Opinion polls A
Rasmussen Reports poll done nationally around the time of the signing indicated that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of and 31 percent opposed to legislation that allows local police to "stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant." A national
Gallup Poll found that more than three-quarters of Americans had heard about the law, and of those who had, 51 percent were in favor of it against 39 percent opposed. An
Angus Reid Public Opinion poll indicated that 71 percent of Americans said they supported the notion of requiring their own police to determine people's status if there was "reasonable suspicion" the people were illegal immigrants, and arresting those people if they could not prove they were legally in the United States. A nationwide
The New York Times/
CBS News poll found similar results to the others, with 51 percent of respondents saying the Arizona law was "about right" in its approach to the problem of illegal immigration, 36 percent saying it went too far, and 9 percent saying it did not go far enough. Another CBS News poll, conducted a month after the signing, showed 52 percent seeing the law as about right, 28 percent thinking it goes too far, and 17 percent thinking it does not go far enough. A 57 percent majority thought that the federal government should be responsible for determining immigration law. Experts caution that in general, polling has difficulty reflecting complex immigration issues and law. Rasmussen also found that Brewer's approval ratings as governor had shot up, going from 40 percent of likely voters before the signing to 56 percent after, and that her margin over prospective Democratic gubernatorial opponent, State Attorney General
Terry Goddard (who opposes the law) had widened. A poll done by
Arizona State University researchers found that 81 percent of registered Latino voters in the state opposed SB 1070.
Public officials United States In the United States, supporters and opponents of the bill have roughly followed party lines, with most
Democrats opposing the bill and most
Republicans supporting it. The bill was criticized by President
Barack Obama who called it "misguided" and said it would "undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe." Secretary of Homeland Security and former Arizona governor
Janet Napolitano testified before the
Senate Judiciary Committee that she had "deep concerns" about the law and that it would divert necessary law enforcement resources from combating violent criminals.
Michael Posner, the
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, brought up the law in discussions with a Chinese delegation to illustrate human rights areas the U.S. needed to improve on. This led McCain and fellow senator from Arizona
Jon Kyl to strongly object to any possibly implied comparison of the law to
human rights abuses in China. The admissions by the two cabinet secretaries that they had not yet read SB 1070 became an enduring criticism of the reaction against the law. In reaction to the question, President Obama told a group of Republican senators that he had in fact read the law. Democrat
Linda Sánchez, U.S. Representative from
California's 39th congressional district, has claimed that
white supremacy groups are in part to blame for the law's passage, saying, "There's a concerted effort behind promoting these kinds of laws on a state-by-state basis by people who have ties to white supremacy groups. It's been documented. It's not mainstream politics." Republican Representative
Gary Miller, from
California's 42nd congressional district, called her remarks "an outrageous accusation [and a] red herring. [She's] trying to change the debate from what the law says." These include former Governor of Florida
Jeb Bush, former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and sitting U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio, Some analysts have stated that Republican support for the law gives short-term political benefits by energizing their base and independents, but longer term carries the potential of alienating the growing Hispanic population from the party. The issue played a role in several Republican primary contests during the
2010 congressional election season. One Arizona Democrat who defended some of the motivation behind the bill was Congresswoman
Gabby Giffords, who said her constituents were "sick and tired" of the federal government failing to protect the border, that the current situation was "completely unacceptable", and that the legislation was a "clear calling that the federal government needs to do a better job". Her opposition to the law became one of the issues in
her 2010 re-election campaign, in which she narrowly prevailed over her Republican opponent, who supported it. U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton included the dispute over SB 1070 in an August 2010 report to the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as an example to other countries of how fractious issues can be resolved under the rule of law. Governor Brewer demanded that the reference to the law be removed from the report, seeing its inclusion as implying that the law was a violation of human rights and saying that any notion of submitting U.S. laws to U.N. review was "internationalism run amok". Calderón repeated his criticism during a subsequent
state visit to the White House. The measure was also strongly criticized by Mexican health minister
José Ángel Córdova, former education minister
Josefina Vázquez Mota, and Governor of Baja California
José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, with Osuna saying it "could disrupt the indispensable economic, political and cultural exchanges of the entire border region." In response to these comments, Chris Hawley of
USA Today said that "Mexico has a law that is no different from Arizona's", referring to legislation which gives local police forces the power to check documents of people suspected of being in the country unlawful. Immigration and human rights activists have also noted that Mexican authorities frequently engage in racial profiling, harassment, and shakedowns against migrants from Central America. The governors of the six Mexican states belonging to the conference vowed to boycott it in protest of the law, saying SB 1070 is "based on ethnic and cultural prejudice contrary to fundamental rights," and Brewer said in response that she was canceling the gathering.
Arizona law enforcement Arizona's law enforcement groups have been split on the bill, The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police criticized the legislation, calling the provisions of the bill "problematic" and expressing that it will negatively affect the ability of law enforcement agencies across the state to fulfill their many responsibilities in a timely manner. Additionally, some officers have repeated the past concern that undocumented immigrants may come to fear the police and not contact them in situations of emergency or in instances where they have valuable knowledge of a crime.
