Ariz. immigration law would be among strictest

Arizona is moving ahead with anti-illegal-immigrant legislation widely considered among the most stringent in the nation. It would hand the police broad power under state law to check the legal status of people they reasonably suspect are illegal immigrants.

The legislation was approved by Arizona's House on Tuesday and is heading back to the Senate, which is expected to pass it and send it to Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican. She is expected to sign it.

The police would be authorized to arrest immigrants unable to show documents allowing them to be in the country and the legislation would leave drivers open to sanctions, in some cases for knowingly transporting an illegal immigrant, even a relative.

Immigrants unable to produce documents showing they are allowed to be in the United States could be arrested, jailed for up to six months and fined $2,500.

Currently, officers can inquire about someone's immigration status only if the person is a suspect in another crime. The bill would allow officers to avoid the immigration issue if it would be impractical or hinder another investigation.

The bill also would allow citizens to sue to compel police agencies to comply with the law, and no city or agency could formulate a policy directing its workers to ignore the law, a provision that advocates said prevents so-called sanctuary orders that police not inquire about people's immigration status.

The bill cements the position of Arizona, whose border with Mexico is the most popular point of entry for illegal immigrants into the United States, as the state most aggressively using its own laws to fight illegal immigration.

In 2006 the state passed a law that would dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants. Last year it made it a crime for a government worker to give improper benefits to an illegal immigrant.

Advocates for immigrants described the bill as a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling that is ripe for costly constitutional challenges.

It is "the most anti-immigrant legislation the country has seen in a generation," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Muzaffar Christi, a lawyer and policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said Arizona would be the first state to allow local police to determine a person's immigration status based solely on their "reasonable suspicion" that they are in the country illegally. No other state, he added, makes it a state crime not to carry an alien registration card or other immigration document, though federal law requires legal immigrants to do so.

He said the Arizona law could face legal challenges. "How can you 'reasonably believe' someone is an undocumented immigrant if you are a local cop?" he said.

The chief sponsor of the legislation, state Sen. Russell Pearce, said he hoped the legislation, and other measures, would send the message to illegal immigrants that they were not welcome in Arizona. "That absolutely is what we are doing here," he said.

He brushed aside concerns that immigrants would not cooperate with police investigations or report crime, noting that the law would allow officers not to ask about immigration status if it would hinder an investigation.

Immigration remains a potent issue in Arizona; during debate over the bill Tuesday, a few legislators invoked the killing of a rancher at the border that the police theorized was related to smuggling.

Gov. Brewer's campaign Web site features pictures of razor wire on a border fence, and she has sought to play up her toughness on immigration as she prepares for a challenge to a full term from candidates considered to be to the right of her.

Some Republicans called the bill flawed and promised to fix it later, but they supported it as a step forward.

"This is not a comprehensive solution," Kirk Adams, a Republican and the speaker of the House, said before casting his vote for it. "That's not going to occur until the federal government takes up its responsibility to protect Arizona. But that doesn't mean we should wait until then."

Compiled from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Associated Press