One Arizona Town's Take on Immigration Debate

USA Today: Far from the heated protest marches in downtown Phoenix, either denouncing Arizona's immigration law or embracing it, the arguments over the law aren't so simple. Vince Cherryholmes, 51, a video store owner, says he was angered when U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton last month temporarily blocked the core of the law, known as S.B. 1070, which would have required police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there was a "reasonable suspicion" they were in the country illegally. Rich Favia supports the law, too, because he sees it as a mechanism to identify and deport members of dangerous drug gangs — but he doesn't want to see illegal immigrants who are working hard and staying out of trouble removed from the country. Support for the law is widespread in Apache Junction, a working-class city of 32,000 east of Phoenix in the shadows of the Superstition Mountains. About 8% of the population is Hispanic, compared with 42% in Phoenix, according to the U.S. Census. Even here, though, people disagree over the impact of illegal immigration on their state, who should be deported and why the immigration measure ever became law.