Religious organizations and perspectives Activists within the church were present on both sides of the immigration debate, State Senator Pearce, a devout member of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has a substantial population in Arizona, frequently said that his efforts to push forward this legislation was based on that church's
13 Articles of Faith, one of which instructs in obeying the law. This association caused a backlash against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and threatened its proselytizing efforts among the area's Hispanic population. and in the following year, took an official position on the issue which opposed Pearce's approach to immigration, saying, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is concerned that any state legislation that only contains enforcement provisions is likely to fall short of the high moral standard of treating each other as children of God. The Church supports an approach where undocumented immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship." The
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced the law, characterizing it as draconian and saying it "could lead to the wrongful questioning and arrest of U.S. citizens." The
National Council of Churches also criticized the law, saying that it ran counter to centuries of biblical teachings regarding justice and neighborliness. Other members of the Christian clergy differed on the law. United Methodist Church Bishop
Minerva G. Carcaño of Arizona's Desert Southwest Conference opposed it as "unwise, short sighted and mean spirited" and led a mission of prominent religious figures to Washington to lobby for comprehensive immigration reform. But others stressed the Biblical command to follow laws. Mayor
Chris Coleman of
Saint Paul, Minnesota, labeled it as "draconian" as did Democratic
Texas House of Representatives member
Garnet Coleman. Edwin Kneedler, the U.S. Deputy Solicitor General, also criticized the legislation for its potential infringement on the civil liberties of Arizona's citizens and lawful permanent residents. Proponents with the law have rejected such criticism, and argued that the law was reasonable, limited, and carefully crafted.
Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security official in the
George W. Bush administration, said, "The coverage of this law and the text of the law are a little hard to square. There's nothing in the law that requires cities to stop people without cause, or encourages racial or ethnic profiling by itself." Montenegro, who legally immigrated to the U.S. from
El Salvador with his family when he was four, stated, "I am saying if you here illegally, get in line, come in the right way." However, there are ongoing arguments in legal journal articles that racial profiling does exist and threatens
human security, particularly community security of the Mexicans living in the United States. India Williams argues that the Border Patrol is very likely to stop anyone if a suspect resembles "Mexican appearance" and states that such generalization of unchangeable physical features threatens the culture and the heritage of the ethnic group. Andrea Nill argues that it is only a small portion of Mexicans and Latinos that are undocumented immigrants, but there is a demonization and illogical discrimination of Latino community by giving less respect, rights, and freedoms, whereas white American citizens will never have to worry about being stopped by the police due to their skin color. Some Latino leaders compared the law to
Apartheid in
South Africa or the
Japanese American internment during
World War II. The law's aspect that officers may question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country unlawfully became characterized in some quarters as the "show me your papers" or "your papers, please" provision. Congressman
Jared Polis of Colorado and Los Angeles Councilwoman
Janice Hahn also said the law's requirement to carry papers all the time was reminiscent of the
anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany and feared that Arizona was headed towards becoming a
police state. Cardinal
Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said, "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation." The
Anti-Defamation League called for an end to the comparisons with Nazi Germany, saying that no matter how odious or unconstitutional the Arizona law might be, it did not compare to the role that Nazi identity cards played in what eventually became the
extermination of European Jews. In its final form, HB 2162 limits the use of race. It states: "A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution." The Arizona Supreme Court agrees that "enforcement of immigration laws often involves a relevant consideration of ethnic factors." Both decisions say that race alone, however, is an insufficient basis to stop or arrest.
Protests Thousands of people staged protests in state capital
Phoenix over the law around the time of its signing, and a pro-immigrant activist called the measure "racist". Passage of the HB 2162 modifications to the law, although intended to address some of the criticisms of it, did little to change the minds of the law's opponents. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the law in over 70 U.S. cities on May 1, 2010, a day
traditionally used around the world to assert workers' rights. A rally in Los Angeles, attended by Cardinal Mahoney, attracted between 50,000 and 60,000 people, with protesters waving Mexican flags and chanting "
Sí se puede". Around 25,000 people were at a protest in
Dallas, and more than 5,000 were in
Chicago and
Milwaukee, while rallies in other cities generally attracted around a thousand people or so. There and in some other locations, demonstrators expressed frustration with what they saw as the administration's lack of action on immigration reform, with signs holding messages such as "Hey Obama! Don't deport my mama." Those opposing it, mostly consisting of Latinos, marched five miles to the State Capitol in high heat, while those supporting it met in a stadium in an event arranged by elements of the
Tea Party movement.
