Groups Target States' Illegal-Immigration Bills

USA Today: "After what happened last year, many expected there was going to be an across-the-board wave of these bills and they would be slam-dunks," said Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group. "But legislatures are realizing that it's a risky proposition." Several states are considering bills that would mirror Arizona's S.B. 1070, which would have required all state law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of people stopped, detained or arrested for another offense if there was a "reasonable suspicion" that they were in the U.S. illegally. A federal judge halted the core aspects of the law, and that ruling is on appeal. Different versions of the Arizona law have passed the Mississippi Legislature; similar bills have been passed by the Kentucky and Indiana state senates; and legislators in Utah, Oklahoma and other states continue studying the proposal. Michael Hethmon, general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which helped Arizona defend its law last year and has advised more than 12 states on similar proposals this year, said it was unrealistic to think dozens of those laws could pass this year. He said state laws generally take years to enact.