Tag: sb1070

The United States Supreme Court today ruled several key parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law, SB-1070, unconstitutional. The Court did uphold Arizona's right to require law enforcement officers to ask for proof of a person's legal status whenever they have stopped someone for a legitimate purpose and have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.

Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce — one of the most recognized architects of that state’s immigration enforcement law S.B. 1070, and who recently lost a recall election — writes Tuesday that his defeat had nothing to do with S.B. 1070.

Arizona voters, polled after last week's election, said they voted to recall Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce because of his divisiveness and because they want Arizona's legislature to focus more on the economy and job creation and less on immigration.

During the Colorado legislative session just passed and during the midterm elections last year, state Republicans embraced Arizona-style anti-illegal immigration policy proposals and harsh rhetoric that alienated Coloradans, including non-white Republican politicians and supporters and, perhaps most dramatically, Latino Republicans. Analysts called that kind of politics a sort of longterm suicide mission given the shifting demographics of the state. An internet map of the country put out today by PolicyLink brings the point home. In the decades visualized by the map-- 1990 to 2040-- the population of the American southwest, including Colorado, transforms.