BOISE, Idaho — Arizona’s new immigration law doesn’t take effect until next month, but lawmakers in nearly 20 other states are already clamoring to follow in its footsteps.
Gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Minnesota are singing the law’s praises, as are some lawmakers in other states far from the Mexico border such as Idaho and Nebraska. But states also are watching legal challenges to the new law, and whether boycotts over it will harm Arizona’s economy.
The law, set to take effect July 29, requires police officers enforcing another law to question a person’s immigration status if there’s a reasonable suspicion that he is in the country illegally.
Violators face up to six months in jail and $2,500 in fines, in addition to federal deportation.
Lawmakers or candidates in as many as 18 states say they want to push similar measures when their legislative sessions start again in 2011. Arizonastyle legislation may have the best chance of passing in Oklahoma, which in 2007 gave police more power to check the immigration status of people they arrest.
Bills similar to the law Arizona’s Legislature approved in April have already been introduced in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Minnesota, South Carolina and Michigan, but none will advance this year.
Business, agriculture and civil-rights groups oppose such legislation, saying legal residents who are Hispanic would be unjustly harassed and that immigration is a federal rather than a state responsibility. Supporters say police will not stop people solely on the basis of skin color and argue that illegal aliens are draining state coffers by taking jobs, using public services, fueling gang violence and filling prisons.
“If the feds won’t do it, states are saying, ‘We’re going to have to do it,’” said Idaho state Sen. Monty Pearce. Pearce’s second cousin is the author of the Arizona law, Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who like Monty Pearce is a Republican.
The debate is putting pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to act. In 2007, when states like Idaho and Kansas were making English their official language as part of an immigration-related push, then-President George W. Bush failed to persuade even many Republican allies in the U.S. Senate to agree to combine increased border enforcement with a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
President Barack Obama has called Arizona’s law irresponsible, but Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, says it helped prompt Obama to send 1,200 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexican border, mostlyto her state. She and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., say that’s not enough.
Obama is asking Congress for $600 million in emergency funds for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, 160 new federal immigration officers and two unmanned aircraft, but immigration is not at the top of his priorities this year.
In Florida, Arizona’s law is a campaign issue in the GOP gubernatorial primary, with millionaire Rick Scott trumpeting its merits and Attorney General Bill McCollum saying he backs the law but that it’s not needed in his state. Meanwhile, Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the presumptive Republican nominee, called Arizona’s bill “a wonderful first step.”
In Idaho, Monty Pearce cites one county that paid more than $100,000 for medical services for an indigent illegal alien. Supporters of a citizen initiative in Nevada say they’re motivatedby the state budget crisis and record unemployment.
In South Carolina, state law enforcement officials say Mexican drug gangs are moving north from Atlanta, a problem expected to intensify given that budget cuts have left fewer resources to go toe to toe with armed criminal groups.
And in Nebraska, where many Hispanics have foundwork at meatpacking plants, some blame illegal aliens for draining community resources. Last week, the town of Fremont approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal aliens.
There has been little sign that the other three states that border Mexico will follow Arizona’s lead. California, New Mexico and Texas have long-established, politically powerful Hispanic communities, and have seen less illegal immigration than Arizona since the 1990s, when the U.S. government added fences, stadium lights and more agents to the border in California and Texas.
Also lining up against stateby-state legislation are business and agriculture groups. Brent Olmstead, lobbyist for Idaho’s $2 billion dairy industry, pledged to work to kill Arizonastyle measures in Idaho in 2011 just as he did to block past bills seeking to punish companies that hire illegal workers.
In Arizona, meanwhile, Brewer said Friday that most illegal aliens entering her state are being used to transport drugs across the border.
Brewer said the motivation of “a lot” of the illegal aliens is to enter the United States to look for work, but that drug rings press them into service as drug “mules.”
“I believe today, under the circumstances that we’re facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in,” Brewer said.
Brewer’s office later issued a statement in response to media reports of her comments. It said most human smuggling into Arizona is under the direction of drug cartels, which “are by definition smuggling drugs.”
A Border Patrol spokesman said illegal aliens do sometimes carry drugs across the border, but he said he couldn’t provide numbers because the smugglers are turned over to prosecutors.
“I wouldn’t say that every person that is apprehended is being used as a mule,” spokesman Mario Escalante said from Tucson.
“The smuggling organizations, in their attempts to be lucrative and to make more money, they’ll try pretty much whatever they need.” Information for this article was contributed by Mark Scolforo, Tim Talley, Nate Jenkins, Seanna Adcox, Sandra Chereb, Bill Kaczor, Martiga Lohn, Paul Davenport, Jonathan J. Cooper and Olga R. Rodriguez of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 06/26/2010