Amazing how politicians will do anything to save their hide.   Last year McCain was for pursing a responsible immigration bill.  Now that he is behind in the polls in his state he makes a 180 and supports this stupid bill.  

There are only a handful of politicians you can claim are honest and don't change their beliefs at any whim.

BTW, Boycotting is NOT the solution.

American law imposes essentially no restrictions on a police officer's ability to initiate an "encounter" with someone by, for instance, simply walking up to that person and introducing himself.  At that point, he is free to use what observations he makes and whatever information he is able to gather to determine whether there is a basis for detaining that person and, in Arizona, asking him to produce his papers for inspection.

Consider also that the Arizona law apparently doesn't limit the basis on which a police officer can question a "suspect's" citizenship or legal residence.  So, again, if the police officer does not have some kind of personal knowledge that the "suspect" is probably a citizen or legal resident, the officer is entitled under the law to ask for papers and he is also free to draw reasonable conclusions about the "suspect's" residency status based on that person's answers (or refusal to answer) or his inability to produce papers or (and this will be the big one) observations about the "suspect's" demeanor such as a "guilty appearance" or hesitation in answering questions about his place of birth, miscellaneous suspicious stuff, etc.  Don't forget that there are literally thousands of "street encounters" or Terry stops every day that lead to arrests and, by and large, unless the officer is a total jerk, the courts have traditionally hesitated to second guess even where the initial encounter is entirely based on a hunch.

I think we can all see where this is going.  There will, of course, be "specialized training in detecting illegal aliens", including the various "indicators" of illegal status and no doubt all Arizona police officer will be instructed not to make stops or initiate street encounters based upon race.  But I don't that that kind of thing---which we've seen in other contexts---will be enough to save this particular atrocity of a statute.

Here's why I think that: There are a surprisingly large number of cases, decided over a significant period of time and litigated mainly in the context of loitering and vagrancy statutes which say, essentially, that you can't write a statute that gives the police totally unfettered discretion because this tends to encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.  (See, e.g., Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 168--171, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110)[An oldie but still a goodie!].

The big law review article in this area (which I suspect we'll all be reading if this gets litigated) is still Prof. Anthony Amsterdam's , Federal Constitutional Restrictions on the Punishment of Crimes of Status, Crimes of General Obnoxiousness, Crimes of Displeasing Police Officers, and the Like (3 Crim.L.Bull. 205)  Still the best analysis and its one of the few articles on the subject written in English as opposed to academic gobbledygook.  If the ACLU goes after the Arizona law this article will have pride of place in their briefs.

Amsterdam mainly focuses on the existence of meaningful guidelines as a genuine constraint on police behavior as a way of evaluating necessarily vague statutes.  Basically, if the law leaves determination (like vagrancy or, arguably, whether someone in a legal resident) solely up to the discretion of the police officer, that's bad.  In the context of the Constitutionally of vagrancy laws he says: "As has been said with respect to such 'satisfactory account' requirements in vagrancy statutes, 'It takes little imagination to perceive that the 'reasonable account' (or 'good account' or 'satisfactory account') requirement of the ordinary vagrancy law operates simply as a charter of dictatorial power to the policeman.'  Thus, whether or not a suspect is hauled off to jail for suspicious loitering depends, for all intents and purposes, upon the whim of the policeman". (Amsterdam, op. cit., p. 223.)(internal citations omitted)(emphasis added).

http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf is the text of the bill - 17 pages that I have only selectively/partially read, so far.

The statement of intent tries to present this law as enforcement of existing federal immigration law.  That frames the debate - much as the term "illegal immigrant" frames the actions of a person as an inherent characteristic of that person.

The law says that racial profiling will not be used...but it states that race can be considered when determining reasonable suspicion.  (Since race can't be the ONLY factor, they think that precludes profiling?  I think it's still profiling when my sunburned skin, blue eyes and blond hair keeps them from suspecting that I've overstayed my student visa.)

Some people are not going to feel politically motivated to boycott, but there may be other things that make them uncertain about visiting Arizona.

Know of an organization that is considering some event in Arizona that would bring people from out-of-state?  Let the organization know that they need to remind people to bring proof of citizenship or legal residence that is acceptable under Arizona law.

According to Wikipedia, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Washington have passed legislation opposing the federal Real ID requirements.  It may be that Arizona won't trust driver's licenses from their neighbors Utah, Colorado and Nevada.

PDF Link here.

This executive order directs the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to come up with a "minimum course of training" for those involved in enforcement of the bill that...

protects the civil rights of all persons and and respect the privledges and immunities of United States citizens.

This course of training will provide "clear guidance" for what constitutes reasonable suspicion, and what specific forms of identification will "provide a presumption" that someone is not an illegal alien.

The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board has to give the governor a timeline for working this out by May 21, have their propose course of training completed by late June, and report to the governor by December 31 any changes that they recommend for the law.

I think that it will be interesting to see what specific types of activity the Board decides will constitutes reasonable suspicion that someone is unlawfully in the USA.