Showdown in Arizona

New York Times EDITORIAL: The federal judge who ruled on Arizona’s tragic, noxious new immigration law on Wednesday did not stop all of it from taking effect Thursday, but she preliminarily halted the worst of it. And although appeals are certain, Judge Susan Bolton offered clear and well-reasoned arguments affirming the federal government’s final authority over immigration enforcement. We hope this is the beginning of the end of the misbegotten Arizona rules and what they represent. Arizona’s law is not a case of a state helping the federal government do a job it neglected. It is a radical upending of immigration priorities, part of a spiteful crusade to force a mass exodus of illegal immigrants.