@CommonMan

Today a cop can search any person, house, or car they want if they think there is a crime going on. All they have to do is lie, and say they smelled pot, or heard a woman screaming.

You don't see cops doing this, even though the law is worded in a way where they can. This will be the same. It just allows a cop the ability to do there jobs.

I just re-read what I wrote, apparently I have some trust issues with law enforcement, sheesh. What I'm getting at is that in my (granted second-hand) experience there is already a lot of racial profiling going on with no law to support the behavior whatsoever. This law gives that support to the behavior, the only outcome of which from my perspective is an increase and perhaps an escalation of the behavior.

As to the second part, the reason I say they wouldn't have recourse has less to do with "can" they report it and more with "will they". Most of the time illegal immigrants DON'T want to call attention to themselves, and suing the police department just might do that. So there are not necessarily laws that don't protect them, but in practice I imagine a lot goes unreported as we are right now.

If we were to believe that cops are not using racial profiling right now, then I see where you're coming from. From my experience (again it is second hand) they actually DO harass people of color. I knew a native american guy who told me a story where he got pulled over, the cops had him exit his vehicle, they whupped on him for a minute or so, and then got in their cars and left. That was it. Do you think that has ever happened to a guy like me? No effing way! And it is NOT okay to do this, I don't see how it could be. And stopping someone and asking them for their papers because they look "hispanic" is exactly the same thing on a lesser scale.

"Well Pablo, looks like you don't have your liscense, you're comin' with us!" Even if "Pablo" is a 5th generation American citizen, he gets his day disrupted because he took out his liscense and left it at home. Will that ever happen to a guy like me? Hell to the no! That is wrong to me.

I can't really blame you. Plenty of cops are power tripping dickheads, and even as a white guy I've had a cop pull a gun on me because I cut him off as he was pulling away from the curb (without using his turn signal).

The point is that this particular law doesn't turn Arizona into a police state any more than the United States is already a police state, as it simply mimics federal law. If someone is picked up for theft and barely speaks English, I don't see it as a grave violation of his rights if the police check with the feds on his immigration status, and I find it surreal that there is so much hue and cry over this law but very little when sanctuary cities let criminal illegal aliens go time and again until they finally kill someone.

Really?

Given the way police tend to act already, a law like this is just asking for trouble. In an environment with 100% police competence and professionalism, this law could work, but unfortunately this is not the case. The governor's executive order to make sure police are properly trained will help, but when the primary motive of the law is "figure out of those guys are illegals or not" it's just not going to end well.

Except it's still not a primary duty of the police to sort out who's illegal and who's not. If they were being sent out to dredge the streets for people who "looked illegal," I'd agree that this is a bad law.

All laws are susceptible to being abused, but either we are a nation of laws or we are not, and this strikes me as a peculiar place to begin crying "halp! police state!!1"

I agree with the law.

Well that makes a lot of sense, Chairman Mao.

What, exactly, would create "reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States"?

Does an illegal Mexican immigrant look any different from a legal Mexican immigrant or an American citizen who is originally from South America? No, not at all. The cops have three choices here:

a) Completely ignore this law because it's unenforceable and not feasible in the slightest

b) Pull over every Mexican-looking person they see and ask for a green card.

c) Pull over the occasional Mexican-looking person they see and ask for a green card.

C is obviously the most likely. Plenty of illegal immigrants will get through, plenty of regular Americans and legal immigrants will be stopped.