More on Arizona's new immigration law

Will Immigration Law Cost Arizona All-Star Game?

A New York congressman who called for the league to move the 2011 game from Phoenix is the latest person to push for an economic boycott against the state in protest of the new law. Companies have been pulling conferences out of Arizona resorts while others have suggested consumers shun companies, such as US Airways, that are based in the state and have yet to condemn the the law.

"I think that when people, states, localities make decisions this monumental, they should know the full consequence of that decision," Rep. José E. Serrano, D-N.Y., said. "I think Major League Baseball, with 40 percent Latino ballplayers at all levels, should make a statement that it will not hold its All-Star Game in a state that discriminates against 40 percent of their people." . . .

A list of those upset about the law is here. The AP also incorrectly describes the law this way: "the law, which requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally, and which makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally."

HEATHER MAC DONALD on "Praising Arizona"

Supporters of Arizona’s new law strengthening immigration enforcement in the state should take heart from today’s New York Times editorial blasting it. “Stopping Arizona” contains so many blatant falsehoods that a reader can be fully confident that the law as actually written is a reasonable, lawful response to a pressing problem. Only by distorting the law’s provisions can the Times and the law’s many other critics make it out to be a racist assault on fundamental American rights.

The law, SB 1070, empowers local police officers to check the immigration status of individuals whom they have encountered during a “lawful contact,” if an officer reasonably suspects the person stopped of being in the country illegally, and if an inquiry into the person’s status is “practicable.” The officer may not base his suspicion of illegality “solely [on] race, color or national origin.” (Arizona lawmakers recently amended the law to change the term “lawful contact” to “lawful stop, detention or arrest” and deleted the word “solely” from the phrase regarding race, color, and national origin. The governor is expected to sign the amendments.) The law also requires aliens to carry their immigration documents, mirroring an identical federal requirement. Failure to comply with the federal law on carrying immigration papers becomes a state misdemeanor under the Arizona law.

Good luck finding any of these provisions in the Times’s editorial. Leave aside for the moment the sweeping conclusions with which the Times begins its screed—such gems as the charge that the law “turns all of the state’s Latinos, even legal immigrants and citizens, into criminal suspects” and is an act of “racial separation.” Instead, let’s see how the Times characterizes the specific legislative language, which is presumably the basis for its indictment. . . .

Meanwhile, there is "Obama's fatal flinch on immigration reform."

Air Force One was about seven miles over Appalachia this week when President Obama dropped a bomb on his party.

Senate Democrats had that very day circulated an immigration reform proposal, and the Associated Press, receiving a leaked copy, reported on the "draft legislation."

But as Obama returned to Washington from Illinois Wednesday night, he walked back to the press cabin on the presidential aircraft and, in an impromptu Q&A, essentially declared immigration reform dead. He said "there may not be an appetite" for it.

Obama's retreat -- after encouraging senators only weeks ago to take up immigration reform -- clotheslined Senate Democrats. Since their proposal had already been leaked, they had no choice but to go ahead with the rollout of the plan Obama had just doomed. "I don't know in what context the statement was made last night," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters at Thursday night's rollout. . . .

Obama, meanwhile, afraid of breaking his campaign promise to take up immigration legislation during his first year, tried to juggle immigration reform and climate change legislation -- and now he may wind up with neither. The lone Republican supporter of both efforts, Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), has for the moment pulled out of both, justifiably feeling that he's been jerked around by Reid's maneuverings and Obama's mixed signals.

The whole episode is a reminder of what works and what doesn't about Obama's management style. When he engages forcefully, as he did in the final month of the health-care debate, the results are good. But when he hesitates and leaves matters to Congress, the results are poor.

After the extended health-care fight kept immigration off the agenda last year, Obama assured immigration groups in March that he would get it done this year. He summoned to the White House Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who had been negotiating in good faith on an immigration proposal.

The two senators, at the president's urging, published an op-ed in The Post on March 19 outlining their plan, and Obama endorsed the idea. Then, in the absence of forceful leadership from the White House, it all fell apart. Obama called five Republican senators to lobby them on the immigration bill (Schumer and Graham told him they couldn't proceed without a second Republican sponsor) but came up empty. Reid, meanwhile, went rogue, proposing without consulting Graham to take up immigration before the climate bill. Graham, piqued, abandoned the Democrats on both pieces of legislation. . . .