By , ,
Published May 15, 2015
The president says the Arizona law is "misguided."
His attorney general says it's "unfortunate."
In San Francisco they are talking about boycotting the state.
Al Sharpton is on the way to lead marches and Linda Greenhouse, the esteemed legal affairs commentator of The New York Times, says she will boycott Arizona because, she says, it's now a police state where, "breathing while undocumented" is a crime.
All this is in reaction mainly to two passages of the new Arizona immigration law:
One provides when police are engaged in "lawful contact" with someone where there is "reasonable suspicion" the person is an illegal alien, that the police shall make a "reasonable attempt... when practicable" to determine the person's immigration status.
The other provision makes it a crime to be in Arizona illegally. This is the part that Greenhouse says makes breathing while undocumented a crime.
But it's already a federal crime to enter the U.S. illegally. The new law just makes it a state crime, too.
As for the charge police will now make random demands of Hispanics to produce their papers, the bill's authors say that the requirement that there first be "lawful contact" means situations where someone has already been stopped for other law enforcement reasons.
In fact, once you actually read this law, it becomes clear the fuss over it has little to do with breathing in Arizona and a lot to do with hyperventilating in Washington.
— Brit Hume is the senior political analyst for Fox News Channel.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/the-fuss-over-arizonas-immigration-law