Linda Ronstadt, of part Mexican descent and raised in Arizona, also appeared in Phoenix and said, "Mexican-Americans are not going to take this lying down." A concert of May 16 in
Mexico City's
Zócalo, called
Prepa Si Youth For Dignity: We Are All Arizona, drew some 85,000 people to hear
Molotov,
Jaguares, and
Maldita Vecindad headline a seven-hour show in protest against the law. The
Major League Baseball Players Association, of whose members one quarter are born outside the U.S., said that the law "could have a negative impact on hundreds of major league players," especially since many teams come to Arizona for
spring training, and called for it to be "repealed or modified promptly." A
Major League Baseball game at
Wrigley Field where the
Arizona Diamondbacks were visiting the
Chicago Cubs saw demonstrators protesting the law. The
Phoenix Suns of the
National Basketball Association wore their "Los Suns" uniforms normally used for the league's "Noche Latina" program for their May 5, 2010 (
Cinco de Mayo)
playoff game against the
San Antonio Spurs to show their support for Arizona's Latino community and to voice disapproval of the immigration law. The Suns' political action, rare in American team sports, created a firestorm and drew opposition from many of the teams' fans; President Obama highlighted it, while conservative radio commentator
Rush Limbaugh called the move "cowardice, pure and simple."
Boycotts Boycotts of Arizona were organized in response to SB 1070, with resolutions by city governments being among the first to materialize. In an attempt to push back against the Los Angeles City Council's action, which was valued at $56 million, , was a prime target of boycott efforts. U.S. Congressman
Raúl Grijalva, from
Arizona's 7th congressional district, had been the first prominent officeholder to call for an
economic boycott of his state, by industries from manufacturing to tourism, in response to SB 1070. His call was echoed by
La Opinión, the nation's largest Spanish-language newspaper. The prospect of an adverse economic impact made Arizonan business leaders and groups nervous, and Phoenix officials estimated that the city could lose up to $90 million in hotel and convention business over the next five years due to the controversy over the law. Phoenix Mayor Gordon urged people not to punish the entire state as a consequence. Arizona did have a past case of a large-scale boycott during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it lost many conventions and several hundred million dollars in revenues after Governor
Evan Mecham's cancellation of a
Martin Luther King Jr. Day state holiday and a subsequent failed initial referendum to restore it. The Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce opposed both the law and the idea of boycotting, saying the latter would only hurt small businesses and the state's economy, which was already badly damaged by the
2008 financial crisis and the
Great Recession. Other state business groups opposed a boycott for the same reasons. President Obama took no position on the matter, saying, "I'm the president of the United States, I don't endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts. That's something that private citizens can make a decision about." were ineffective. Sports-related boycotts were proposed as well. U.S. congressman from New York
José Serrano asked baseball commissioner
Bud Selig to move the
2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game from
Chase Field in Phoenix. The manager of the
Chicago White Sox,
Ozzie Guillén, stated that he would boycott that game "as a Latin American" and several players indicated they might as well. The
World Boxing Council, based in
Mexico City, said it would not schedule Mexican boxers to fight in the state. Called the Sound Strike, artists signing on with the effort included
Kanye West,
Cypress Hill,
Massive Attack,
Conor Oberst,
Sonic Youth,
Joe Satriani,
Rise Against,
Tenacious D,
The Coup,
Gogol Bordello, and
Los Tigres del Norte.
Elton John very publicly opposed such efforts, saying at a concert performance in Tucson: "We are all very pleased to be playing in Arizona. I have read that some of the artists won't come here. They are fuckwits! Let's face it: I still play in California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights whatsoever. So what's the fuck up with these people?" By November 2010, Pitbull had announced a change of heart, playing a show in Phoenix because large parts of the law had been stopped by the judicial action.
My Chemical Romance, an original Sound Strike participant, supposedly dropped out and scheduled a show in the state as well (however, the following day the show was cancelled and the band apologized, explaining that it was an error with tour scheduling and it should not have been booked in the first place due to "the band's affiliation with The Sound Strike" ). De la Rocha said Sound Strike would continue despite the injunction against large parts of SB 1070 in order to battle Arizona's "racist and fear mongering state government" and until the Obama administration stopped participating in federal actions such as the
287(g) program,
Secure Communities, and other
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies. In reaction to the boycott talk, proponents of the law advocated making a special effort to buy products and services from Arizona in order to indicate support for the law. These efforts, sometimes termed a "buycott", were spread by social media and talk radio as well as by elements of the
Tea Party movement. By early May, the state had lost a projected $6–10 million in business revenue, according to the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association. However, an increase in leisure travel and an overall economic recovery more than compensated for the business travel loss; by July, overall hotel occupancy rates and revenues were up from the same period in 2009. The president of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council said, "Fundamentally, the boycotts have been unsuccessful." However, an examination at the same time by the
Associated Press found that while the boycott had been disruptive in some areas, it had had nowhere near the effect some had originally imagined. Visitors at
Grand Canyon National Park were up from the year before, several well-known Arizona-based companies that were targeted said they had seen no effect from it, and the actions by the San Francisco and Los Angeles city governments had resulted in few practical consequences. In September 2011 La Raza and two associated groups called off their boycott, saying that the action had been successful in discouraging some other states from passing SB 1070-like laws and that continuing the boycott would only punish businesses and workers. ==Effects==