not long ago courted by the Republican Party as a swing voting bloc, railed against the law as a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling. “Governor Brewer caved to the radical fringe,” a statement by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said, predicting that the law would create “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.”

While police demands of documents are common on subways, highways and in public places in some countries, including France, Arizona is the first state to demand that immigrants meet federal requirements to carry identity documents legitimizing their presence on American soil.

Ms. Brewer acknowledged critics’ concerns, saying she would work to ensure that the police have proper training to carry out the law. But she sided with arguments by the law’s sponsors that it provides an indispensable tool for the police in a border state that is a leading magnet of illegal Arizona immigration. She said racial profiling would not be tolerated, adding, “We have to trust our law enforcement.”

Ms. Brewer and other elected leaders have come under intense political pressure here, made worse by the killing of a rancher in southern Arizona by a suspected smuggler a couple of weeks before the State Legislature voted on the bill. His death was invoked Thursday by Ms. Brewer herself, as she announced a plan urging the federal government to post National Guard troops at the border.

President George W. Bush had attempted comprehensive reform but failed when his own party split over the issue. Once again, Republicans facing primary challenges from the right, including Ms. Brewer and Senator John McCain, have come under tremendous pressure to support the Arizona law, known as SB 1070.

Mr. McCain, locked in a primary with a challenger campaigning on Arizona  immigration, only came out in support of the law hours before the State Senate passed it Monday afternoon.

Governor Brewer, even after the Senate passed the bill, had been silent on whether she would sign it. Though she was widely expected to, given her primary challenge, she refused to state her position even at a dinner on Thursday for a Hispanic social service organization, Chicanos Por La Causa, where several audience members called out “Veto!”

Among other things, the Arizona measure is an extraordinary rebuke to former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who had vetoed similar legislation repeatedly as a Democratic governor of the state before being appointed Homeland Security secretary by Mr. Obama.

The law opens a deep fissure in Arizona, with a majority of the thousands of callers to the governor’s office urging her to reject it.

In the days leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat, called for a convention boycott of his state.

The bill, sponsored by Russell Pearce, a state senator and a firebrand on immigration issues, has several provisions.

It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.

It also makes it a state crime — a misdemeanor — to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state Arizona  immigration law is not being enforced.

States across the country have proposed or enacted hundreds of bills addressing immigration since 2007, the last time a federal effort to reform immigration law collapsed. Last year, there were a record number of laws enacted (222) and resolutions (131) in 48 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The prospect of plunging into a national immigration debate is being increasingly talked about on Capitol Hill, spurred in part by recent statements by Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, that he intends to bring legislation to the Senate floor after Memorial Day.

But while an immigration debate could help energize Hispanic voters and provide political benefits to embattled Democrats seeking re-election in November — like Mr. Reid — it could also energize conservative voters.

It could also take time from other Democratic priorities, including an energy measure that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described as her flagship issue.

Mr. Reid declined Thursday to say that Arizona immigration would take precedence over an energy measure. But he called it an imperative: “The system is broken,” he said.

Ms. Pelosi and Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, have said that the House would be willing to take up Arizona  immigration policy only if the Senate produces a bill first.

And More…

An Arizona immigration bill passed Monday by the Arizona legislature sparked sharp divisions on Capitol Hill Tuesday as lawmakers waited to see if the state’s Republican governor would sign it into law. Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 would make it a state crime not to carry proof of Arizona immigration status and would require police to ask about a person’s Arizona  immigration status if there is any doubt.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) called on the governor to veto the bill, saying it amounts to “institutionalized discrimination and abuse.” He warned that other states could follow suit if the bill becomes law.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois, said there could be severe consequences for Democrats in November if President Obama and others do not do enough to push back against it, including preempting the state law with federal law, or calling Gov. Jan Brewer and saying, “Don’t do this.”

“It seems to me that it is an option for people to stay home,” Gutierrez said of Latino voters in 2010. “They don’t necessarily have to fill out the Democratic ranks. They could just stay home. It is not what I have called for, but let me be clear, it’s not an option I have ruled out.”

Latino voters supported President Obama in 2008 by a 2 to 1 margin.

Tom Saenz, the executive director of the Mexican American Legal and Educational Fund, said that only the federal government has the authority to regulate Arizona immigration and predicted the Arizona law would be struck down by federal courts, just as California’s Proposition 187 was in the 1990s. “That law was unconstitutional and unlawful and I expect similar challenges to SB 1070,” Saenz said.

Sen. Jon Kyl, one of Arizona’s two Republican senators, said that Arizona had no other choice than to take the lead on illegal immigration. Kyl joined Sen. John McCain Monday in calling for 3,000 National Guard troops to be deployed along the U.S.- Mexican border to respond to violence there.

“As long as the federal government has not adequately responded to the challenge of protecting the border, it is little wonder that states decide that they have to take action, especially if you’re the state of Arizona,” Kyl said. “To the extent that the state wants to step up and deal with the challenge, we’ve said that’s a positive step. Whether some portions of the law will be open to legal challenge, I don’t know.”

The war of words over the Arizona law led to questions Tuesday about the chances of Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform this year, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently promised to do.

Gutierrez believes the Senate has to take up a measure between Memorial Day and July 4th to have a chance of passing a bill, and said that Obama and Democrats have to lead much more forcefully on the issue than they have so far.

“In the end it all comes back to the president of the United States, Barack Obama, and whether he will put his back into the push for comprehensive immigration reform,” Gutierrez said. “The political imperative could not be more clear.”

But Kyl, who is the Republicans’ second-in-command in the Senate and co-sponsored arizona immigration reform in the Senate in 2006, said a spike in violence along the border has profoundly changed the nature of the arizona immigration debate. He also predicted that an arizona immigration bill will not pass this year.

“The consensus that existed on this issue three years ago does not exist anymore,” Kyl said. After detailing several areas where he said the federal government has failed to keep the border secure in a time of escalating violence, Kyl concluded, “Until that’s done, it’s going to be pretty difficult to get consensus on comprehensive immigration reform…If the object is to get it passed, obviously it’s not ready yet.”

Under Arizona law, Gov. Brewer has until Friday afternoon to decide whether she’ll sign the law or veto it.